Apasih IT360 ?

fankychristian - February 11, 2013
IT360 is an Integrated IT management solution by ManageEngine, designed to monitor and manage IT Infrastructure for Small/Medium/Large Enterprises. ManageEngine IT360 adds a Business context to monitoring IT Resources, thereby helping various stakeholders understand the impact of downtimes on the business.
An easy to use Web Console guides the user to monitor the availability and performance of the Network, Servers & Applications, Network Bandwidth and Storage devices. The in-built ITIL ready Service Desk helps reduce the complexity of workflows in production, thereby allowing an IT Administrator to run the IT Operations in an effective manner.


This document will give the ManageEngine™ IT360 best practices recommended for the optimum functioning.

This comprises of the following items,
  1. System Requirements
  2. Applications and Servers
  3. Networks
  4. Console
1. System Requirements          

The software and hardware requirements for the various editions of IT360 is available in the below link.
http://www.manageengine.com/it360/help/meitms/setup-meit360/system_requirements.html

2. Applications and Servers
  1. Increase data collection threads : Applications & Server module use a separate thread for every data collection of monitor, the default number of threads used is controlled by the respective schedulers specified in the <IT360_Home>/applications/working/conf/threads.conf . The default number of threads used for URL Sequence Monitoring is 5 and other monitors are 12.
    When the number of monitors is greater than 100, you can increase the data collection threads (default is 10) by editing the 'Data Collection' attribute in the file
    <IT360_Home>/applications/working/conf/threads.conf
    The 'Data Collection' thread value can be increased to a value ranging between 20 and 25.
    Similarly, when the number of URL Sequence monitors is large in the range of 100, you can increase the URL monitoring thread count by editing the 'URL Monitor' attribute to 20 – 25. However, the total number of threads including both URL monitor and other data collection threads must not exceed 40.
    Note: Increase in the 'Data Collection' thread will lead to slight increase in CPU usage.
  2. Increase number of connections in database connection pool : When the number of monitors is greater than 100, connection pool can be increased by editing the NON_TRANS_CONNECTIONS field in <IT360_Home>/applications/working/conf/database_params.conf
    The default value of 6 can be set to 90 percent of the number of data collection threads.
    Note: Increase in the 'Connection Pool’ will lead to slight increase in CPU usage.
  3. Downtime Scheduler : When you do not need monitoring to happen during specific time period for some monitors, you can achieve this using the option ‘Downtime Scheduler’ available under ‘Admin’ tab. Monitors configured for ‘Downtime Scheduler’ does not use the data collection thread during the specified period and allows other monitors to utilize the data collection threads and hence improves performance. 
  4. Poll Intervals : When performance polling is set only the availability and health check will happen at every polling event while other performance data will be collected only at the end of scheduled number of polls. This will reduce the load on the system when you want to monitor only health and availability. 
    This option is available under ‘Admin’ -> ‘Performance Polling’ where you can set the number of polls before collecting performance data for server monitors. We recommend having a Poll Interval of 10 minutes for every monitor and a performance poll value of 3.
  5. Increase JVM heap size : Memory tuning can be achieved by editing the following parameters in "wrapper.conf" file available under the directory <IT360_Home>/applications/working/conf
    • wrapper.java.initmemory – Initial Java Heap Size
    • wrapper.java.maxmemory – Maximum Java Heap size (Optimum recommended value is 1024)
  6. Network Availability check : When the IT360 Server is out of the network or is not connected to the network, the status of all the Monitors that are currently been monitored will be shown as 'Down'. You can avoid this by enabling the 'Check for Network Availability' option. When this option is enabled, IT360 will generate alerts for the unavailability of resources only if the specified host is reachable in the network. For example, let us assume that the system/host which runs the IT360 has been isolated from the network. Enable this option and specify a hostname in the network (preferably not the hostname where IT360 runs). Now, IT360 tries to ping that machine for its availability in the network. If not available, alerts are not generated and resources are not shown as down. 
