Enterprise System Management Software

The KISS rule can be expanded as: Keep It Simple, Sysadmin ;-)

When taking about ESM large and expensive ESM packages like HP Operations Manager (formely HP OpenView), Tivoli,  Sun Management Center  are naturally come to mind. Among enterprise tools this page provides some info on Tivoli just because this is a system that the author has some experience with.

While commercial ESM packages do provide useful functionality they are usually too complex and underpowered to provide full spectrum of services. That are also not very flexible. Some like HP Operations Manager are better some like old IBM Tivoli are worse, but all are far from perfect. And while cost for large enterprise is less of an issue a good ESM cost is more then one year cost of  good system programmer or administrator with maintenance running around 20% of acquisition cost. So if your need can be served by adapting open source system for less money you can have a better product for less. The problem is that open source products are weaker them commercial and support also cost money. 

Among goodies that ESM should provide:

• Process Management: Lists the process running on UNIX and Windows� servers. One can start and stop processes. Along with process listing, the  also provides details of the resources used by the process.
• User Management: This function facilitates creation of users and groups on UNIX servers; it also provides options for listing, creating, deleting, and modifying the attributes of users and groups.
• File Management: This function acts as a windows explorer for any selected server, irrespective of its operating system. One can create, edit, delete, and copy files and directories on local or remote servers. Testers can tail the remote files.

In the O'Reilly paper Top Five Open Source Packages for System Administrators they list the following (I do not like Cfengine):

• #2 Nagios
• #1 Cfengine

Anyway  there are open source tools that can do the job just fine. especially in system monitoring area. Software distribution and configuration management are much more complex things. Here enterprise class solution like Tivoli Configuration manager might pay off more quickly.

The notion of more IT jobs moving offshore is likely to set off predictable controversy. But the truth is that systems administration is increasingly becoming a more remote, hands-off job, with servers already clustered in data centers, albeit here in the USA, far from the administrators who monitor them.

Many data centers today operate with their lights dimmed - darkened homes for servers that only get visited when their minders indicate that they need attention. And if the administrators and servers aren't in the same building, does it matter if they're on the same continent?

"The end-state for large corporations is to have a couple large data centers in the U.S., in Europe, and in Asia," with systems administrators distributed around the world, says James Kaplan, who is an IT infrastructure consultant at McKinsey  Kaplan thinks that, at most, 20 to 50 percent of systems administration work will remain in high-cost areas like the U.S. and Western Europe.

For those only casually familiar with the IT outsourcing trend, it's easy to assume that systems administration is part of the work already parceled out to offshore companies. But that's not the case. According to Kaplan's research, few offshore IT contracts involve systems administration work today.

A variety of factors have limited this type of offshoring. For one thing, maintenance of many systems used to require hooking up a keyboard and monitor to a server to diagnose problems. That could only be done in person, requiring skilled personnel close to the server. And monitoring a system remotely requires a rock-solid network connection, something that was hard to get overseas.

Furthermore, the trained personnel to run such operations simply didn't exist overseas until recently. India's technical colleges had focused on training graduates for software programming. But that, too, is changing: According to Kaplan, the number of trained systems administrators in low-cost markets like India tripled from 5,000 in 2003 to 15,000 in 2005.

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20111012 : AOL Creates Fully Automated Data Center ( October 11, 2011 , Slashdot )
• 20110701 : Alpha male e-mail fencing ( Alpha male e-mail fencing, Jul 01, 2011 )
• 190313 : MAT Monitoring and Administration Tool ( MAT Monitoring and Administration Tool, )
• 190313 : Unix SysAdm Resources Automated Unix SysMgmt Software ( Unix SysAdm Resources Automated Unix SysMgmt Software , )

Old News ;-)

[Oct 12, 2011] AOL Creates Fully Automated Data Center

October 11, 2011 | Slashdot

miller60 writes with an except from a Data Center Knowledge article: "AOL has begun operations at a new data center that will be completely unmanned, with all monitoring and management being handled remotely. The new 'lights out' facility is part of a broader updating of AOL infrastructure that leverages virtualization and modular design to quickly deploy and manage server capacity. 'These changes have not been easy,' AOL's Mike Manos writes in a blog post about the new facility. 'It's always culturally tough being open to fundamentally changing business as usual.'" Mike Manos's weblog post provides a look into AOL's internal infrastructure. It's easy to forget that AOL had to tackle scaling to tens of thousands of servers over a decade before the term Cloud was even coined.

johnlcallaway (165670)

Wow ... we were doing this 10 years ago before virtual systems were commonplace, 'computers on a card' where just coming out. Data center was 90 miles away.

