Knowledge Store

Network Engineer Interview Questions with Answers

2013-06-13T06:53:00.004-07:00

What is ping? Why you use ping?

PING Stands for Packet InterNet Gopher. PING is used for connectivity checking of any network or any host or device of any or other networks.

Routers are always preferrable for routing services. Routers work at which OSI layers?

Router works at network layer for providing routing services between or among several networks.

A gateway works in which layer?

Transport layer of OSI model.

How can you check the connectivity of any network?

By using ping command.

What is a gateway?

A gateway acts a door for the packet to reach the ‘outside’ of the internal network.

What are the differences among router, switch, bridge and hub?

Router, switch, bridge and hub are network devices. Yet there are some differences among them. The main differences are:

• Router: A layer 3 device, can work on physical, data and network layer.

• Switch: A layer 2 device, can work on data link layer

• Bridge: A layer 2 device, can work on data link layer.

• Hub: A layer 1device, just a multi-port repeater and works on physical layer

What is the range of class A address?

0-127 is the range of class A address.

Tell an IP which has class C range. Also tell why that IP is an class C address.

• IP of Class C: 193.1.1.1

• Why this is a class C address: Class C addresses have the range of 192 - 223

Name a device which can operate at physical layer of OSI model.

Hub.

Note: Remember, hub is the device that can work only into the physical layer of OSI model. But switch, router can also be used instead of a hub. So, all the answers hub, switch or router are all correct.

What is the major differences between a router and a switch?

A router can divide the broadcast domain and collision domain. But a switch can only divide the collision domain. Router can communicate among different networks where as the switch can not communicate different networks.

Hub operates at which layers of OSI model? Is it wise to use a hub for huge networks? Why or why not?

• Hub operates at only physical layer of OSI model.

• No, it's not so wise to use hub for a huge network.

• Hubs can't divide the broadcast domain or the collision domain. So, if we use hubs then there creates huge broadcast domain. When there are huge broadcast, the network gets problem time to time. So, it's not wise to use hubs to support a huge network.

How many layers are in OSI model? Name them

There are seven layers of OSI model. The layers are:

1. Application layer

2. Presentation layer

3. Session layer

4. Transport layer

5. Network layer

6. Data link layer

7. Physical layer

Note: You can remember the seven layer model by a simple sentence. Please Do Not Touch Steven's Pet Alligator. See, the starting of each word forms the layer.

Why do you need to use a router?

Router can easily divide the broadcast domain and collision domain. So, to communicate among several networks, routers are used.

What is the second layer of OSI model?

Data Link layer.

Name two network devices which can work as layer 2 device.

Switch and router

What is OSI model?

OSI revers for Open System Interconnection Reference Model. It is an abstract model for layered communications and computer network protocol design. There are seven layers of OSI model which, from top to bottom, are the Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data-Link, and Physical Layers.

OSI model also referred as OSI layered model, OIS layered technology, 7 layer model, OSI seven layer model, OSI reference model.

What is the data unit of Data Link layer?

Frame

What are the difference between TCP and UDP?

• TCP: Connection oriented protocol, acknowledged one, Point to point communication.

• UDP: Connection less protocol, unreliable, less traffic

What is the port no of DNS and Telnet?

• DNS port no: 53

• Telnet port no: 23

What is the port no of SMTP and POP3?

• SMPT port no: 25

• POP3 port no: 110

What is the functionality of network layer? Name the data unint of network layer.

• Functionality of network layer: Path determination and logical addressing

• Data unit of network layer: Packet

Which three layers of OSI model is treated as "Media Layers"?

Physical layer, data link layer and network layer are treated as "Media Layers".

What is deadlock?

Deadlock is a situation when two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for an event that can be caused by only one of the waiting processes. The implementation of a semaphore with a waiting queue may result in this situation.

Mention the advantages and disadvantages of a router.

Advantages:

• Router can limit the collision domain and broadcast domain

• Router can function both on LAN & WAN.

• Different media & architectures can be connected among themselves through router.

• Router can determine best path/route for data to reach

• the destination.

• Router can filter the broadcasts.

• For communicating different networks, routers must be used.

Disadvantage:

• Router is more expensive than any other networking devices like Hub, Bridge & Switch.

• Router only work with routable protocols.

• Routing updates consume some bandwidth.

• Increase latency due to greater degree of packet

• filtering.

• Routers function as software based and so it's slower compared to switch.

Mention the private IP address rannge of class B and C.

• For Class B: 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255

• For Class C: 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

What is the IP range of class C IP address?

240.0.0.0 255.255.255.255

What is the default subnet mask of class C IP address?

255.255.255.0

Why do you need subnet mask?

Subnet mask is required to divide a large network into several small networks.

Tell the full name: DNS, FTP

• DNS: Domain Name System

• FTP: File Transfer Protocol

What is the functionality or ARP?

ARP refers to Address Resolution Protocol. ARP is a computer networking protocol for determining a network host's link layer or hardware address when only its Internet Layer (IP) or Network Layer address is known.

Which one is reliable: TCP or UDP?

TCP is reliable and UDP is an unreliable service.

How DHCP works?

DHCP works by four-steps: (1) IP request, (2) IP offer (3) IP selection and (d) Acknowledgement.

What is POP3? Why you require POP3?

POP stands for Post Office Protocol. This is used to describe how e-mail clients interact with mail servers. The POP3 Server is a type of mail server used for incoming mail. POP is only used to receive messages.

What is the difference between Layer 2 Switch and Layer 3 Switch?

Layer 2 switch is based on MAC addresses which operates on Data Link Layer of OSI mode. And Layer 3 switching is based on network topology table populated and works on Network layer.

Networking Interview Questions

2013-05-16T22:56:00.002-07:00

Q1. What are 10Base2, 10Base5 and 10BaseT Ethernet LANs?
Ans. 10Base2—An Ethernet term meaning a maximum transfer rate of 10 Megabits per second that uses baseband signaling, with a contiguous cable segment length of 100 meters and a maximum of 2 segments.
10Base5—An Ethernet term meaning a maximum transfer rate of 10 Megabits per second that uses baseband signaling, with 5 continuous segments not exceeding 100 meters per segment.
10BaseT—An Ethernet term meaning a maximum transfer rate of 10 Megabits per second that uses baseband signaling and twisted pair cabling.

Q2. What is the difference between an unspecified passive open and a fully specified passive open?
Ans. An unspecified passive open has the server waiting for a connection request from a client. A fully specified passive open has the server waiting for a connection from a specific client.

Q3. Explain the function of Transmission Control Block.
Ans. A TCB is a complex data structure that contains a considerable amount of information about each connection.

Q4. What is a Management Information Base (MIB)?
Ans. A Management Information Base is part of every SNMP-managed device. Each SNMP agent has the MIB database that contains information about the device’s status, its performance, connections, and configuration. The MIB is queried by SNMP.

Q5. What is anonymous FTP and why would you use it?
Ans. Anonymous FTP enables users to connect to a host without using a valid login and password. Usually, anonymous FTP uses a login called anonymous or guest, with the password usually requesting the user’s ID for tracking purposes only. Anonymous FTP is used to enable a large number of users to access files on the host without having to go to the trouble of setting up logins for them all. Anonymous FTP systems usually have strict controls over the areas an anonymous user can access.

Q6. What is a pseudo tty?
Ans. A pseudo tty or false terminal enables external machines to connect through Telnet or rlogin. Without a pseudo tty, no connection can take place.

Q7. Which layer of the 7 layer model provides services to the Application layer over the Session layer connection?
Ans. Presentation.

Q8. What does the Mount protocol do ?
Ans. The Mount protocol returns a file handle and the name of the file system in which a requested file resides. The message is sent to the client from the server after reception of a client’s request.

Q9. What is External Data Representation?
Ans. External Data Representation is a method of encoding data within an RPC message, used to ensure that the data is not system-dependent.

