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pcnelson1-Visitor
1-Visitor
August 19, 2013
Question

How do you ensure system function during off hours? Recommended Tools?

  • August 19, 2013
  • 6 replies
  • 1284 views

Rather thanconnecting to our system at 2:00 AM to ensure it's functioning for other time zone users, I'm looking for a tool that would alert me if it goes down. A recent example is during an automatedbackup the backup fails and the system does not restart. Since these run in the middle of the night, do you admins get up and verify thatthe system is running, or do you use technolgy to get a full night sleep and have happy users on the other side of the world? Thanks!

6 replies

R
RandyJones20-Turquoise
20-Turquoise
August 19, 2013
On 08/19/13 14:11, pete nelson wrote:
>
> Rather than connecting to our system at 2:00 AM to ensure it's functioning for other time zone users, I'm looking for a tool that would alert me if it goes down. A recent example is during an automated backup the backup fails and the system does not restart. Since these run in the middle of the
> night, do you admins get up and verify that the system is running, or do you use technolgy
>

Technology...
Solaris, zfs, zfs snapshots

> to get a full night sleep and have happy users on the other side of the world? Thanks!
>
>
> -----End Original Message-----


--
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Randy Jones
Systems Administrator
Great Plains Mfg., Inc.
1525 E North St
PO Box 5060
Salina, KS USA 67401
email: -
Phone: 785-823-3276
Fax: 785-667-2695
------------------------------------------------------------------------

M
MikeLockwood22-Sapphire I
22-Sapphire I
August 19, 2013
JConsole can be set up to email when method server stops, etc.
Standard configuration.

Three of us actually post our home / cell phone numbers on the main page used to access Windchill - with the encouragement to call at 2 in the morning if needed.
M
MikeIbosh1-Visitor
1-Visitor
August 19, 2013
Mike,
I do the same (JConsole email configuration), except I only give them my cell number 🙂 !!

Mike
P
pwilliams-313-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
August 20, 2013
Dynatrace aka PTC System Monitor.

Patrick Williams | Engineering Systems | c: 616.947.2110
[cid:image001.jpg@01CE9D76.11795870]
P
ptc-4782601-Visitor
1-Visitor
August 20, 2013
You could use almost any monitoring tool that allows a scripted logon check or uses SNMP or WMI for service state monitoring, such as Nagios (free) or Orion (paid).

You could probably even script something up as a scheduled tasks that actually launches Pro, logs in, runs some activities via trail file and emails if there is a failure... sounds like a few hours in your favorite scripting/automation language... I'm lazy though; I just monitor the services via SNMP from Orion.

Ian Bagnald, CISSP
Sr. System Support Analyst
Moog Inc.
Components Group
Halifax Operation

77 Frazee Ave.
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Canada, B3B 1Z4
L
LiuLiang1-Visitor
1-Visitor
August 20, 2013

The simpliest way for us is running below windows batch file on Windchill server every half hour or whatever frequency you want as a scheduled job.


Because over 90% of the time whenever Windchill has any major issues or downtime, no users can log in due to either Windchill, Apache, Tomcat, and/or Windchill DS issues. So as long as a user can log in, we consider Windchill is running fine.


The OOTB Windchill java class to authenticate Windchill login is wt.auth.Authentication so just run it in command line to verify if Windchill is up.


Replace the windchill username, password, emails and mail server host names to fit your enviroment.


smtpmail.exe is a freeware can be downloaded (google it) or use any other email command(s) available on your Windchill server.


Sample of our windows batch file :


@echo off
REM Check if Windchill is running fine and users can log in

E:\ptc\Windchill_10.1\Windchill\bin\windchill.exe wt.auth.Authentication user=<windchill username="> password=<password>
if %errorlevel%==0 goto end
set error="Windchill PRODUCTION is DOWN"
E:\tools\bin\SMTPMAIL.EXE from=<your or=" any=" email="> to=<your email="> subject=%error% server=<mail server=" host=">
:end
exit

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