SummitAI IT Operations Management

About SummitAI IT Operations Management

The SummitAI IT Operations Management is an ITIL 2011 certified module designed to collect and monitor availability and performance data across your entire enterprise using agent-based or agent less technology. Operations Management is designed to monitor and analyze network performance. Operations Management enables to capture any failure in network, to regularize the maintenance tasks on the data center components whether they are on the premises or on cloud.

The Operations Management includes a set of sub-modules (Servers, Networks, and Events) of SUMMIT Suite.

• Networks: This module supports network monitoring operation that involves the operation, administration, reporting, maintenance of device and link utilization, and creation of network drawing.
• Servers: This module supports Server monitoring operation that involves the maintaining and monitoring the Servers as per the needs of an organization.
• Events: This module supports IT infrastructure that generates huge amount of logs every day. These machine generated logs have vital information that can provide power insights and network security intelligence into user behaviors, network anomalies, system downtime, etc. However, the task of analyzing these Event logs can be both time-consuming and painful if done manually.

SummitAI Architecture

Figure: SummitAI Architecture

Monitoring Types

In Operations Management, two types of technologies are used to collect and monitor the availability and performance of devices.

• Agentless Monitoring : In the Agentless model, a Proxy Server is installed to monitor other devices. The Proxy Server remotely accesses and pulls information from other devices. This type of monitoring requires no separate installation and is easy to deploy.
• Agent-based Monitoring: In Agent-based model, the Agents should be installed on all the devices and information about the device is collected and sent to the centralized Server. Every Agent communicates with the Proxy Server and the Proxy Server consolidates the data, posts the information to the centralized Server. This requires more installations. The http/s protocols should be open for communications to occur. There are two types of Agents, Wintel and Non-Wintel Agents.

Prerequisites

Following are the prerequisites for the Operations Management module :

• Use appropriate protocol and account credentials while scanning subnets. For more information about protocols and subnets, see Discovery Configuration topic in SummitAI Platform.

• Enable the network connectivity between the Proxy Server to target devices.
• Configure role-based access for the user to view and edit the various features of the Operations Management module. For more information about configuring role-based access, see Configuring Role Template topic in SummitAI Platform.
• Configure the access details for the user and assign Role Templates to the user. For more information about configuring access details, see Adding Users in SummitAI Platform.
• Configure the monitoring account details. For more information about configuring the monitoring account details, see Configuring Monitoring Account topic in SummitAI Platform.
• Configure the parameters which you want to monitor. For more information about configuring the monitoring parameters, see Configuring Service Entitlements. 
• Configure the values for the Master Types, such as Location, Customer, Server Types, Criticality, Ping Protocol, Monitoring By, Monitoring Source, and so on the COMMON MASTERS page. For more information about COMMON MASTERS page, see Configuring Common Masters topic in SummitAI Platform. 
• Prerequisites for Agent-based monitoring system
  • Ensure the Servers are added manually or imported using Microsoft Excel.
  • Ensure that Proxy Servers are configured with IIS.
  • Ensure there is connectivity between Agent to Proxy and Proxy to Data Collector.
  • http/s protocol should be enabled for communication.
  • The respective jobs should be enabled to post the data from Proxy Server to Data Collector.

Network and Other Requirements

Account Requirements

• A Domain Administrator credential ID is required for the Auto Discovery functionality.
• SSH credentials with port number shall be made available for Linux/Unix device discovery.
• SNMP V2c community read-only string or V3 account, password, authorization, and privacy information.
• Account Names and Passwords shall be stored in the Monitoring Account where the passwords can be managed independent of the implementation staff.
• ICMP is required from the Proxy to all the targeted systems
• ICMP is required from the Summit Server to the Proxy and Proxy to Summit Server (in Azure cloud)
• Port HTTPS [443] is required for Proxy to Web Server
• Port 443 https Agent to Proxy only
• If required, port 80 can be configured.
• SSH port 22 Linux Server to Proxy
• Port 443 https Agent to Proxy
• SNMPV2c or v3 port 161 Proxy to Network Device

Ports To Be Opened

All the devices that require ping

• ICMP is required from the Proxy to all the targeted systems
• ICMP is required from the Summit Server to the Proxy and Proxy to Summit Server (in Azure cloud)
• Port HTTPS [443] is required for Proxy to Web Server

Windows Servers to Proxy (with Agents installed)

• Port 443 https Agent to Proxy only
• If required, port 80 can be configured

Linux Servers to Proxy (no Agent is installed)

• SSH port 22 Linux Server to Proxy

Linux Servers to Proxy (with Agents installed)

• Port 443 https Agent to Proxy

Network Devices 

• SNMPV2c or v3 port 161 Proxy to Network Device

Recommended Browser

• Internet Explorer 10x and above

Requirements for Network Connectivity

Windows Servers

Common Requirements

• An Administrative Service Account:
  • Member of Local Administrators Group (either domain or local)
  • Stored in monitoring accounts (customer can manage the password)
• Bidirectional Ping [ICMP]: Used for the latency graph up/down alerts

Agent Based (Preferred Option)

• Simple Low Footprint Agent
• Only requires http/s from Target to Proxy
• Supports other functions - Asset/Proxy

Windows Management Instrumentation (Alternative Option)

• WMI requires Ports 135-139 from Proxy to Target
• It depends on the port mapper configuration.
• Fixed or dynamic ports for return communications. Dynamic ports will cause more effort in secure networks.

Linux Servers

Common Requirements

• An Administrative Service Account: Read-only, but able to run privileged commands.

• Bidirectional Ping [ICMP]: Used for the latency graph up/down alerts.

Agent Based (Preferred Option)

• Agent requires http/s from Target to Proxy 

Secure Shell (SSH) (Alternative Option)

• SSH requires Ports 22from Proxy to Target Server

Supported Platforms

Virtualization

• VMWARE (ESX Host only)
• HYPER-V

Windows

• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise Editions
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise Editions
• Windows Server 2012 Standard, Enterprise Editions
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard, Enterprise Editions
• Windows Standard, Enterprise, Data Center Edition

Linux\Unix

• Oracle Linux
• Red hat
• Cent OS
• ESXi
• Free BSD
• AIX
• Ubuntu
• Sun Solaris
• Fedora Core