Q10. Which OSI Reference Layer controls application to application communication?
Ans. Session

Q11. BOOTP helps a diskless workstation boot. How does it get a message to the network looking for its IP address and the location of its operating system boot files ?
Ans. BOOTP sends a UDP message with a subnetwork broadcast address and waits for a reply from a server that gives it the IP address. The same message might contain the name of the machine that has the boot files on it. If the boot image location is not specified, the workstation sends another UDP message to query the server.

Q12. What is a DNS resource record?
Ans. A resource record is an entry in a name server’s database. There are several types of resource records used, including name-to-address resolution information. Resource records are maintained as ASCII files.

Q13. What protocol is used by DNS name servers?
Ans. DNS uses UDP for communication between servers. It is a better choice than TCP because of the improved speed a connectionless protocol offers. Of course, transmission reliability suffers with UDP.

Q14. What is the difference between interior and exterior neighbor gateways?
Ans. Interior gateways connect LANs of one organization, whereas exterior gateways connect the organization to the outside world.

Q15. What is the HELLO protocol used for?
Ans. The HELLO protocol uses time instead of distance to determine optimal routing. It is an alternative to the Routing Information Protocol.

Q16. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the three types of routing tables?
Ans. The three types of routing tables are fixed, dynamic, and fixed central. The fixed table must be manually modified every time there is a change. A dynamic table changes its information based on network traffic, reducing the amount of manual maintenance. A fixed central table lets a manager modify only one table, which is then read by other devices. The fixed central table reduces the need to update each machine’s table, as with the fixed table. Usually a dynamic table causes the fewest problems for a network administrator, although the table’s contents can change without the administrator being aware of the change.

Q17. What is a characteristic of Store and Forward switches?
Ans. They read the entire frame and check CRC before forwarding.

Q18. What is source route?
Ans. It is a sequence of IP addresses identifying the route a datagram must follow. A source route may optionally be included in an IP datagram header.

Q19. What is RIP (Routing Information Protocol)?
Ans. It is a simple protocol used to exchange information between the routers.

Q20. What is SLIP (Serial Line Interface Protocol)?
Ans. It is a very simple protocol used for transmission of IP datagrams across a serial line.

Q21. What is Proxy ARP?
Ans. It is using a router to answer ARP requests. This will be done when the originating host believes that a destination is local, when in fact is lies beyond router.

Q22. What is OSPF?
Ans. It is an Internet routing protocol that scales well, can route traffic along multiple paths, and uses knowledge of an Internet’s topology to make accurate routing decisions.

Q23. What is Kerberos?
Ans. It is an authentication service developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kerberos uses encryption to prevent intruders from discovering passwords and gaining unauthorized access to files.

Q24. What is a Multi-homed Host?
Ans. It is a host that has a multiple network interfaces and that requires multiple IP addresses is called as a Multi-homed Host.

Q25. What is NVT (Network Virtual Terminal)?
Ans. It is a set of rules defining a very simple virtual terminal interaction. The NVT is used in the start of a Telnet session.

Q26. What is Gateway-to-Gateway protocol?
Ans. It is a protocol formerly
used to exchange routing information between Internet core routers.

Q27. What is BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)?
Ans. It is a protocol used to advertise the set of networks that can be reached with in an autonomous system. BGP enables this information to be shared with the autonomous system. This is newer than EGP (Exterior Gateway Protocol).

Q28. What is autonomous system?
Ans. It is a collection of routers under the control of a single administrative authority and that uses a common Interior Gateway Protocol.

Q29. What is EGP (Exterior Gateway Protocol)?
Ans. It is the protocol the routers in neighboring autonomous systems use to identify the set of networks that can be reached within or via each autonomous system.

Q30. What is IGP (Interior Gateway Protocol)?
Ans. It is any routing protocol used within an autonomous system.

Q31. What is Mail Gateway?
Ans. It is a system that performs a protocol translation between different electronic mail delivery protocols.

Q32. What is wide-mouth frog?
Ans. Wide-mouth frog is the simplest known key distribution center (KDC) authentication protocol.

Q33. What are Digrams and Trigrams?
Ans. The most common two letter combinations are called as digrams. e.g. th, in, er, re and an. The most common three letter combinations are called as trigrams. e.g. the, ing, and, and ion.

Q34. What is silly window syndrome?
Ans. It is a problem that can ruin TCP performance. This problem occurs when data are passed to the sending TCP entity in large blocks, but an interactive application on the receiving side reads 1 byte at a time.

Q35. What is region?
Ans. When hierarchical routing is used, the routers are divided into what we call regions, with each router knowing all the details about how to route packets to destinations within its own region, but knowing nothing about the internal structure of other regions.

Q36. What is multicast routing?
Ans. Sending a message to a group is called multicasting, and its routing algorithm is called multicast routing.

Q37. What is traffic shaping?
Ans. One of the main causes of congestion is that traffic is often busy. If hosts could be made to transmit at a uniform rate,congestion would be less common. Another open loop method to help manage congestion is forcing the packet to be transmitted at a more predictable rate. This is called traffic shaping.

Q38. What is packet filter?
Ans. Packet filter is a standard router equipped with some extra functionality. The extra functionality allows every incoming or outgoing packet to be inspected. Packets meeting some criterion are forwarded normally. Those that fail the test are dropped.

Q39. What is virtual path?
Ans. Along any transmission path from a given source to a given destination, a group of virtual circuits can be grouped together into what is called path.

Q40. What is virtual channel?
Ans. Virtual channel is normally a connection from one source to one destination, although multicast connections are also permitted. The other name for virtual channel is virtual circuit.

Q41. What is logical link control?
Ans. One of two sublayers of the data link layer of OSI reference model, as defined by the IEEE 802 standard. This sublayer is responsible for maintaining the link between computers when they are sending data across the physical network connection.

Q42. Why should you care about the OSI Reference Model?
Ans. It provides a framework for discussing network operations and design.

Q43. What is the difference between routable and non- routable protocols?
Ans. Routable protocols can work with a router and can be used to build large networks. Non-Routable protocols are designed to work on small, local networks and cannot be used with a router.

Q44. What is MAU?
Ans. In token Ring , hub is called Multistation Access Unit(MAU).

Q45. Explain 5-4-3 rule?
Ans. In a Ethernet network, between any two points on the network, there can be no more than five network segments or four repeaters, and of those five segments only three of segments can be populated.

Q46. What is the difference between TFTP and FTP application layer protocols?
Ans. The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) allows a local host to obtain files from a remote host but does not provide reliability or security. It uses the fundamental packet delivery services offered by UDP. The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the standard mechanism provided by TCP / IP for copying a file from one host to another. It uses the services offered by TCP and so is reliable and secure. It establishes two connections (virtual circuits) between the hosts, one for data transfer and another for control information.

Q47. What is the range of addresses in the classes of internet addresses?
Ans. Class A 0.0.0.0 – 127.255.255.255
Class B 128.0.0.0 – 191.255.255.255
Class C 192.0.0.0 – 223.255.255.255
Class D 224.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255
Class E 240.0.0.0 – 247.255.255.255

Q48. What is the minimum and maximum length of the header in the TCP segment and IP datagram?
Ans. The header should have a minimum length of 20 bytes and can have a maximum length of 60 bytes.

Q49. What is difference between ARP and RARP?
Ans. The address resolution protocol (ARP) is used to associate the 32 bit IP address with the 48 bit physical address, used by a host or a router to find the physical address of another host on its network by sending a ARP query packet that includes the IP address of the receiver. The reverse address resolution protocol (RARP) allows a host to discover its Internet address when it knows only its physical address.

Q50. What is ICMP?
Ans. ICMP is Internet Control Message Protocol, a network layer protocol of the TCP/IP suite used by hosts and gateways to send notification of datagram problems back to the sender. It uses the echo test / reply to test whether a destination is reachable and responding. It also handles both control and error messages.

Basic Networking Interview Questions with answer

2013-05-16T22:32:00.002-07:00

When were OSI model developed and why its standard called 802.XX and so on?

OSI model was developed in February1980 that why these also known as 802.XX Standard (Notice 80 means ==> 1980, 2means ==> February)

What is Full form of ADS?

Active Directory Structure

How will you register and activate windows?

