The following releases are now available:
Requests are due back to HP no later than
February 1, 2009
OM
Unix subcomponents DMA/Confi value Pack Updates
Performance Management 8.0 Physical
HP Reporter 3.8
Operations Manager for Windows
Glance Plus & Perf Agent 4.71 Linux
Highlights for Performance Manager 8.0
The Performance Manager 8.0 comes with a single web-based user interface that is easy to use and navigate. On Windows, it provides enhanced integration with Operations Manager 8.0 for Windows.
Some of the highlights of this new version are:
• Automatic communication
protocol discovery
• Append/Prepend data within a graph
• Enhanced drill down
• Enhanced Zoom-in/Zoom-out
• Scrolling through Graphs
• Instance prompting for multi-instance class metrics
• Integration with Operations Manager 8.0 for Windows
• Design Wizard
• Forecasting
• Enhanced remote integrations with HP Operations Manager for Windows 8.0.
• Removed existing limitations in reporting from multiple HP Operations Manager
for Unix servers.
• Support for Oracle on Linux.
• Support for SQL Server 2005 - 64 bit (Remote database only).
• Out of the box virtualization and ARM transaction reports.
• Auto grouping of servers based on virtualization technology and Windows
OS versions
• Configurable trace files size.
HPOM
8.0 for Windows is a distributed client/server IT operations solution that
enables an IT organization to manage business services from centralized control
points. HPOM 8.0 for Windows is a management solution that snaps into the
Microsoft® Management Console (MMC). Through this console, HPOM 8.0 for
Windows supplies the information and tools for prioritizing and responding
to problems that can affect your business.
HPOM 8.0 for Windows manages your information technology environment
by managing nodes and the services running on these managed nodes. It provides
graphical user interfaces to configure policies, nodes, services, service
types, tools, and user roles. These components work together to automate detection,
evaluation, and responses to events and simplify the process of analyzing
and resolving problems.
HPOM 8.0 for Windows includes the following new features:
§
Secure communication
Before
HPOM 8.0 for Windows, management servers and agents communicated using DCE/RPC.
HPOM 8.0 for Windows introduces an agent that communicates using HTTPS. Although
the DCE agent is currently still supported, you are encouraged to use the
HTTPS agent for new nodes. If nodes already exist in your environment that have DCE agents, consider migrating to the
HTTPS agent.
·
Secure communication based on the HTTPS
protocol
All
communication between management servers, and between
management servers and nodes is strongly encrypted.
·
Simplified firewall configuration
Nodes
and management servers accept all inbound communications to a single port,
so it is simpler to configure firewalls and proxies.
·
Policy, message, and action security
Policies,
messages, and actions all contain signatures, which management servers and
nodes create and check using certificates. If a malicious user attempts to
tamper with a signed policy, message, or action, the signature becomes invalid.
§
Enhanced status calculation and outage
handling
·
Status calculation enhancements
You
can now change the status display mode in two ways: disable user-specific
status calculation and enable operational status calculation. User-specific
status calculation is enabled by default and means that the status of services
in a user's map is calculated based on the user's subordinate services and
messages. Another user with a different set of responsibilities may see a
different status for the same services. Operational status calculation is
disabled by default. When enabled, owned messages are considered acknowledged
and do not affect the severity status of a service.
·
Outage handling
HPOM
8.0 for Windows distinguishes unplanned and scheduled outages. The outage
state can be applied to nodes and node groups, and to services and service
hierarchies, either by using the console (for unplanned outages only) or by
applying command-line tools (for both unplanned and scheduled outages).
§
Enhanced user role assignment
You
can now add Windows groups to the HP-OVE-OPERATORS group and assign the Windows
group to an operator user role. Windows users who are members of that group
automatically receive the permissions associated with that user role. In addition,
you can set permissions to view reports and graphs, to change the unplanned
outage state, to create message filters, and to perform administrative tasks
on policies.
§
External nodes
External
nodes handle messages from nodes without the need to configure them as nodes.