    You can also specify the IP of your routers, gateways, etc., to check the system/host which runs the IT360 is present in the network.
  7. URL Availability check : When the IT360 is out of the network or if external proxy settings are not configured, the status of all the URLs that are currently been monitored will be shown as 'Down'. You can avoid this by enabling the 'Check URL Availability' option. 
    When this option is enabled, IT360 will generate alerts for the unavailability of URL only if the other specified URL is down. For example, let us assume that the system/host which runs the IT360 has been isolated from the network. Enable this option and specify another URL which is expected to be up always. Now, IT360 tries to monitor URL for its availability. If not available, alerts are not generated and URL is not shown as down. Further a mail is sent to the configured mail address intimating the same.
  8. Consecutive polls check : You can use this option to determine the number of consecutive polls the error exists before reporting the error to system. Consecutive polls count in 'Admin' -> Action / Alert Settings can be increased from default value of 1 to 2. So that alerts will be generated after two consecutive polls which would eradicate false alarms.
  9. It is recommended to use SNMP or WMI mode for monitoring Windows machine and SSH or Telnet for monitoring UNIX based machines. SSH should be of more use as it provides much more security over Telnet.
  10. Alerting on Monitor Polling problem :
    1. Connect to the IT360 Probe webconsole. Go to the Admin --> Servers & Applications --> Action / Alarm Settings link.
    2. In that page, select/check the "Monitor Error Mail" attribute and set a proper value for "consecutive polls before sending error" .
    3. We would suggest to set the value for "consecutive polls before sending error" >= 5. This is to avoid flooding of e-mail alerts.
    4. The e-mail alert notification will be send to e-mail address of the 'admin' user.
3. Networks
  1. Before Discovery : Network module relies on other communication protocols SNMP, WMI, Telnet, and SSH for classification and monitoring. So make sure the following two configurations are done before triggering discovery,
    • Configuring the relevant SNMP, WMI, and CLI credentials
    • Defining Device Templates
  2. Configuring Discovery Parameters : IT360 Network module pings the devices for discovery and further for determining availability, and 4 ping packets are sent by default. If there is network latency, it is possible that some devices are not discovered, or post discovery, they are not polled for status. This can be addressed by configuring few ping parameters.
    Steps to achieve this.
    1. From <IT360-Home>/networks/conf folder open the file ping.properties.
    2. Un-comment (remove the # symbol) against the timeout parameter and specify the ping timeout depending on the latency.
    3. Similarly, you can increase the number of ping retries by configuring the value for retries parameter. Make sure you un-comment this parameter too for the configuration to be effected.
    4. Save the changes to the file.
    5. IT360 service requires a restart when changes are made to this file. So,restart IT360 for the changes to be effected.
    Note: The above configuration is recommended only if there is latency.
  3.  Addressing SNMP Timeout Issue : The default SNMP query timeout to variables in a device is 5 seconds. If there is a delay in the agent response for some devices, you can globally increase the SNMP timeout as follows:
    1. From <IT360-Home>/networks/conf folder, open the file NmsProcessesBE.conf
    2. Look for the following default entry in this file:
      PROCESS com.adventnet.nms.poll.Collector
       ARGS POLL_OBJECTS_IN_MEMORY 25 POLL_JDBC true MAX_OIDS_IN_ONE_POLL 15 AUTHORIZATION true DATA_COLLECTION_QUERY_INTERVAL 120000             PASS_THRO_ALL_POLLING_OBJECTS true CLEAN_DATA_INTERVAL 999999
    3. Include the additional parameter DATA_COLLECTION_SNMP_TIMEOUT 15. Now the changed entry will be as shown below:
      PROCESS com.adventnet.nms.poll.Collector
      ARGS POLL_OBJECTS_IN_MEMORY 25 POLL_JDBC true MAX_OIDS_IN_ONE_POLL 15 AUTHORIZATION true DATA_COLLECTION_QUERY_INTERVAL 12000 PASS_THRO_ALL_POLLING_OBJECTS true CLEAN_DATA_INTERVAL 999999 DATA_COLLECTION_SNMP_TIMEOUT 15
    4. Save the changes and restart IT360 Service.