If you have not activated windows XP, you can do so at any time by clicking the windows Activation icon in the system tray to initiate activation. Once you have activated windows XP, this icon disappears from the system tray.
For registration
Start ==> Run ==> regwiz /r

Where do we use cross and standard cable?

Computer to computer ==> cross
Switch/hub to switch/hub ==>cross
Computer to switch/hub ==>standard

How many pins do serial ports have?

In computer it's known as com port and could be available in 9pin or 25 pin. On router it have 60 pins.

How will check ip address on 98?

Start ==> Run ==> command ==> winipcfg

How will you make partition after installing windows?

My computer ==> right click ==> manage ==> disk management ==>
select free space ==> right click ==> New partition

What is IP?

It's a unique 32 bits software address of a node in a network.

What is private IP?

Three ranges of IP addresses have been reserved for private address and they are not valid for use on the Internet. If you want to access internet with these address you must have to use proxy server or NAT server (on normal cases the role of proxy server is played by your ISP.).If you do decide to implement a private IP address range, you can use IP addresses from any of the following classes:
Class A 10.0.0.0 10.255.255.255
Class B 172.16.0.0 172.31.255.255
Class C 192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255

What is public IP address?

A public IP address is an address leased from an ISP that allows or enables direct Internet communication.

What's the benefit of subnetting?

Reduce the size of the routing tables.
Reduce network traffic. Broadcast traffic can be isolated within a single logical network.
Provide a way to secure network traffic by isolating it from the rest of the network.

What are the differences between static ip addressing and dynamic ip addressing?

With static IP addressing, a computer (or other device) is configured to always use the same IP address. With dynamic addressing, the IP address can change periodically and is managed by a centralized network service

What is APIPA?

Automatic private IP addressing (APIPA) is a feature mainly found in Microsoft operating systems. APIPA enables clients to still communicate with other computers on the same network segment until an IP address can be obtained from a DHCP server, allowing the machine to fully participate on the network. The range of these IP address are the 169.254.0.1 to 169.254.255.254 with a default Class B subnet mask of 255.255.0.0.

What are the LMHOSTS files?

The LMHOSTS file is a static method of resolving NetBIOS names to IP addresses in the same way that the HOSTS file is a static method of resolving domain names into IP addresses. An LMHOSTS file is a text file that maps NetBIOS names to IP addresses; it must be manually configured and updated.

What is DHCP scope?

A scope is a range, or pool, of IP addresses that can be leased to DHCP clients on a given subnet.

What is FQDN?

An FQDN contains (fully qualified domain name) both the hostname and a domain name. It uniquely identifies a host within a DNS hierarchy

What is the DNS forwarder?

DNS servers often must communicate with DNS servers outside of the local network. A forwarder is an entry that is used when a DNS server receives DNS queries that it cannot resolve locally. It then forwards those requests to external DNS servers for resolution.

Which command will you use to find out the name of the pc in networks?

NSLOOKUP [192.168.0.1]
[Ip of target computer]

How will enable sound service in 2003?

By default this service remain disable to enable this service
Start ==> administrative tools ==> service ==> windows audio ==> start up type ==> automatic

How will enable CD burning service in 2003?

By default this service remain disable to enable this service
Start ==> administrative tools ==> service ==> IMAPI CD burning com service ==> start up type ==> automatic

Networking - Interview Questions and Answers

2013-05-16T22:29:00.005-07:00

1. Define Network?

A network is a set of devices connected by physical media links. A network is recursively is a connection of two or more nodes by a physical link or two or more networks connected by one or more nodes.

2. What is a Link?

At the lowest level, a network can consist of two or more computers directly connected by some physical medium such as coaxial cable or optical fiber. Such a physical medium is called as Link.

3. What is a node?

A network can consist of two or more computers directly connected by some physical medium such as coaxial cable or optical fiber. Such a physical medium is called as Links and the computer it connects is called as Nodes.

4. What is a gateway or Router?

A node that is connected to two or more networks is commonly called as router or Gateway. It generally forwards message from one network to another.

5. What is point-point link?

If the physical links are limited to a pair of nodes it is said to be point-point link.

6. What is Multiple Access?

If the physical links are shared by more than two nodes, it is said to be Multiple Access.

7. What are the advantages of Distributed Processing?

a. Security/Encapsulation

b. Distributed database

c. Faster Problem solving

d. Security through redundancy

e. Collaborative Processing

8. What are the criteria necessary for an effective and efficient network?

a. Performance

It can be measured in many ways, including transmit time and response time. b. Reliability

It is measured by frequency of failure, the time it takes a link to recover from a failure, and the network's robustness.

c. Security

Security issues includes protecting data from unauthorized access and virues.

9. Name the factors that affect the performance of the network?

a. Number of Users

b. Type of transmission medium

c. Hardware

d. Software

10. Name the factors that affect the reliability of the network?

a. Frequency of failure

b. Recovery time of a network after a failure

11. Name the factors that affect the security of the network?

a. Unauthorized Access

b. Viruses

12. What is Protocol?

A protocol is a set of rules that govern all aspects of information communication.

13. What are the key elements of protocols?

The key elements of protocols are

a. Syntax

It refers to the structure or format of the data, that is the order in which they are presented.

b. Semantics

It refers to the meaning of each section of bits.

c. Timing

Timing refers to two characteristics: When data should be sent and how fast they can be sent.

14. What are the key design issues of a computer Network?

a. Connectivity

b. Cost-effective Resource Sharing

c. Support for common Services

d. Performance

15. Define Bandwidth and Latency?

Network performance is measured in Bandwidth (throughput) and Latency (Delay). Bandwidth of a network is given by the number of bits that can be transmitted over the network in a certain period of time. Latency corresponds to how long it takes a message to travel from one end off a network to the other. It is strictly measured in terms of time.

16. Define Routing?

The process of determining systematically how to forward messages toward the destination nodes based on its address is called routing.

17. What is a peer-peer process?

The processes on each machine that communicate at a given layer are called peer-peer process.

18. When a switch is said to be congested?

It is possible that a switch receives packets faster than the shared link can accommodate and stores in its memory, for an extended period of time, then the switch will eventually run out of buffer space, and some packets will have to be dropped and in this state is said to congested state.

19. What is semantic gap?

Defining a useful channel involves both understanding the applications requirements and recognizing the limitations of the underlying technology. The gap between what applications expects and what the underlying technology can provide is called semantic gap.

20. What is Round Trip Time?

The duration of time it takes to send a message from one end of a network to the other and back, is called RTT.

21. Define the terms Unicasting, Multiccasting and Broadcasting?

If the message is sent from a source to a single destination node, it is called Unicasting.

If the message is sent to some subset of other nodes, it is called Multicasting.

If the message is sent to all the m nodes in the network it is called Broadcasting.

22. What is Multiplexing?

Multiplexing is the set of techniques that allows the simultaneous transmission of multiple signals across a single data link.

23. Name the categories of Multiplexing?

a. Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM)

b. Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)

i. Synchronous TDM

ii. ASynchronous TDM Or Statistical TDM.

c. Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM)

24. What is FDM?

FDM is an analog technique that can be applied when the bandwidth of a link is greater than the combined bandwidths of the signals to be transmitted.

25. What is WDM?

WDM is conceptually the same as FDM, except that the multiplexing and demultiplexing involve light signals transmitted through fiber optics channel.

26. What is TDM?

TDM is a digital process that can be applied when the data rate capacity of the transmission medium is greater than the data rate required by the sending and receiving devices.

27. What is Synchronous TDM?

In STDM, the multiplexer allocates exactly the same time slot to each device at all times, whether or not a device has anything to transmit.

28. List the layers of OSI

a. Physical Layer

b. Data Link Layer

c. Network Layer

d. Transport Layer

e. Session Layer

f. Presentation Layer

g. Application Layer

29. Which layers are network support layers?

a. Physical Layer

b. Data link Layer and

c. Network Layers

30. Which layers are user support layers?

a. Session Layer

b. Presentation Layer and

c. Application Layer

31. Which layer links the network support layers and user support layers?

The Transport layer links the network support layers and user support layers.