All monitoring and managing was done remotely. The only time we ever went to physical data center was if a physical piece of hardware had to be swapped out. Multiple IP addresses were configured per server so any single server one one tier could act as a fail over for another one on the same tier.

We used firewalls to automate failovers, hardware failures were too infrequent to spend money on other methods.

We could rebuild Sun servers in 10 minutes from saved images. All software updates were scripted and automated. A separate maintenance network was maintained. Logins were not allowed except on the maintenance network, and all ports where shutdown except for ssh.

A remote serial interface provided hard-console access to each machine if the networks to a system wasn't available.

rubycodez:

virtual systems were commonplace in the 1960s. But finally these bus-oriented microcomputers, and PC wintel type "servers" have gotten into it. Young 'uns.......

ebunga:

Eh, machines of that era required constant manual supervision, and uptime was measured in hours, not months or years. That doesn't negate the fact that many new tech fads are poor reimplementations of technology that died for very good reasons.

timeOday:

And other new tech fads are good reimplementations of ideas that didn't pan out in the past but are now feasible due to advances in technology. You really can't generalize without looking at specifics - "somebody tried that a long time ago and it wasn't worth it" doesn't necessarily prove anything.

rednip:

"somebody tried that a long time ago and it wasn't worth it" doesn't necessarily prove anything.

Unless there is some change in technology or technique, past failures are a good indicator of continued inability.

timeOday:

The tradeoff between centralized and decentralized computing is a perfect example of a situation where the technology is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. Whether it's better to have a mainframe, a cluster, a distributed cluster (cloud), or fully decentralized (peer-to-peer) varies from application to application and from year-to-year. None of those options can be ruled in or out by making generalizations from the year 2000, let alone the 1960's.

rickb928

Two points

• One - If there is redundancy and virtualization, AOL can certainly keep services running while a tech goes in, maybe once a week, and swaps out the failed blades that have already been remotely disabled and their usual services relocated. this is not a problem. Our outfit here has a lights-out facility that sees a tech maybe every few weeks, and other than that a janitor keeps the dust bunnies at bay and makes sure the locks work daily. And yes, they've asked him to flip power switches and tell them what color the lights were. He's gotten used to this. that center doesn't have state-of-the-art stuff in it, either.
• Two - Didn't AOL run on a mainframe (or more than one) in the 90s? It predated anything useful, even the Web I think. Netscape was being launched in 1998, Berners-Lee was making a NeXT browser in 1990, and AOL for Windows existed in 1991. Mosaic and Lynx were out in 1993. AOL sure didn't need any PC infrastructure, it predated even Trumpet Winsock, I think, and Linux. I don't think I could have surfed the Web in 1991 with a Windows machine, but I could use AOL.

[Jul 01, 2011] Alpha male e-mail fencing

Some things just speak for themselves. Below you see an edited chain of e-mails that just reek of testosterone.

The actors are VP1, VP2 and VP3 (plus the usual cc: audience). Guess which one is me.

The subject concerns all three, but they head up different divisions. Note the use of cc: and the time. In real life everyone could see the e-mail history.

From: VP1
To: Team of VP1
cc: VP2;VP3
Subject: Something that concerns us
Time: 11:20 pm

Team, I just want to inform you that we now have the funding to go ahead with XYZ. Please go ahead and execute as planned.

Regards,
VP1

Replies VP2 in a seemingly innocent tone:

From: VP2
To: VP1
cc: Team of VP1;VP3
Subject: Re: Something that concerns us
Time: 11.30 pm

VP1,

Can you please share the details as you progress.

Thanks,
VP2

Enters VP3:

From: VP3
To: VP1
cc: Team of VP1;Team of VP2; CEO, CTO, CFO, CMO
Subject: Re: Something that concerns us
Time: 11.45 pm

All,

I don't approve of this. How come I was not informed. It's the wrong approach and is basically a waste of money. It's not planned properly and I ask you to stop all further activities!!!

VP3 (From my Blackberry)

Replies VP1 patiently:

From: VP1
To: VP3
cc: VP2
Subject: Re: Something that concerns us
Time: 12 pm

VP3,

I'm surprised to hear that you haven't heard of this. It was in the plan document that we reviewed two months ago and which you approved.

We're just executing that plan.

If you have further questions don't hesitate to call me.

Regards,
VP1

Replies VP3 going for the kill:

From: VP3
To: VP1
cc: Team of VP1;Team of VP2; CEO, CTO, CFO, CMO
Subject: Re: Something that concerns us
Time: 12.15 pm

VP1,
it's not your call to decide on this. I have said that I don't approve and that's it. Stop further actions immediately.
VP3

Interacts VP2, making a reference to his earlier reply (50 minutes ago!), insinuating that VP1 hasn't delivered to his promise. And re-invents himself as a a player in the approval chain.

