Tips

Real-Time Performance Monitoring and Management

Using HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM) 5.2 for systems management and monitoring

Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co.'s Systems Insight Manager (SIM) 5.2 offers systems management and monitoring for HP servers or WMI-, SNMP- or WBEM-enabled systems. SIM works with HP's Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) management modules to detect hardware ... Continue Reading
Installing Nagios on Solaris for network and server monitoring

Nagios, a free, open source network and server monitoring system, can benefit your IT infrastructure. Learn how to install Nagios on a Solaris 10 system in this tip. Continue Reading
Emergency systems administration from your cell phone

Kyle Rankin shows you how to handle Unix systems administration in an emergency with a cell phone and a SSH client. Continue Reading
Turn to collaborative tools for systems performance management

Seeking assistance outside of your immediate IT team has a long history. Collaboration efforts today can be grouped into two categories: sharing configuration and group problem solving. Both enable collaboration beyond the firewall, pulling in help ... Continue Reading
Use Nagios to trend and troubleshoot performance issues

Learn how to use Nagios monitoring tools to track system performance in your data center and use graphs to troubleshoot bottlenecks on I/O-bound or CPU-bound systems. Continue Reading

Is effective performance management in the data center possible?

Data centers are increasingly important to the delivery of business services, and performance management is more crucial than ever. IT's challenge is conducting performance management activities effectively and at low-cost. Key to maintaining ... Continue Reading
Stop server monitoring tools from crying wolf

A poorly-tuned monitoring server or IDS is as bad or worse than no server monitoring at all. Do a little spring cleaning on your monitoring thresholds and overall server health. Continue Reading
Is Nagios right for your data center?

Are you evaluating Nagios for your data center monitoring tool? Systems management expert Roger Rustad makes the case for Nagios and outlines helpful plug-ins. Continue Reading
Windows Server 2008: PowerShell basics and top commands

The Microsoft PowerShell team offers up the top commands and usage scenarios for the new command line shell and scripting language for Windows Server 2008 Continue Reading
IPMI Tutorial: Are you using it? Do you know how?

This short tutorial on the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) will help you take advantage of this monitoring tool. Continue Reading
Open source system management suites: A viable alternative?

A new breed of open source management suites offer more user-friendly and enterprise-ready solutions. Are these free or for-fee open source solutions viable system management alternatives? Continue Reading

DMTF tries to SMASH systems management costs

Winston Bumpus, president of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) says point products and a lack of standards are driving up systems management costs. Continue Reading
How remote management saved me an emergency flight overseas

Kyle Rankin finds out that a sever deployment at his company's U.K. data center has gone awry while at a corporate retreat. Quick thinking and lights out management saves the day. Continue Reading
Agentless monitoring improvements make it competitive with agent-based solutions

The argument over agent-based versus agentless monitoring has been going on for years. What works best for your IT infrastructure? Increasing market interest in agentless monitoring has resulted in combined solutions using both technologies as ... Continue Reading
Business service management forces systems management evolution

Business service management (BSM) initiatives have forced systems management to improve IT operations staffs' productivity through an emphasis on better integration, automation, simplification, and visibility. Continue Reading