32. What are the concerns of the Physical Layer?

Physical layer coordinates the functions required to transmit a bit stream over a physical medium.

a. Physical characteristics of interfaces and media

b. Representation of bits

c. Data rate

d. Synchronization of bits

e. Line configuration

f. Physical topology

g. Transmission mode

33. What are the responsibilities of Data Link Layer?

The Data Link Layer transforms the physical layer, a raw transmission facility, to a reliable link and is responsible for node-node delivery.

a. Framing

b. Physical Addressing

c. Flow Control

d. Error Control

e. Access Control

34. What are the responsibilities of Network Layer?

The Network Layer is responsible for the source-to-destination delivery of packet possibly across multiple networks (links).

a. Logical Addressing

b. Routing

35. What are the responsibilities of Transport Layer?

The Transport Layer is responsible for source-to-destination delivery of the entire message.

a. Service-point Addressing

b. Segmentation and reassembly

c. Connection Control

d. Flow Control

e. Error Control

36. What are the responsibilities of Session Layer?

The Session layer is the network dialog Controller. It establishes, maintains and synchronizes the interaction between the communicating systems.

a. Dialog control

b. Synchronization

37. What are the responsibilities of Presentation Layer?

The Presentation layer is concerned with the syntax and semantics of the information exchanged between two systems.
a. Translation
b. Encryption
c. Compression

38. What are the responsibilities of Application Layer?

The Application Layer enables the user, whether human or software, to access the network. It provides user interfaces and support for services such as e-mail, shared database management and other types of distributed information services.
a. Network virtual Terminal
b. File transfer, access and Management (FTAM)
c. Mail services
d. Directory Services

39. What are the two classes of hardware building blocks?

Nodes and Links.

40. What are the different link types used to build a computer network?

a. Cables
b. Leased Lines
c. Last-Mile Links
d. Wireless Links

41. What are the categories of Transmission media?

a. Guided Media
  i. Twisted - Pair cable
    1. Shielded TP
    2. Unshielded TP
  ii. Coaxial Cable
  iii. Fiber-optic cable
b. Unguided Media
  i. Terrestrial microwave
  ii. Satellite Communication

42. What are the types of errors?

a. Single-Bit error
In a single-bit error, only one bit in the data unit has changed
b. Burst Error
A Burst error means that two or more bits in the data have changed.

Cisco Router Commands

2013-05-14T05:59:00.003-07:00

Routing with Cisco 2500 and 1000 Series for LAN-ISDN Service

Commands - General

There are 3 different modes of operation within the Cisco IOS.

Disabled mode
Enabled mode
Configuration mode

In the Disabled mode you can use a limited number of commands. This is used primarily to monitor the router.

The Enabled mode is used to show configuration information, enter the configuration mode, and make changes to the configuration.

The Configuration mode is used to enter and update the runtime configuration.

To get a list of the commands for the cisco type '?' at the prompt. To get further information about any command, type the command followed by a '?'.

clear	Reset functions
clock	Manage the system clock
configure	Enter configuration mode
debug	Debugging functions (see also 'undebug')
disable	Turn off privileged commands
enable	Turn on privileged commands
erase	Erase flash or configuration memory
exit	Exit from the EXEC
help	Description of the interactive help system
login	Log in as a particular user
logout	Exit from the EXEC
no	Disable debugging functions
ping	Send echo messages
reload	Halt and perform a cold restart
setup	Run the SETUP command facility
show	Show running system information
telnet	Open a telnet connection
terminal	Set terminal line parameters
test	Test subsystems, memory, and interfaces
traceroute	Trace route to destination
tunnel	Open a tunnel connection
undebug	Disable debugging functions (see also 'debug')
verify	Verify checksum of a Flash file
write	Write running configuration to memory, network, or terminal

show
access-lists	List access lists
arp	ARP table
buffers	Buffer pool statistics
configuration	Contents of Non-Volatile memory
controllers	Interface controller status
debugging	State of each debugging option
dialer	Dialer parameters and statistics
extended	Extended Interface Information
flash	System Flash information
flh-log	Flash Load Helper log buffer
history	Display the session command history
hosts	IP domain-name, lookup style, name servers, and host table
interfaces	Interface status and configuration
ip	IP information
isdn	ISDN information
line	TTY line information
logging	Show the contents of logging buffers
memory	Memory statistics
privilege	Show current privilege level
processes	Active process statistics
protocols	Active network routing protocols
queue	Show queue contents
queueing	Show queueing configuration
reload	Scheduled reload information
route-map	route-map information
running-config	Current operating configuration
sessions	Information about Telnet connections
smf	Software MAC filter
stacks	Process stack utilization
startup-config	Contents of startup configuration
subsys	Show subsystem information
tcp	Status of TCP connections
terminal	Display terminal configuration parameters
users	Display information about terminal lines
version	System hardware and software status

Other Useful Commands

View the Software Version
View the Ethernet IP
View the Serial IP
View the Default Route
View the Filters
View the Bandwidth
Add a Static Route
Change the Dial Number
Turn Filters On and Off
Ping from the Router
Traceroute from the Router

View the Ethernet IP

Router#wr term


This will show the running configuration.
Within the configuration, you will see an interface ethernet 0 section:


interface Ethernet0
ip address 38.150.93.1 255.255.255.0
no ip directed-broadcast

View the Serial IP

Router#wr term


Within the configuration, you will see an interface serial 0 section:


interface Serial0
ip address 38.21.10.100 255.255.255.0
ip broadcast-address 38.21.10.255
ip access-group 106 in
encapsulation frame-relay
bandwidth 56
no fair-queue
frame-relay map ip 38.21.10.1 500 IETF

View the Default Route

Router#wr term


Within the configuration, you will see an ip route section. 


In the ip route section, look for a route:
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 38.167.29.1
The last ip address is the POP ip.

View the Filters

Router#wr term


Under interface serial 0, look for:


ip access-group 104 in
ip access-group 105 out


This means that access-group 104 is the inbound filter set and
access-group 105 is the outbound filter set.
Then, continue to look in the configuration for the access-list statements:


(Example access-list statements)
access-list 104 deny   ip 38.166.101.0 0.0.0.255 any
access-list 104 permit tcp any any established
access-list 104 permit tcp any eq ftp-data any gt 1023
access-list 104 permit udp any eq domain any gt 1023
access-list 104 permit udp any eq domain any eq domain
access-list 104 permit icmp any any
access-list 104 permit udp any eq snmp any gt 1023
access-list 105 deny   ip any 38.166.101.0 0.0.0.255
access-list 105 permit tcp any any established
access-list 105 permit tcp any any eq ftp
access-list 105 deny   udp any eq netbios-ns any
access-list 105 deny   udp any eq netbios-dgm any
access-list 105 permit ip any any

View the Bandwidth

Router#wr term


Within the config, you will see an interface serial 0 section:


interface Serial0
ip address 38.21.10.100 255.255.255.0
ip broadcast-address 38.21.10.255
ip access-group 106 in
encapsulation frame-relay
bandwidth 56
no fair-queue
frame-relay map ip 38.21.10.1 500 IETF

Add a Static Route

Cisco#config t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Cisco(config)#ip route DEST.DEST.DEST.DEST MASK.MASK.MASK.MASK GATE.GATE.GATE.GATE
where: DEST.DEST.DEST.DEST = The destination network the static route is for
       MASK.MASK.MASK.MASK = The subnet mask of the destination network
       GATE.GATE.GATE.GATE = The gateway of the static route
Example route statement:
ip route 38.222.75.0 255.255.255.0 38.20.5.1
Cisco(config)#^Z (hit  z)


Write the entry to memory:


Cisco#wr mem
Building configuration...
[OK]

Change the Dial Number

Type en to put the router in enable mode:


test.com>en


The password should be the same as the one used to telnet in.


Password:


To view the router's configuration, type:


test.com#show config


There will be a line in the configuration that says:


dialer map IP 38.1.1.1 speed 64 name LD3330 2707000


The 2707000 is the dial number.


NOTE: Record what interface the dialer map IP line is under because     you will need to  use that interface when changing the number.


