Remote Monitoring
In addition to providing Informix product support and maintenance, Oninit® provides advanced remote monitoring services for Informix. These are considered vital for businesses that have limited Informix resources but are using an Informix-based application to support their business. In order to provide these support services, we use a suite of database server monitoring products from AGS, Nagios and in-house scripts. These tools allow Oninit® to evaluate and resolve problems on the customer system remotely, which reduces the time taken to resolve issues.
Monitoring Options
The service includes the following basic elements.
Basic system monitoring
Basic Informix performance monitoring and tuning:
- Analysis of disk I/O
- Monitoring of SQL and user level activity
- Inspection of system memory allocation and usage
- Inspection of physical and logical log usage
Changes in memory usage can often be overlooked, and sudden changes in the usage pattern are typically an indication of a system alteration, or maybe an application problem.
By monitoring physical and logical log usage it is possible to identify changes in the overall system load. This change could be an indication that transactions are misbehaving, poor SQL, etc.
Specific metrics monitored include but are not limited to:
- Cache rates
- I/O per disk
- I/O per chunk
- Concurrent user count
- Lock conflicts
- Memory usage
- Logical turnover
- Checkpoint interval
- LRU contention
- Monitoring of storage requirements
- Logical and physical disk usage
- Fragmentation
Physical disk utilization and placement of logical entities have a direct bearing on overall system performance, but over time the original relationships and assumptions may no longer be valid. In the ideal world the I/O for all the disks should be equal.
Informix allocates disk space for tables in extents; there is a maximum number of extents that can be allocated to a table. Excessive extents are an indication of a badly designed table. By monitoring the number of extents it is possible to identify tables that are growing outside the assumed business projection.
By monitoring the growth of tables and the extent utilization it is possible to determine when more space must be allocated, and ensure that the space is created in a timely manner.
Correct fragmentation policies will dramatically reduce the system I/O and will speed up SQL performance.
Specific metrics monitored include but are not limited to:
- Table growth
- Anticipated future disk requirements and required dates
- Extents per table
- I/O per fragment
Custom system monitoring
Customer custom metrics — these will be developed as the contract progresses and are designed to monitor Customer-specific issues and concerns.
When the Oninit® remote monitoring service is implemented, a number of thresholds are identified that allow the system to alert our support desk to conditions that may need further immediate attention. These thresholds will be tailored to the Customer so that false alarms are not raised. In addition the system is reviewed weekly by a consultant who will identify key areas that may need further administrator attention. Before any work is performed on a live system, the work is documented and approved.
Access to the required systems will be determined and detailed separately, but Oninit® will comply with any security requirements specified by the Customer. Any expense associated with these requirements will be charged at cost to the Customer.
Third Party Integration
The Oninit monitoring system can be integrated with the cloud-based monitoring provided by Google, AWS, IBM Watson, etc. To date Oninit has successfully integrated with all third party tools used by our customers.