  4. SNMP Data-collection : By default, IT360 uses 12 threads for SNMP polling. The assumption is that each monitored device has a minuimum of 10 polled data (monitored resources such as cpu, memory, incoming traffic, out-going traffic, errors etc). Each Interface object has 11 polleddata which include RxTraffic, TxTraffic,Bandwidth Utilization, Errors, Discards etc. Depending on the number of polleddata, you can increase the number of datapoll threads. Steps to achieve this is given below
    • From <IT360-Home>/networks/conf folder, open the file threads.conf
    • Increase the value of datapoll threads from 12 to the required number of threads for SNMP polling.
    • Save changes and restart IT360 Service.
    • Following is a reference table to increase the number of threads:
    • Number of devices/interfaces
      Number of datapoll Threads
      Number of SNMP Polled Data
      Monitoring Interval
      Upto 500 device/ 5000 interfaces
      12 (default)
      Upto 50000
      15 mins
      Beyond the above numbers
      13 - 20
      More than 50000: Additional 1 thread for every 5000 polleddata.
      15 min
  5. Database Connection Pool : If the number of PolledData is over 50000, the number of non-transaction connections can be increased in the range of 7 to 10 (default being 6 connections). Here is how you configure,
    • From <IT360-Home>/networks/conf folder, open the file database_params.conf.
    • Increase the value of NON_TRANS_CONNECTIONS parameter to the required number.
    • Save changes and restart IT360 Service.
  6. Disabling Unnecessary Polling during scheduled maintenance : Whenever a maintenance is scheduled in the network for some devices, you can suspend polling for those devices by scheduling downtime in IT360 Admin --> Networks --> Downtime Scheduler. This prevents unnecessary requests to network resources resulting in false alerts. There will be improved performance as the devices covered in the scheduled do not use the data poll threads.
  7. Disabling polling for a category  : From Admin --> Networks --> Monitoring Intervals, remove selection for the category for which you want to disable polling.
  8. Specifying Polling Intervals for Devices : From Admin --> Networks --> Monitoring Intervals, configure a smaller monitoring interval for critical categories like servers or routers and space out for the other categories like printers etc. The recommended interval for very critical devices is 5 minutes, while you can set a minimum of 1 minute interval also for a very few devices.
  9. Device Dependencies : False alerts are triggered when a set of monitored devices are behind another device (a firewall, router etc). The requests sent to the devices are routed through the firewall or router, and in the event of these dependent devices being down, all devices behind this dependent devices are deemed as down. Configuring device dependencies will prevent
    unnecessary polling to the devices behind the dependent device.
  10. Increase JVM heap size : Memory tuning can be achieved by editing the following parameters in "wrapper.conf" file available under the directory <IT360_Home>/networks/conf
    • wrapper.java.initmemory – Initial Java Heap Size
    • wrapper.java.maxmemory – Maximum Java Heap size (Below 2.5K interfaces - 2048, 2.5K to 5K interfaces - 4096, 5K to 8K interfaces - 4096)
  11. Alerting on Datacollection Problem :
    1. Go to the <IT360 Home> etworksconf directory and take a backup of the NmsProcessesBE.conf file available in that directory in some other directory say C:
    2. Check for the "PROCESS     com.adventnet.nms.poll.Collector" in that file.
    3. The next line starts with "ARGS" and add the attribute "GENERATE_DATACOLL_EVENT true" at the end of that line. Once added that line will look like as given below.
      1. ARGS  POLL_OBJECTS_IN_MEMORY 25 POLL_JDBC true MAX_OIDS_IN_ONE_POLL 15 AUTHORIZATION true DATA_COLLECTION_QUERY_INTERVAL 120000 PASS_THRO_ALL_POLLING_OBJECTS true CLEAN_DATA_INTERVAL 999999 GENERATE_DATACOLL_EVENT true
    4. Save this file and restart the IT360 Probe service for the above change to take effect.
    5. Once re-started, as when there is a problem in datacollection occurs, a alert will be generated in the Networks module. The alert can be viewed under the 'Alarms' tab.
    6. One word of caution. If there is lot of SNMP timeout or SNMP related problems during the SNMP Datacollection, then there is a possibility that lot of alerts generated in the IT360 Probe service.
4. Console
  1. User Synch Interval from ActiveDirectory : The Synchornization interval for Import users from Active Directory should be set not less than one day if the number of users is high. The setting can be found under Admin --> General --> Active Directory --> Import users from Active Directory. 




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