Type config t to configure from terminal.


test.com#config t


Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Enter the interface that the dialer map IP line is under:


test.com(config)#interface BRI0


Add in the new dialer map IP line with the new phone number:


test.com(config)#dialer map IP 38.1.1.1 speed 64 name LD3330 [new number]


Now, remove the old dialer map IP line.
To remove a line, type no and then the line.
For example, to remove the old dialer map IP, type:


test.com(config)#no dialer map IP 38.1.1.1 speed 64 name LD3330 2707020


Now leave config mode:


test.com(config)# [control] z


Save changes:


test.com# write mem
Building configuration...
[OK]


Verify the new number is in the config:


test.com#show config


The new number should be in the dialer map IP line.

Turn Filters On and Off

To turn the filters off:


Router#configure terminal
Router(config)#interface Serial0
Router(config-if)#no ip access-group 104 in
Router(config-if)#no ip access-group 105 out
Router(config-if)# Hit CTRL-Z
Router#wr mem
Building configuration...
[OK]
Router#


To turn the filters on:


Router#configure terminal
Router(config)#interface Serial0
Router(config-if)#ip access-group 104 in
Router(config-if)#ip access-group 105 out
Router(config-if)# Hit CTRL-Z
Router#wr mem
Building configuration...
[OK]
Router#

Ping from the Router

Cisco#ping 
Example:
Cisco#ping 38.8.14.2

Incident Management - What is Incident Management

2013-05-08T04:33:00.002-07:00

In ITIL terminology, an 'incident' is defined as:

An unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service. Failure of a configuration item that has not yet impacted service is also an incident, for example failure of one disk from a mirror set.

Incident Management is the process for dealing with all incidents; this can include failures, questions or queries reported by the users (usually via a telephone call to the Service Desk), by technical staff, or automatically detected and reported by event monitoring tools.

Purpose

The primary goal of the Incident Management process is to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimize the adverse impact on business operations, thus ensuring that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. 'Normal service operation' is defined here as service operation within SLA limits.

Value to business

The value of Incident Management includes:

The ability to detect and resolve incidents which results in lower downtime to the business, which in turn means higher availability of the service. This means that the business is able to exploit the functionality of the service as designed.
The ability to align IT activity to real-time business priorities. This is because Incident Management includes the capability to identify business priorities and dynamically allocate resources as necessary.
The ability to identify potential improvements to services. This happens as a result of understanding what constitutes an incident and also from being in contact with the activities of business operational staff.
The Service Desk can, during its handling of incidents, identify additional service or training requirements found in IT or the business.

Incident Management is highly visible to the business, and it is therefore easier to demonstrate its value than most areas in Service Operation. For this reason, Incident Management is often one of the first processes to be implemented in Service Management projects. The added benefit of doing this is that Incident Management can be used to highlight other areas that need attention - thereby providing a justification for expenditure on implementing other processes.

Other ITIL Processes

In order to have a good understanding of ITIL and the importance of configuration management, we first define what ITIL is: ITIL is literally a collection of documentation.

This documentation can help IT organizations implement the best practices. The documentation grows and grows as more successful techniques are documented and guidelines established for what can make others successful. The latest ITIL resources are published by the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

Integrated service delivery refers to the need for Configuration Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management and Release Management processes that are linked together in a meaningful manner. For example, the process of releasing components to the live environment (the domain of Release Management) is also an issue for Configuration Management and Change Management whilst the Service Desk is primarily responsible for liaison between IT providers and the Users of services. This section highlights the links and the principal relationships between all the Service Management and other infrastructure management processes.

ITIL processes fall under Operational Layer or Tactical Layer, as follows:

Operational Layer:	Configuration Management - Service Desk Management - Incident & Problem Management - Change Management - Release Management
Tactical Layer:	Service Level Management - Availability Management - Capacity Management - Continuity Management -Financial Management

Understanding ITIL Key Process Relationships

2013-05-08T04:32:00.002-07:00

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is fast becoming the worldwide, de facto standard for IT service management. ITIL can be defined as a set of best practices for managing the processes required to effectively managing the delivery of IT services and support. Each of the processes defined in ITIL are designed to drive a specific IT business function or discipline.

Understanding the differences between--and the relationships among--these processes is an important first step in implementing ITIL. This Research Byte provides an explanation of three ITIL processes that are often confused.

The Structure of ITIL

ITIL is divided into three major areas: Service Support, Service Delivery, and Security Management. Within the Service Support category, ITIL includes the following key disciplines:

Service Desk
Incident Management
Problem Management
Change Management
Release Management
Configuration Management

While these terms are undoubtedly familiar to many IT personnel, the formalization that ITIL brings to these disciplines is typically far beyond the level of sophistication in the majority of IT organizations. Additionally, the distinctions and separation of tasks within each of the support disciplines are also significantly more defined than most IT organizations have implemented in the past.

For instance, the majority of IT shops have not traditionally drawn a distinction between Incident Management and Problem Management, or between instances of incidents and problems. ITIL, on the other hand, clearly defines these as separate disciplines with their own unique set of processes. IT support personnel can be quite confused by ITIL's specific use of the terms incident and problem if they have been using these terms interchangeably, or if they think that an incident becomes a problem when it can't be solved by Level 1 support.

Unfortunately, educating support personnel on these complex relationships is sometimes glossed over, to the detriment of the support process. This article provides a discussion of the often complex relationships between Incident Management, Problem Management, and Change Management and instances of incidents, problems, and changes.

A Review of the Disciplines

First, a bit of ITIL review about the objectives of Incident and Problem Management. The objective of Incident Management is to restore service as quickly as possible. Therefore, an incident is active until service is verified as restored. The objective of Problem Management is to minimize the economic impact of service disruption by diagnosing the root causes of incidents, gathering information on known errors and by providing work-arounds, temporary fixes, and permanent fixes.

Therefore, while an incident is active only until service is restored, a problem continues to be active until appropriate outputs (e.g. work-arounds, permanent fixes) are published and implemented. This means that incidents and problems are not synonymous. Neither do incidents become problems. Rather incidents, problems, and changes each have a many-to-many relationship with the other two.

An Example of the Relationships

Let's look at one example of the relationships of an incident, a problem, and a change over time. This timeline is shown in Figure 1.

The sequence of events as shown in Figure 1 is as follows:

At TIME = 0, an External Event is detected by the Incident Management process. This could be as simple as a customer calling to say that service is unavailable or it could be an automated alert from a system monitoring device.

The incident owner logs and classifies this as incident i2. Then, the incident owner tries to match i2 to known errors, work-arounds, or temporary fixes, but cannot find a match in the database.
At TIME = 1, the incident owner dispatches a problem request to the Problem Management process anticipating a work-around, temporary fix, or other assistance. In doing so, the incident owner has prompted the creation of Problem p2.
At TIME = 2, the problem owner of p2 returns the expected temporary fix to the incident owner of i2. Note that both i2 and p2 are active and exist simultaneously. The incident owner for i2 applies the temporary fix.
In this case, the work-around requires a change request. So, at Time = 3, the incident owner for i2 initiates change request, c2.
The change request c2 is applied successfully, and at TIME = 4, c2 is closed. Note that for a while i2, p2 and c2 all exist simultaneously.
Because c2 was successful, the incident owner for i2 can now confirm that the incident is resolved. At TIME = 5, i2 is closed. However, p2 remains active while the problem owner searches for a permanent fix. The problem owner for p2 would be responsible for implementing the permanent fix and initiating any necessary change requests.

This is just one example of the relationships between these disciplines. In reality, there are many other possible examples of the way that Incident Management, Problem Management and Change Management are interrelated.

Process Relationships Can be Complex

It is also important to note that not all problem requests are created because of an incident. Some problem requests are initiated by proactive problem control discovering a likely cause of future incidents. In this case, an instance of a problem may have no related instance of an incident. The problem may initiate a change request to implement a permanent fix. In this case, the problem will be linked to an instance of change.

In another case, the incident control activity of the Problem Management process may discover that multiple incidents have the same root cause and link all these incidents to a single instance of a problem.