From: VP2
To: VP1, VP3
cc: Team of VP1;Team of VP2; CEO, CTO, CFO, CMO
Subject: Re: Something that concerns us
Time: 12.17 pm

I haven't received the details I asked for yet. Please send so I can have an informed view. I'm not going to approve until I know more.

VP2

So now VP1 is caught in a snag. The other two VPs who approved a plan just two months ago are now aiming for his throat.

It continues for another couple of hours and it gets a lot nastier. I leave it up to you to do the analysis of the hidden agendas.

This is not an atypical event in my daily routine.

So who am I? Well, I'm not VP1.

MAT Monitoring and Administration Tool

MAT is an easy to use network enabled UNIX configuration and monitoring tool. It provides an integrated tool for many common system administration tasks, including Backups., and Replication It includes a warning system for potential system problems, and graphing of many common system parameters. Click here for more.

Coming soon in version 0.24 will be an embedded interpreter with it you will be able to monitor any parameter you can write a script to capture. It also will create the ability to have OS specific configuration tools.

Unix SysAdm Resources Automated Unix SysMgmt Software

• Master System is a public-domain Unix systems configuration tool written in Perl. The system is architecture and operating system independent, but it can handle architecture and operating system dependent configuration. It is designed to control the configuration of large groups of systems that are configured in the same style, but are not necessarily identical. From a group at Rutgers University.
  
• Webmin is a free web-based admin interface for Unix systems. Via a web browser, you can configure DNS, Apache, Samba, filesystems, startup scripts, inetd, crontabs and more. Written in Perl5 and easily extendable. Supports several Linux versions and Solaris.

Continued

E-books, Courses, Tutorials

Online Libraries

• Linux Today - Online book -- 100 Linux Tips and Tricks

  Update: Vladimir Vuksan has posted another mirror site located at http://www.unm.edu/~vuksan/100_linux_tips_and_tricks.pdf

• LinuxPR: Andamooka adds two open content books: LKMPG and Linux From Scratch
• Vendors
  • HP-UX Books
    • HP-UX Operating System
      • HP-UX 11.0 Release Documentation
      • HP-UX 10.- Release Documentation
    • Networking & Communications
    • Internet & Security Solutions
    • Network & Systems Management
  • AIX System and Related Product Documentation AIX System and Related Product Documentation
    • AIX Version 4.3 Base Documentation
      • AIX Versions 3.2 and 4 Performance Tuning Guide
      • AIX Version 4.3 Guide to Printers and Printing
      • AIX Version 4.3 System Management Guide: Communications and Networks
      • AIX Version 4.3 System Management Guide: Operating System and Devices
      • Distributed SMIT 2.2 for AIX: Guide and Reference
      • Performance Toolbox Version 1.2 and 2 for AIX: Guide and Reference
    • AIX Version 4.3 Extended Documentation
    • AIX & RS-6000 "How-To" Redbooks -- "How-To" books on a wide range of AIX software and RS6000 hardware topics. Includes topics such as operating systems, system management, communications, hardware, application solutions and development, databases, Internet, high availability clusters, and scalable POWERparallel systems.
    • Other IBM Redbooks -- extremely valuable e-library
  • DIGITAL UNIX Version 4.0D Online Books
    • Digital Unix System Administration see also Table of content (local)
  • CERN UNIX User GuideBRVersion 1.02BRCNDCI164
  • SCO System Administration Guide -- very good
• R870 Unix System Administration - A Survival Course
  • Table of content (local)

Mark Burgess

Principles of system administration - Table of Contents

USAIL

USAIL can be freely mirrored. A very useful resource...

• USAIL: Unix system administration independent learning
  • Some Useful Tools
  • File and Directory Permissions
  • Users, Groups and Passwords
  • Adding new users
  • Introduction to Security
  • Syslog notes
  • Other Important Files Where Information is Logged
  • Recalling Commands: history
  • Unix System Security
  • Administration Tasks Lab
  • Administration Tasks Quiz
• Integrating Your Machine With the Network
• Configuring and Administrating Mail
• Administrating Peripherals
• Backups
• Automating Tasks
• Administrating Software
• Monitoring Performance

Recommended Links

Softpanorama Recommended

Top articles

Sites

Seven Sisters ;-)

• **** Open Directory - Computers Software Operating Systems Unix Administration
• ****+ Lycos Directory Computers Operating Systems Unix Administration -- very good
• **+ Yahoo! Computers and InternetSoftwareOperating SystemsUnix -- pretty week
• ***+ HotBot Directory Computers & Internet Operating Systems Unix Administration

Search engines:

