Compaq Management Agents are a key component of Compaq's Intelligent Manageability strategy, and an enabler of "virtual presence". Compaq's management strategy pivots around extensive manageability embedded into its management products, which makes Compaq servers the best-managed servers in the industry. Compaq Management Agents provide the instrumentation to enable fault, performance, and configuration management, and reduce down time by providing predictive fault management.

The web-enabled Compaq Management Agents are accessible either directly through a browser or through a management application such as Compaq Insight Manager 7 or third party systems management application.

Deploying Compaq Management Agents is as simple as an installation can be. Simply select Install Compaq Management Agents during the SmartStart configuration process. Once installed, Compaq Management Agents allow users to focus on their core of competence while the agents seamlessly manage the platform. The built-in intelligence of the agents can provide valuable information stand alone, or as part of a more comprehensive enterprise management solution.

Compaq Management Agents are installable as four separate components: Compaq Foundation Agents, Compaq Server Agents, Compaq Storage Agents, and Compaq NIC Agents. They are provided for Compaq ProLiant servers, AlphaServers and clients. Compaq Management Agents for Servers are provided for the following operating systems: Compaq Management Agents for Servers for Linux, Compaq Management Agents for Servers for Windows, Compaq Management Agents for Servers for NetWare, Compaq Management Agents for Servers for UnixWare 7, Compaq Management Agents for OS/2, Compaq Management Agents for Tru64 UNIX, and Compaq Management Agents for AlphaServers for OpenVMS.

Over 1000 parameters are proactively monitored by Compaq Management Agents. The Management Agents provide information to the management application, which generates alarms whenever significant changes occur in system operation. The agents provide real time warning by providing fast notification whenever an important event occurs. Events include deteriorating health and/or performance of the system, or whenever a critical threshold is exceeded. These alarms and detailed management information can be interpreted by a management application such as Compaq Insight Manager 7. The management application will provide a real time warning by forwarding the alarms and critical management information to a pager, e-mail, or designated wireless device.

The agents perform in-depth monitoring of a device by collecting and measuring critical parameters. These parameters indicate the current state of subsystems by counting the occurrence of particular events (for example, the number of read operations performed on a disk drive) or by monitoring the state of a critical function (for example, whether the cooling fan is operating). The subsystems that the agents monitor include Configuration, Mass Storage, NIC, Utilization, Recovery, and Operating System (Windows NT and Novell NetWare).

The Compaq Management Agents are web-enabled (see figure 1), making it possible to view management information by directly browsing to a device using a standard web browser. The agents communicate via industry standard protocols such as SNMP, DMI and HTTP with management applications such as Compaq Insight Manager 7, and other third party management applications.

Compaq has developed partnerships with the industry's leading providers of Enterprise management platforms to delivery comprehensive integration with CA Unicenter TNG, Tivoli NetView, Tivoli Enterprise and HP OpenView Network Node Manager. Compaq Management Agents provide the foundation for integrating Compaq hardware instrumentation, system status monitoring, and event notification into third party Enterprise management environments.

Figure 1: Web-enabled Compaq Management Agents

Compaq Management Agents are distributed as part of the Server Setup and Management package included with every Compaq server. They are also part of the Compaq Support Paq for Windows 2000. Updates can be received via the SmartStart subscription service, or downloaded from http:///www.compaq.com/support/files/server/us/index.html

• Standards Based: The Compaq Management Agents for Servers use the industry-standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and the Compaq Management Agents for Clients use SNMP and Desktop Management Interface (DMI) for communicating management information.
• Built-in Intelligence: With the intelligence built into it, the agents can keep track of their own condition and know where the fault lies in the subsystems.
• Web-enabled: The agents render information dynamically in HTML, so that it can be viewed from a standard browser located anywhere on the network.
• Sub-system status display: Status is displayed for the Configuration, Mass Storage, NIC, Utilization, Recovery and Windows NT and NetWare subsystems. Also, summary page of the device indicates whether the device status is Unknown, Ok, Degraded or Failed status
• Predictive alerting: Predictive parameters are generated by the agents for disk drives, memory and CPU, and form the basis for Pre-Failure Warranty
• Operating System Monitoring: For Windows NT and NetWare operating systems, the agents monitor the operating system also and display the information via the web-enabled agents. Threshold capabilities in the Windows NT OS monitoring capability allows the agent to send threshold messages via SNMP to management applications such as Compaq Insight Manager and Compaq Insight Manager XE.
• NT Event Notifier: The NT Event Notifier application forwards alarms via electronic mail using SMTP. The administrator can receive alerts even when the management application is not available.
• On-line Help: Context sensitive Help enables quick and accurate access to help information.

• Greater control of systems: The agents monitor over 1000 parameters in the system and generate alerts in the event of a fault. Any fault, and in some cases, impending faults are communicated to the designated administrator.
• Day-one control/Ease of use: The Compaq Management Agents are easy to install and deploy and can also be installed silently while configuring the system using the SmartStart configuration process.
• Maintain existing infrastructure: The Compaq Management Agents use industry standards to deliver their alerts and configuration and performance data. This facilitates reporting to any management application that uses these industry standard management protocols.
• Heterogeneous environments: The Compaq Management Agents provide access to management parameter values from a broad range of operating environments including Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows NT and Windows 95/98, Novell NetWare and IntranetWare, SCO OpenServer and UnixWare, Compaq Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS and IBM OS/2.
• Basis for pre-failure warranty: Predictive parameters generated by the Compaq Management Agents for Servers coupled with the trend analysis capabilities from Compaq Insight Manager actually predict impending component failures.