Another incident may implement a temporary-fix created previously by the problem control activity of Problem Management. In this case, the incident will have a relationship with the earlier problem that created the temporary-fix without ever initiating a new problem request.

As can be seen, these relationships can become quite intricate. As mentioned earlier, confusion about the relationships between incidents, problems, and changes can sometimes be glossed over during the training phase, which will often slow the adoption of ITIL concepts and ITIL-centric support systems. Support personnel do not have to know every possible permutation of these relationships, but, they should understand that incidents, problems, and changes are not synonymous and can have quite complex interactions

National Film Awards Announced

2013-03-18T08:37:00.002-07:00

Actor Irrfan Khan has won the best actor for his performance as athlete-turned-dacoit in Paan Singh Tomar at the 60th National Film Awards announced today.

Paan Singh Tomar, which has been produced by UTV Software communications Ltd. and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia, also won the best Hindi feature film.

In non-feature film category, the award for the best film has been conferred to Shepherds of Paradise (Gojri and Urdu) produced and directed by Raja Shabir Khan.

In the category of best writing on cinema section, the book Silent Cinema in India - A Pictorial Journey (English) written by B.D. Garga and published by Harper Collins Publisher India has bagged the top honour, whereas P.S. Radhakrishnan has been conferred the award for the best film critic.

In the feature film category, a total of 38 films from 14 languages have been selected for the 60th National Awards. Chittagong (Hindi) and 101 Chodiyangal (Malayalam) have shared the Indira Gandhi award for the best debut film of a director.

The award for the best popular film for providing wholesome entertainment has been shared by Vicky Donor (Hindi) and Ustad Hotel (Malayalam).

The award for the best director has been conferred on Shivaji Lotan Patil for the film Dhag (Marathi).

The award for the best actor has been shared by Irrfan playing the title role in Paan Singh Tomar and Vikram Gokhale for the film Anumati (Marathi).

The award for the best actress has been conferred on Usha Jadhav for her performance in Dhag (Marathi).

The award for the best supporting actor has been conferred on Anu Kapur for the film Vicky Donor.

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The award for the best supporting actress has been shared by Dolly Ahluwalia for the film Vicky Donor and Kalpana for the film ThanichallaNjan (Malyalam).

The best child artist award has been shared by Master Virendra Pratap for Dekh Indian Circus (Hindi) and Master Minon for 101 Chodiyangal (Malayalam).

The award for the best male playback singer has been conferred on Shankar Mahadevan for the song Bolo Na from the film Chittagong. The award for the best female playback singer has been conferred on Samhita for the song Palakein Naa Moon Don from the film Aarti Anklekartikekar (Marathi).

The award for the best screenplay writer (original) has been conferred on Sujoy Ghosh for the film Kahaani.

So we all know that a pregnant Vidya Balan (Vidya Bagchi) is looking for her missing husband in Kolkata. What do you think is the climax of this thriller? Guess and let us know on Twitter, Facebookor... more

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| Photo by Rummana Ahmed

The award for best screenplay writer (adapted) has been conferred on Bhavesh Mandalia and Umesh Shukla for the film Oh My God.

The award for the best dialogue has been conferred on Anjali Menon for the film Ustad Hotel (Malayalam). The award for the best lyrics has been conferred on Prasoon Joshi for the song Bolo Na from the film Chittagong.

A special jury award has been conferred on Rituparno Ghosh and Nawazuddin Siddiqui for the films Chitrangadha (Bengali), Kahaani, Gangs of Wasseypur, Dekh Indian circus and Talaash (Hindi).

The award for the best choreography has been conferred on Pt. Birju Maharaj for the film Vishwaroopam (Tamil).

In the non-feature film category, Vikrant Pawar has got the best director award for the film Kaatal (Marathi). The award for the best debut film of a director has been conferred to Lipika Singh Darai for the film Eka Gachha Eka Manisa Eka Samudra (Odia).

Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia for the film I Am Micro (English) and Vasudah Joshi for Cancer Katha (English) have been selected for special jury award. Timbaktu (English) has been awarded as the best film in the environmental category and Dreaming Taj Mahal (Hindi and Urdu) has been conferred the award for the best promotional.

The national film awards jury was led this year by filmmaker Basu Chatterjee.

Three Cheers and Four Jeers

2013-03-18T08:31:00.001-07:00

Triple figures, three fours for a victory, three wickets for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and more in our collection of cheers and jeers from Mohali. Go figure.

Good start by Shikhar Dhawan: A man with two pierced ear lobes got up, after making a desperate dive to get into the crease. With the 100th run in the pocket, he took his helmet off, raising his arms, with a smile aimed at the heavens. The shots that helped him enter the history books, were crisp and convincing. Dhawan’s strength is his superbly balanced stance, which ensures that he gets behind the ball at all times. The timing was excellent, and in full display, when he was essaying the cover drive, as also the ones that were driven on the up. The left-hander doesn’t play away from his body, but uses his feet to move towards the pitch of the ball. His inside-out shot against the spinners, with the feet criss-crossing like scissor blades, only added to Australia’s misery. Half-trackers and full tosses were given the respect they deserved, with the 27-year old’s gloves displaying pre-planned intent and restraint. Was he really playing his first Test?

Yes he was. India must be saying thanks a ton, for the fastest Test century on debut. The man with the moustache clearly deserved the Man of the Match award.

Murali Vijay Ho: This right-hander needs width to play his shots, and when he is offered the room, he will go to any length to hit a four. He leans into the shot right away, with the bat swinging in, in the direction of the gap between the fielders. Vijay’s flick brought up with the wrists rolling over the ball, is something special, with the left knee moving forward and receding. Stepping out to the Aussie spinners, Vijay sent the ball flying over long on, and to cow corner with an ease and style that is truly his own.

Bhuvneshwar on top in Mohali: After going wicketless in the first inning, Bhuvneshwar Kumar accounted for David Warner, Ed Cowan and Steve Smith, to put India in the driver’s seat on day four. While Warner gifted his wicket to Bhuvneshwar, Cowan fell leg-before-wicket. But the best wicket was clearly his last one in the match. Right-hander Smith’s defence was opened up by a ball moving in, with the batsman’s foot nowhere near the pitch of the ball. The Aussie was stuck in the pose for a full second, as he struggled to come to terms with the dismissal.

***************************************

Jadeja vu for Michael Clarke: Ravindra Jadeja had dismissed Michael Clarke three times before he flew down to Mohali. Once the third Test got underway, three became five. Coming in at No.3 in the first inning, Clarke took one step forward, only to beaten by the late turn. Opposite number Mahendra Singh Dhoni did the rest, and the Aussie skipper was sent back for a first ball duck. In the second inning, Clarke played across to Jadeja, with the edge going on to hit the pad only to make its way into Pujara’s hands at short leg.

Leave it to Smith: While he might have scored 92 (first inning) with the bat, Steven Smith clearly had trouble getting a decent grip behind the cricket ball. The leg spinner bowled half-trackers that Shikhar Dhawan managed to paddle sweep without having to get down on one knee. His full tosses too were promptly put away to the fence. So when the man managed to snare Sachin Tendulkar on the following day, he did surprise everyone.

Not out at No.3: Coming in at No.3 in India’s first inning, Cheteshwar Pujara wasn’t very happy when he was given out leg-before-wicket to Peter Siddle, off what was a big inside edge. Phillip Hughes, who came in at one drop, in Australia’s second inning, was also given out lbw, when the ball was hitting the pad, with the stance on impact outside leg stump. On both occasions, the umpire in question was Aleem Dar.

Three fours from Dhoni: India made a mess of what should have been a straightforward chase by losing four wickets. When Sachin Tendulkar ran himself out, it was left to Ravindra Jadeja and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to take India home. The duo survived some anxious moments, before Dhoni struck three fours off Starc to give his side a 3-0 lead in the series.

The death of a Rivalry

2013-03-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

Gone are the characters, missing are the mouth-watering contests. The great India-Australia rivalry is dead.

