IBM Tivoli Monitoring: Implementation and Performance Optimization for Large Scale Environments

266 IBM Tivoli Monitoring: Implementation and Performance Optimization for Large Scale Environments

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8.3 Metafile Server for the Universal Agent

In an enterprise, the same metafile applications can be supported by several

Tivoli Universal Agents at various locations. So, to ensure consistent definitions

through the enterprise, and to reduce the complexity of managing and

maintaining multiple Tivoli Universal Agents, store metafiles in a single location.

It is also a good practice to regularly back up your metafiles because they

represent an important part of your enterprise management system.

Figure 8-3 Metafile Server for the Universal Agent

The centralized metafile server facility enables you to designate one or more

Tivoli Universal Agents as a metafile server. Client Universal Agents can retrieve

the metafiles they require from the designated server at run time, rather than

maintaining local copies.

Note: Make changes in your test environments, before these metafiles are

loaded to production, to minimize the effort needed to revert the versions of

Universal Agents and all the cleanup effort involved.

Chapter 8. Managing IBM Tivoli Universal Agent in a large scale deployment 267

Designating a metafile server

You use the environment variable KUMP_META_SERVER to specify the name of

the host of the Tivoli Universal Agent that you want to use as the server:

KUMP_META_SERVER=hostname. The presence of the environment variable

indicates to the Tivoli Universal Agent that it should use a centralized metafile

server.

If this environment variable is not set, the Tivoli Universal Agent operates in

stand-alone mode and looks for its required metafiles locally. If the host name

specified by KUMP_META_SERVER cannot be resolved to a TCP/IP address,

the metafile server feature is disabled and the data provider loads metafiles from

the local metafile location.

Storing server metafiles

You must store the metafiles for the server in the Tivoli Universal Agent default

working directory or in the location identified by the KUMP_META_PATH or

KUM_WORK_PATH environment variables.

The Tivoli Universal Agent uses the value specified for the

KUMP_INIT_CONFIG_PATH environment variable as the location of its

configuration file. If no value is specified for KUMP_INIT_CONFIG_PATH, the

Tivoli Universal Agent uses the default work directory, typically /um/work on UNIX

computers and \TMAITM6\work on Windows computers, or the directory

specified by KUM_WORK_PATH.

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Determining server and client roles on the same host

When a Tivoli Universal Agent starts up and discovers that

KUMP_META_SERVER is set to the name of its own host, it makes the following

determination:

򐂰 If it is the first Tivoli Universal Agent initialized on this system, it immediately

takes the role of metafile server.

Tip: Remember that each agent will open a socket to the Metafile Server, so

firewalls must be taken into consideration. So, when using the Metafile Server

in environments with firewalls, it is sometimes necessary to create multiple

Metafile Servers (typically one for each network zone).

Note: Only the metafiles are transported over the port to the Universal Agents

acting as clients. If the metafile is using the Script Data Provider and is

pointing to a script local to that machine, make sure that script is present on

the targeted Universal Agent.