Sample Environment Manager setup

[HrZiller]

hi all,

we are looking at enabling ENV.Manager at the site here. We have a 4 server setup with a traditional SAS DI/DM platform. On a daily basis we are running +700 DI jobs which are loading data from public systems to a central Data Vault data model and creating/publishing a data mart.

I am interested in seeing sample dashboards from Environment Manager - and get inspiration to how you are using Env.Manager.

At present I see the following metrics - but more could be added:
Server health, DISK-IO / CPU / network - usage/peaks, user information, DI job information (execution/load times/cpu usage/IO/usage, number of records - incl. historic information), flow information, security/rights etc...  there should be plenty of possibilities.

All samples would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Jan

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @HrZiller,

you have posted a great question, I see, however, not answered since 2 weeks ago. 

Before I drop my thoughts I would like to know a couple of things, such as how is your SAS deployment looking like, if you made any progress in this area until now, and what version of SAS Data Management do you have installed and licensed.

Now, coming back to your question:

• The "bad": while EVM is a really powerful tool for analysis and collection of monitor metrics, please do not consider it as your main monitoring tool, use your enterprise one (Nagios, Zabbix, SCOMM, etc). The reason is that EVM stability depends on stability from principal services such as the PostgreSQL database, the Metadata server or your WebServer + SASServer1_1. Hence not the one to rely on setting monitor and alerts for basic resources such as CPU, RAM, storage or services availability.

• The good: as said, very powerful, with already embeded JMX monitoring which allows you to monitor (out-of-the-box) JVM resources, and there are a lot of JVMs in SAS 🙂

• https://support.sas.com/rnd/emi/SASEnvMgr/EVSAF/index.html see this link. If you enable EMI framework, your SAS EVM will be extended with new collected metrics, alerts, and powerful reports. Also, if you have VA, if you enable the Auditing, you will be un much control of your environment. USE the EMI reports, VERY useful, also for inventory of your environment.
• For monitoring Jobs, while you have the SAS Job Monitor in SAS EVM, I would rather consider IBM RTM (if you have Grid), the Process Manager's Flow Manager tool or, even much better, a 3rd party tool. I am having great experiences with Enterprise Session Monitor (ESM) made by Boemska. If you are interested in the latest, please contact  @boemskats  

• For monitoring the security/access rights, 2 things: if you have VA, you can enable the Auditing (aka Administrator Reports) https://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaag/69958/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n16tipol9lpvi1n16309... and also Metacoda can help you to monitor metadata changes. For the latest, @MichelleHomes and @PaulHomes can help you. For the first, you can find more info here http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings17/1076-2017.pdf

• The last but not the latest. Do not forget to set a good dashboard in EVM to quickly peek into an overview at any time, set additional alerts if needed, modify thresholds for your needs and include your email or maillist in every alert.

Hope it helps! Please let me know your thoughts.

Kind regards,

Juan

[boemskats]

Thanks for the mention @JuanS_OCS 🙂

@HrZiller, it sounds like you'd like ESM. It's far better than Nagios or Zabbix, and operates completely independently of your SAS core services, thus allowing you to also profile and monitor their performance in addition to any jobs, users, etc.

Drop me a line if you're interested in knowing more, or visit our (dated) product page at boemskats.com/esm.

Nik

[MichelleHomes]

Hi @HrZiller,

Thank you @JuanS_OCS for suggesting Metacoda to help with monitoring metadata changes. We've known @HrZiller for many years (decades actually ) and he's familiar with Metacoda too.

Kind Regards,

Michelle