On their on-going tour of India, the biggest event in the Australian camp has occurred off the field and did not even involve the opposition. Australia’s bizarre axing of Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson and Usman Khawaja did inject some interest in the series. But it has reduced the fading rivalry to a farce.

In 1996, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy began on a dustbowl in Delhi, paving the way for one of the most gripping rivalries in international Test cricket. It enriched the game in general. The early legacy of the rivalry was shaped by the promise of a challenge: while both teams were nearly unbeatable at home, the challenge was to prevail in foreign conditions. From the fast, bouncy tracks in Brisbane and Perth to the sandpits or minefields in Mumbai and Chennai, the contests between the two nations redefined modern cricket in a way that few have.

At home, India were incredibly tough to beat. Australia had to wait 35 years for a series win in India when, in 2004, Adam Gilchrist’s men finally conquered what they called the ‘final frontier’. For India, there was an emerging cricketing narrative to confront – they wanted to challenge one of the greatest cricket teams ever assembled, first led by Steve Waugh and then by Ricky Ponting. Apart from England in 2005, India were the undisputed challenger to Australia’s era of unparalleled domination.

While India raised their game each time they met Australia, the other classic rivalry – the Ashes – had watered down to an incredibly one-sided affair. England struggled to find their personality against the all-conquering Australians unflinching in their desire to assert themselves, and in doing so, take the p*ss off. The India-Australia rivalry was a worthy break from a boring yet-another-Aussie-win phase, solely thriving on the quality of cricket it managed to produce over the span, and along the way, providing the Australians with a hard challenge and fresh problems to crack.

***

THERE WERE characters. At times the dynamics of the series would be reduced to personalities. The consummate genius of Shane Warne against the powers of Sachin Tendulkar; Sourav Ganguly and Steve Waugh consuming themselves in a gripping tactical battle to outwit each other, through pure cricket, at times art. Here was an Indian team, in the mid stages of its evolution as a purely cricketing, not commercial force, deeply motivated by its own history of failures in that country, turned challenger. There was much at stake. They fought, they even won that odd game there. Levelling a series was as good as a triumph, so much so that "winning in Australia" became an integral part of a captain's legacy.

On the other side, India was the final frontier. Today, it's just another frontier. The buzz seems to be severely lacking, the anticipation and the sheer thrill of a big series seems to have evaporated. Today, it's just another series, having its place in Test cricket, but gradually fading away into irrelevance.

The ongoing series, along with the previous one in Australia had nothing exciting. For the heart on the sleeve fan on the Indian side, it’s an been an unbelievable series, easy as you like, an opposition terribly unsure of its own abilities in these conditions succumbing to everything India have thrown at them. For the connoisseur, anything but that. A damp squib of a series, moving away from its promise of producing quality cricket that we’ve all grown up to admire, respect and love. We’ve been witness to a couple of Test matches, laden with sessions that are invariably dull, uneventful (minus the Dhoni onslaught, maybe) and with set patterns that somehow make Test cricket look rather predictable, when it shouldn’t be that. And mind you, this was the best time to play India, a side reeling from what was a humiliating home defeat to England. The proverbial s*it had hit the fan, a few seniors were admittedly dropped and not rested, there were selections that raised some eyebrows, and some familiar names lacking form. Instead, it’s been an absolute mismatch. Also, the disappointing bit is that this is an Indian team playing in third gear.

***

BEFORE INDIA'S home season began, I marked Australia as probably the tougher of the two visitors - a team that could ask India a few questions and probably grind them out if required. I was wrong. The last two Tests have featured by far the most underwhelming performances I’ve seen from an Australian team in India. They look scared, even scarred by their own failings or the inability to turn promise into performances. Their technique seems rather pedestrian and even from a common sense point of view, it is astounding to see them play spin with feet firmly rooted to the crease, hard hands and a scrambled head, unsure and unclear of what to expect from the Indian spinners. Of course playing spin isn’t as easy as writing columns might be, but the disappointment is that, unlike England, they haven’t made an honest effort to rectify some of those mistakes and technical deficiencies. No batsman, barring Michael Clarke and to some extent the likes of Henriques have shown the skill or the resolve to play spin. Teams that have come to India in the last few years, successful or not, have fought, possibly found a way that works, and not fallen apart. The Australians are crumbling.

England’s successful tour last year might just have the blueprint for visiting teams to excel and possibly triumph on Indian soil. And it’s not that difficult to figure out - a good mixture of skills, discipline, the acumen and the resolve that these conditions demand. Not to forget, some knowledge would help too, the little things like a Mushtaq Ahmed helping the English spinners find the right pace on a particular wicket. It required England to play a different kind of a game, an approach that demands an austere approach, primarily cutting down on flair and in doing so, eliminate certain shots from their armoury until their practice and confidence in those shots were near perfect. Can Australia do that? On the evidence on offer, it’s hard to be sure with the impatience of their batsmen. The difference between England and Australia, barring the fact that the former had two quality spinners, is the fact that England had players who executed their plans to perfection. Australia look like a side without a plan, and even if they had one, the players seem incapable of executing them.

The narrative seems clearer as this rivalry fades away - both teams, mediocre at best, will convincingly thrash each other at home, while in foreign conditions - India in Australia and vice-versa, the very desire of a fair, intense contest between bat and ball seems a distant dream. Australian cricket looks to be in a state of irreversible decline and it is equally disappointing to note that Indian cricket isn’t necessarily on the ascendancy.

There is always the transition argument that a lot of people make for the Australian team. But Australia have been in transition forever. There always will be chatter about how India has over the years has turned into a distraction for the Australians, given that regaining the Ashes seems to be the highest on their priority list. The mess that they find themselves in today, England’s defence of the Ashes looks like a formality waiting to happen come the summer. Even there, the hopes of a contest seem to fade away as things blow up in that dressing room. It’s just disappointing all around.

For a generation which grew up watching Test cricket, this was a series you’d mark your schedules and watch every ball of. As a cricketer, playing against Australia or India was one of the biggest Tests of your career and you’d almost do anything to be a part of these contests. As a fan, you’d bunk lectures, give your work a good old slip to watch the action. Today, you can afford to not watch the game and yet know how it is shaping up. I might be exaggerating about its glorious demise, but if this rivalry has to light up once again, the onus is on both teams to produce the quality of cricket befitting its legacy. Sadly, that may never happen.

India squeeze out another win Over Australia in 3rd Test At Mohali

2013-03-18T08:26:00.003-07:00

A six-wicket victory over Australia at Mohali gives the hosts a 3-0 lead in the series.

MOHALI: Australia resisted like a girl with an attitude, but gave in eventually to a relentless suitor as India won the third Test by six wickets to go 3-0 up in the series. The fourth and last match will be played in New Delhi from March 22 when India will attempt to win four Tests in a series for the first time in their history.

Set a target of 133 in a minimum of 27 overs, India hit the promised land for the loss of Murali Vijay (26), Cheteshwar Pujara (28) and Virat Kohli (34) and Sachin Tendulkar (21). For a brief while it appeared that Australia may confine India to a draw. Thirty were needed in fifty-six balls when Kohli flicked Peter Siddle to short mid-wicket.

Tendulkar and MS Dhoni (18*) played through a phase of quiet as the requirement escalated, and the maestro’s sharp run-out by David Warner gave Australia another look-in to enforce a draw. But Ravindra Jadeja walked in to cream boundaries against Siddle, setting an example for his skipper to follow: Dhoni decided things with three fours off Mitchell Starc and then uprooted a stump as a souvenir.

The win at Mohali was largely set up by Shikhar Dhawan’s blazing 187 on debut that was scored across two sessions on Saturday and made up for the time lost on account of the first-day washout. Dhawan was named Man of the Match, but did not come out to bat on Monday as he has injured his hand while fielding. India were also served well by Jadeja's left-arm spin, that claimed six wickets - three in each innings - in the match. Jadeja has dismissed Michael Clarke five times in this series.

Australia fight

Australia were effectively 79 for eight at lunch, with 52 overs remaining, and were rescued by two stubborn alliances: thirty-six in 16.1 overs between Starc and Haddin, and 44 in 18 overs between Starc and Xavier Doherty for the last wicket. Ravichandran Ashwin deceived Haddin with a ‘carrom’ ball immediately after lunch.

