PATROL® for Unix

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Key benefits

Ensures availability of Unix and Linux operating systems by automatically notifying your IT staff about critical events, before your business is impacted
Improves IT personnel productivity by automatically detecting and resolving Unix and Linux operating system problems, enabling your IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Provides comprehensive, proactive management capabilities for all vital aspects of Unix and Linux operating systems to protect the continuity of your business systems.

Business Challenge

It can be increasingly difficult to assure end users of your business-critical applications that you have their applications available when they need them. To ensure that they can complete their tasks efficiently and effectively, you need to manage the servers where the applications reside. Managing these servers can be challenging, especially as the number of servers in your environment grows.

BMC Software Solution

PATROL for Unix by BMC Software automates the management of these servers, enabling administrators to handle a complex Unix and Linux environment more effectively. Our solution directly addresses your Unix and Linux management challenges by automatically monitoring and managing Unix and Linux systems and related resources—saving time, reducing costs, and maximizing performance.

PATROL for Unix provides current and historical information through a centralized console so you can easily view and manage your entire Unix/Linux environment. From the CPU to file systems to printers, you can drill down to view detailed system metrics. PATROL can also proactively take corrective action when things go wrong or are about to go wrong—preventing downtime and its costs to your business.

Key Features and Benefits

PATROL for Unix provides a wide range of features, functions, and benefits in the following areas:

availability and performance monitoring
event management
log management
process management
Web-based reporting
centralized management

Availability and Performance Monitoring

Provides 24-hour-a-day monitoring for Unix and Linux operating systems
— Provides automated escalation of warnings and alarms and execution of error-correction routines as defined by the user



Monitors a complete range of Unix and Linux operating system parameters

— Provides detailed operating systems metrics to help diagnose and troubleshoot problems that may affect your end-users
– System-wide CPU usage
– Disk and I/O usage: tracks usage to locate overused disks
– File system resources: determines disks that are heavily used or running out of space
– Kernel resource usage: monitors use of the kernel i-node table, file table, and process table
– Log files: monitors the size and content of specified log files
– Memory activity: monitors paging, I/O caching, and swapping
– Network activity: monitors TCP/IP traffic level
– Network traffic: tracks network traffic related to Remote Procedure Call and Network File System
– Print queue and printer activity: monitors the length of print spools and provides easy access to common printer administration commands
– Zombie processes: monitors the number of zombie processes
– SMP application: monitors the use of individual CPUs in an SMP system
– System swap files: monitors the percentage of used and free swap space
– User sessions and processes: tracks users on the system
– Process presence: monitors the process table and alerts based on the presence or absence of user-defined command text
– Composites: CPU > 90 and Page-Outs > 1 can be used to warn of a physical memory deficit

Provides annotated data points for drilling down into problems
— Quickly retrieves more detailed, contextual data for better problem diagnosis

Provides time of day scheduling for execution system commands, PSL commands, and PATROL reconfiguration
— Saves time and ensures commands and/or reconfiguration is executed at the right time and interval

Allows scheduling of “blackouts” or periods of time in which PATROL stops monitoring
— Eliminates false alerts during times of planned downtime

Event Management

Provides base event management capabilities at the server level
— Provides automated escalation of warnings and alarms and execution of error-correction routines as defined by the user

Allows alert conditions to be defined based on logical combinations of parameters and/or constants
— Enables management by exception of those alerts that may potentially impact systems

Initiates user-defined or PATROL-provided automated error-correction routines
— Eliminates potential problems before they affect user productivity

Provides event filtering by establishing “rules” for when, how, and who to notify when alerts are generated
— Allows streamlined problem management by eliminating duplicate or false alerts

Allows integration with e-mail and paging systems to quickly get PATROL information to the appropriate IT staff
— Ensures the appropriate IT staff is notified and takes action

Provides messaging rewording capability for alert messages
— Ensures notification messages are clearly communicated to the IT staff responsible for fixing it

Log Management

Monitors the space utilized by the major system log files
— Provides the IT staff with detailed information to aid in managing log file growth

Provides the ability to monitor user-defined log files (including support of dynamic log files names)
— Helps the IT staff manage specific log file contents and growth of system, database, and application logs

Provides flexible monitored log file search criteria definition (such as exclusion and inclusion of specific text) and alert criteria definition (such as alarm severity, alert message rewording, and alert generation based on number of search text occurrences)
— Allows alerts to be generated for appropriate errors and to be interpreted correctly so corrective action can be taken quickly

Automatically suppresses log monitoring during testing or maintenance
— Allows streamlined problem management by eliminating false alerts during downtime

Process Management

Monitors the percentage of CPU that a specified process is using
— Provides the IT staff with detailed information to aid in managing CPU utilization of processes

Monitors the amount of virtual memory that a specified process is using
— Provides the IT staff with detailed information to aid in managing memory utilization of processes

Provides the ability to monitor user-defined processes
— Helps the IT staff manage specific process utilization of system, database, and application processes

Provides flexible process alert criteria definition (such as alarm severity, minimum/maximum process limit, valid process owner(s), and valid process parent)
— Allows alerts to be generated for appropriate errors and to be interpreted correctly so corrective action can be taken quickly

Automatically starts/stops a process or restarts a monitored process that is no longer running
— Eliminates the need for manual intervention when a process is not running or should not be running

Monitors a process that is configured to run in a group or cluster of servers
— Allows streamlined problem management by eliminating false alerts when a process moves from one system to another within a group or cluster

Automatically suppresses process-monitoring during testing or maintenance.
— Allows streamlined problem management by eliminating false alerts during downtime

Web-based Reporting

Provides service reporting capabilities for PATROL–managed systems
— Provides up-to-date information on health of PATROL–managed business systems to relevant IT staff and business owners

Collects and assembles information from PATROL availability products and places it in a central data store
— Provides central repository of PATROL information for availability and performance reporting

Provides the ability to generate reports by using predefined report templates or a custom report wizard
— Enables organization-specific or canned reports to be generated and published at specific times and intervals

Provides a central Web-based reporting portal for report viewing
— Enables easy access to availability and performance reports via the web

Centralized Management

Provides customized information, such as custom views, infoboxes, reports, charts, and graphs, through a centralized console view
— Enables IT staff to access real-time information in a customized, easy-to-view format

Provides detailed drill-down capability of all managed resources and parameters
— Provides high- level and detailed views of the overall health of the PATROL–managed environment

Allows troubleshooting of potential problems before problems occur from a single console.
— Enables IT staff to quickly diagnose potential problems before they impact the business

Helping You Maintain Advantage

BMC Software Professional Services helps your company maintain its competitive advantage through a comprehensive suite of services that includes service level management consulting, installation, implementation, configuration, and customization. Our professional services and education offerings are designed to ensure the ongoing availability of critical business applications, maximize product potential, reduce project risk, deliver IT value to your business, and improve your operations.

For more information about BMC Software Professional Services, visit http://www.bmc.com/profserv.

About BMC Software

BMC Software, Inc. [NYSE: BMC], is the leading provider of enterprise management solutions. The company focuses on Assuring Business Availability® for its customers by helping them proactively improve service, reduce costs and increase value to their business. BMC Software solutions span enterprise systems, applications and databases. Founded in 1980, BMC Software has offices worldwide and is a member of the S&P 500, with fiscal year 2002 revenues of approximately $1.3 billion.

For more information, visit BMC Software on the Web at http://www.bmc.com.

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