• **** Google Search Unix administration
• ***+ GoTo.com Search Results Unix administration
• AltaVista Simple Query Unix administration -- good, but low signal to noise ratio

Professional societies:

• www.usenix.org
• SAGE - Web resources for SysAdmins
• SAGE-AU Member Resources -- + ftp site with tools

Portals and collections of links

• **** BigAdmin -- a really useful web site for Solaris administrators
• docs.sun.com - SunOS / Solaris Documentation Online.
• **** Unix Guru Universe -- one of the best collection of links
  • System Administration
• ***+Unix System Administrator's Resources(http://www.stokely.com/unix.sysadm.resources/)
• Cameron Laird's personal notes on system administration
• Unix SysAdm Resources FAQs, Patches and Other Info [A-M]
• Steven Winikoff System Administration Links
• DIGITAL UNIX Version 4.0D Online Books
• Search Unix oriented databases at Internet Sleuth.
• Tony's UNIX administrators Home Page
• DDBs Sysadmin Page
• Know your Unix System Administrator.
• UNIX System Administration Links essentially links. Good
• Systems Administration Course
• Shadow Passwords
• System Administration
  World Wide Web Security FAQ
  CERT tech tips
  Linux Newbie Administrator Guide
  Newsgroup: Linux Setup
  Linux Installation
  Linux RPM's described
  Linux HOWTO
  Expanding I-Opener
  Lube & Tune: Partitioning, TCP/IP, and more
  UMSDOS - Linux and MS-DOS on one partition
  IDE/Fast-ATA FAQ

Forums

• nixCraft Linux Forum

Other E-books

• System administration procedures of CS and Icarus
• Introduction to Unix Systems Administration
• Unix Systems Administration Notes -- by Paul A. Farrell.
• Unix System Administration -- Frank G. Fiamingo [email protected] University Technology Services The Ohio State University
• Working With UNIX table of contents -- New Mexico Suppercomputing Challenge Summer Teacher Training Session
• 85321 Systems Administration

LDP e-books

[Apr 21, 1999] Linux Administration Made Easy by Steve Frampton, <[email protected]> v0.99u.01 (PRE-RELEASE), 21 April 1999. A new LDP book.

The Network Administrators' Guide by Olaf Kirk

Recommended Articles

Burnout, and Other Social Isuues

• Classification of Corporate Psychopaths
  • The Danger of Micromanagers and Micromanagement
  • The Manipulator Bosses (aka Mayberry Machiavellians )
  • Narcissistic Managers
  • Paranoid Managers: Type 2 Corporate Psychopaths
  • Bully Managers in IT Workplace: Type 1 of Corporate Psychopaths
• Linux.com: Personal Side of Being a Sysadmin

  "The unfortunate reality of being a Systems Administrator is that sometime during your career, you will most likely run into a user (or lus3r if you prefer) whom has an IQ of a diced carrot and demands that you drop everything to fix their system/email/whatever. This article focuses on how to deal with these kinds of issues."
  

• alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ
• Softpanorama Information Overload Annotated Webliography
• Softpanorama Humor Archive. Unique Collection of Open Source Related Humor

Resources

• Extreme Programming web site
• XP portal
• RoleModel Software
• Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck (Addison-Wesley, 2000, ISBN 0-201-61641-6)
• Extreme Programming Installed by Ronald E. Jeffries, Ann Anderson, and Chet Hendrickson (Addison-Wesley, 2001, ISBN 0-201-70842-6)
• Planning Extreme Programming by Kent Beck and Martin Fowler (Addison-Wesley, 2001, ISBN 0-201-71091-9)

The FreeBSD Diary -- System tools - toys I have found -- short discussion of last, swapinfo, systat, tops and z-tools.

Tom Limoncelli's Published Papers

• "Creating a Network for Lucent Bell Labs Research South"Published in Proceedings of the Eleventh Systems Administration Conference (LISA '97), Usenix, October 1997
• "Turning the Corner: Upgrading Yourself from ``System Clerk'' to ``System Advocate''"Published in Proceedings of the Eleventh Systems Administration Conference (LISA '97), Usenix, October 1997
• "Providing Reliable NT Desktop Services by Avoiding NT Server"Published in Proceedings of the Second Usenix NT Systems Administration Conference (LISA-NT '98), August 1998
• "Tricks You Can Do If Your Firewall Is a Bridge"Published in Proceedings of the First Usenix Network Administration Conference (NETA '99), April 1999

  Published in Proceedings of the Thirteenth Systems Administration Conference (LISA '99), Usenix, November 1999

• "Deconstructing User Requests and the Nine Step Model" (coming soon)
• "Adverse Termination Procedures" (coming soon).

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater�s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March 12, 2019