For example, by setting up an external node, you can immediately receive messages
from new systems in a certain IP subnet, and then decide later whether it
is necessary to set up the systems as managed nodes. Or you can receive messages
from systems without an HP Operations agent installed (SNMP devices, for example)
for agentless monitoring. When you set up an external node, you define a pattern
that must be matched by the nodes' fully qualified domain name, IP address,
or node name.
§
Server configuration dialog
The
server configuration dialog contains a generic server configuration tab, which
enables you to configure many different aspects of a management server's configuration.
This eliminates the need to manually configure values on a management server
using registry editors or commands.
·
Allows
changing HPOM 8.0 for Windows settings in the Windows Registry and in HPOM
8.0 for Windows configuration database
·
Allows
searching for values or descriptions for comfortable handling
·
Provides
description for each setting
·
Offers
selection boxes or free text depending on the setting and the allowed values
§
Wizards and enhanced automation
You
can now use a wizard to create new nodes. The wizard guides you through the
node setup and helps you to enter the required information. In addition, heartbeat
polling and auto-deployment can be set for each node individually. A node's
properties now also include settings for the agent communication type and
binary format.
§
Message enhancements
·
Custom message attributes
Custom
message attributes represent additional, user-defined properties that can
be attached to a message, for example owner, location, or emergency phone
number. The administrator defines custom message attributes for outgoing messages.
The operator can see custom message attributes in the message browser, can
add, modify, and delete them, and can filter messages based on them.
In
addition to custom message attributes, HPOM 8.0 for Windows introduces the
following new message attributes: Time Created, Sender, and Origin.
·
Context actions
Message-related
tools can be launched on multiple, selected messages.
·
Message notification
Owned
messages in the message browser will now use a different color. When a new
message arrives, the following system tray notifications are available: icon
or popup or both, and sound notification.
·
Save messages
Messages
can now be saved to a .txt or .csv file.
·
Server policy types
HPOM
8.0 for Windows introduces a new policy type for management server policies.
Server policies configure the behavior of the management server and do not
require an agent or software other than the management server itself. They
can be deployed to the local management server only and are listed under a
new folder Server policies grouped by type.
The
following server policy types are available:
·
Remote
Action Security: allows/blocks/configures execution of actions on remote servers.
·
Server-based
Flexible Management: configures message forwarding/synchronization between
management servers.
·
Server-based
MSI: configures the copy/diversion of messages within the message stream for
external message processing.
§
ovowserviceutil command-line
tool
The
new ovowserviceutil command-line tool complements
the already existing ovownodeutil and ovowtoolutil,
and ovowmsgutil range of command-line tools.
§
Server-based Message Stream Interface
(MSI)
The
server-based MSI enables you to read messages from the internal message stream
on the management server, to modify them as required, and to write them back.
·
Enable
and configure the server-based MSI in the server configuration dialog.
·
Configure
MSI client instances in MSI server policy and deploy them to the server.
·
Enable
the check box for server MSI usage in relevant message source (agent) policies
and deploy them to the agents.
·
Develop
and deploy an appropriate consumer application to register with the MSI on
the management server and process the messages.
§
Service logging
Service
logging is configured using the new ServiceLogger
Service GUI tool, which is available in the Service Logging tool group of
the HP Operations Manager Tools group. Use the service logger configuration
dialog to select or clear the services to be logged. The status of selected
service is logged every five minutes. When at least 24 hours of data exist,
the data can be used to produce reports. Logging is available for autodiscovered
and for self-defined services.
§
Central configuration of HP Performance
Agent Software
HP
Performance Agent Software, version 4.7 can be integrated with HPOM 8.0 for
Windows. You can deploy HP Performance Agent Software from the HPOM 8.0 for
Windows console. You can also centrally control and configure HP Performance
Agent Software from HPOM 8.0 for Windows.
§
HP Reporter and HP Performance Manager
HP
Reporter and HP Performance Manager are now part of the HPOM 8.0 for Windows.
You can install HP Reporter locally on the management server or remotely.
HP Performance Manager can only be installed on the management server system.
For more information about what's new in HP Reporter 3.8 and HP Performance
Manager 8.0, see below.
Support for new platforms