19. 05. 2020 Tobias Goller NetEye, Unified Monitoring

An Experience with Shutdown Manager in NetEye 4

In one of my last consulting activities, I finally had the opportunity to set up a shutdown policy with the new Shutdown Manager in NetEye 4.

As you probably know, the use of a shutdown management solution is particularly useful in a disaster recovery environment. And that’s exactly why I used the Shutdown Manager.

Let me briefly introduce to you how it works.

The following four tabbed panels can be found in the newly revised user interface:

  • Shutdown Definition
    Here you define the conditions under which the shutdown procedure should be triggered, e.g., when a temperature sensor goes critical
  • Shutdown Group
    Here you create groups whose members are different end devices (servers, storage, etc.) that will be switched off at the same time.
    You also assign a Shutdown Definition, which is responsible for initiating the shutdown. Multiple groups may share the same shutdown definition. In addition, a numerical ordering is imposed on the groups, defining the priority for which goes first, second, etc.
  • Shutdown Command
    This panel is used to define the various commands for switching off the various end devices (servers).   A major innovation is that the shutdown command in Icinga Director must be assigned to the respective hosts under their custom properties.
    The various shutdown criteria for each environment are defined in Icinga Director.
  • Shutdown Output
    The activity log of the shutdown manager can be found here.

As an example, the IT infrastructure at the client I mentioned above runs in two separate data centers, with environments that exclusively run on VMware.

So I created a script via the VMware API which first puts the respective ESX hosts into maintenance mode before then shutting them down. Finally, I switch off the associated storage systems.

For the ESX servers, I created a Shutdown Group enabling all ESX servers in a data center to be shut down at the same time. For shutting down the storage systems, I created a second Shutdown Group, with a priority that put them immediately behind the first group.

I assigned the same Shutdown Definition for both groups, which in my case monitors the status of the environmental sensors (temperature and water) in the data centers.

One thing I can say about the new interface of the NetEye 4 Shutdown Manager is that it makes the work of implementing the desired settings much easier due to its clarity.

Here are a few screen shots of the new interface.

Overview of the Shutdown Manager interface

Shutdown Group example

Shutdown Command example

Icinga Director shutdown command assignment

Tobias Goller

Tobias Goller

NetEye Solution Architect at Würth Phoenix
I started my professional career as a system administrator. Over the years, my area of responsibility changed from administrative work to the architectural planning of systems. During my activities at Würth Phoenix, the focus of my area of responsibility changed to the installation and consulting of the IT system management solution WÜRTHPHOENIX NetEye. In the meantime, I take care of the implementation and planning of customer projects in the area of our unified monitoring solution.

Author

Tobias Goller

I started my professional career as a system administrator. Over the years, my area of responsibility changed from administrative work to the architectural planning of systems. During my activities at Würth Phoenix, the focus of my area of responsibility changed to the installation and consulting of the IT system management solution WÜRTHPHOENIX NetEye. In the meantime, I take care of the implementation and planning of customer projects in the area of our unified monitoring solution.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Archive