Starc and Doherty stretched the lead to 132 before the first innings scorer of 99 was done in by Jadeja for 35. This meant that India had 90 minutes plus a minimum of 15 mandatory overs to reach the target. The hosts got there, not in a tearing hurry, but well within the time stipulated, and will head to Delhi soaring on a first-ever 3-0 cushion over Australia.

Spun out

Earlier, Australia resumed in the morning three down on 75, sixteen ahead, and were all out for 223 mid-way into the second session. They suffered the first jolt when night-watchman Nathan Lyon edged Pragyan Ojha to Dhoni. Australia’s spasm-wreaked captain, Clarke, lasted for 49 deliveries before Jadeja dismissed him for the fifth time this series – via an inside-edged bat-pad that was gobbled up by Pujara at short-leg.

The next dismissal was rather unfortunate. Phil Hughes (69) who had infinitely multiplied his series gains in the course of one attacking knock, was given out ‘lbw’ to Ashwin when the delivery seemed likely to miss leg-stump. All-rounder Moises Henriques (2) lasted ten balls before Jadeja flung himself to his left to accept a blinding return-catch. Siddle had his off-stump knocked back by Ojha, clearing the way for Haddin and Starc to delay the inevitable.

Adding an Image to the Report

2013-03-12T04:16:00.003-07:00

Adding an Image to the Report

You may want to add a static image to the report, for example, a company or department logo.

To add an image to the report

1. Open the Toolbox, click the Image item, and drag it onto the design area. The Image Properties dialog box appears.

2. In the Image Properties dialog box, provide a name for the image (which will not be displayed), and an optional tooltip (displayed when the users hovers the pointer over the image). The Select the image source box has the following three options:

· External: For images that exist on the report server or another external source. If you select this option, you must provide a URL to the image location in the Use this image field. If the image is changed at its source, the image in the report will change dynamically.

· Embedded: For images that do not have to be changed. Click the Import button and browse to the image location. The image is embedded in the report and will not change dynamically.

· Database: For images stored in the database. Provide the path of the image in the Use this field box. In the Use this MIME type box, select the appropriate MIME type for the image.

3. The Size, Visibility, Action, and Border tabs in the Image Properties dialog box enable you to change the appearance of the image in the report, and also enable you to set the image as a link to another report or URL.

For more information about how to use images in reports, see Images in SQL Server Books Online (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=207938)

Adding an Additional Dataset to the Report

You may want to add another set of data to the same report, using a different dataset. This lets you consolidate reports into a single document for ease of reference.

To add an additional dataset to the report

1. In the Report Data window, click New, and then click Dataset. The Dataset Properties dialog box appears.

2. In the Name field, enter a name for the dataset or use the default.

3. In the Data source field, select the data source, usually DataWarehouseMain.

4. In the Query field, enter the query. This can either a query created earlier or click the Query Designer button to create a query. When you have finished, click OK.

5. A second dataset will appear in the Report Data window. From the Toolbox, select a Table, Matrix, Chart, or Gauge, depending on how you want to represent the data. Drag the selected control onto the design surface, and a new data item will appear in the report.

6. From the Report Data window, drag the desired data fields onto the Table, Matrix, Chart, or Gauge tool, as appropriate.

Changing the Data in the Report

2013-03-12T04:16:00.001-07:00

Changing the Data in the Report

To change the data that’s displayed in the report, you must change the query.

To change the query

1. In the Report Data tree, right-click the dataset, by default this is DataSet1, and then select Query. This starts the Query Designer.

2. Within the Query Designer, click the Edit As Text button to edit the query directly in the window. Click the Import… button to use a query that you saved previously. The ! button runs the query and displays the results in the lower pane of the Query Designer. If the report does not show the data that you expected, you can revise the query and test it without recreating the report.

Changing the Appearance of the Report

Within the report dataset, you can change the rows, columns, or individual cells. When you click any cell in the dataset, borders will appear around the table. You can click the border to select a row or a column. To select a specific cell in the table, click in that cell. The properties for the row, column, or cell you selected are displayed in the Properties window. By default, this window is located at the lower-right corner of the interface.

To change the name of a column, click in the column heading and edit the text in the text box. You can also change the font, background color, text color, and many other properties of the text box with the Properties window. Drag the borders of the column to change the column’s size. Reorder the columns by dragging them to the new desired position.

To enable sorting in table columns

1. Right-click the column to which you want to add sorting, and click Text Box Properties. The Text Box Properties window opens.

2. Click the Interactive Sorting tab. Select the check box Enable interactive sorting on this text box. You can select to sort by detail rows or by groups. Select the column to sort by, and then click OK.

Note: If you want the report to sort on a particular field by default, add an ORDER BY clause to the query.

Adding a Chart to the Report

Instead of, or in addition to, the table or matrix you may want to include a chart in the report for a visual representation of the data.

To add a chart to the report

1. You may need to expand the report area to provide sufficient room for the chart by using the resize handles.

2. Click View, and then click Toolbox. The toolbox dialog box opens; you may want to pin the toolbox in place. In the toolbox, click Chart, and then click in the report to place the chart, or drag to size the chart in the report space.

3. The Select Chart Type dialog box appears, giving you various chart choices. Select the type of chart you want to add, and then click OK. The chart appears on the design surface.

4. Drag the chart in the report to move it or use the resize controls to resize it.

5. Click the area labeled Axis Title to change the text on the axis.

6. To add data fields to the report, select the Report Data pane (click View, and then Report Data if the Report Data pane is no longer visible), and expand the dataset to show the data fields the query retrieves. On the design surface, click the chart that you added. This reveals three areas around the border of the chart as follows:

a. Drop data fields here: Drag data fields here that you want to represent as values in the chart (for example, the height of the bars in a bar graph).

b. Drop category fields here: Drag data fields here for which you want to present the values (for example, the items on the x-axis in a bar graph).

c. Drop series fields here: These fields are optional. Drag data fields here to add an extra dimension to the chart (for example, if a bar graph has multiple data fields for a single category field).

7. With the chart selected, the Properties window lets you define the properties of the chart itself, such as the colors, borders, and size.

Using a Report Builder

2013-03-07T02:21:00.002-08:00

After you have a query that retrieves the data that you need, you are ready to create a report. There are several tools that can be used to create a report: Microsoft Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), Microsoft Visual Studio, Report Builder, or Microsoft Excel. This guide uses BIDS because it is already installed with Microsoft SQL Server and integrates seamlessly with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).

Creating a New Report Project

The easiest way to create a new report is to use the report wizard, which creates a simple report and populates it with a basic data display that you select. You can also create a report server project, which creates a blank report project that you then populate with a report and the data that you want to display.

To create a new report project by using the report wizard

1. Open BIDS, click File, click New, and then click Project.

2. In the New Project window, in the Project Types pane, make sure that Business Intelligence Projects is selected. In the Templates pane, select Report Server Project Wizard. Enter a name for the project, and then click OK.

3. The Report Wizard starts. On the welcome page, click Next.

4. On the Select the Data Source page, enter DataWarehouseMain as the name, leave the Type as Microsoft SQL Server, and make sure that you select the Make this a shared data source check box. Click the Edit button.

5. The Connection Properties dialog box appears. In the Server Name field, enter the name of the server. In the Log on to the server box, enter the appropriate credentials, as discussed in Setting up the Environment. In the Connect to a database box, select the Select or enter a database name option. In the drop-down box, select the OperationsManagerDW database, and then click OK. The wizard will reappear with the Connection String box filled in. Click Next.

6. The Design the Query page of the wizard appears. In the Query string box, if you have created the query already, as described in Creating Custom Queries, paste the query into the Query String field. If you have not yet created a query, click the Query Builder button to start the Query Designer.

7. Within the Query Designer, the default view is the graphical query designer. For more information about how to design a query visually, see the guide to Query Designer (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=207899). Click the Edit As Text button to edit the query directly in the window. Click the Import… button to use a query that you saved previously. The ! button runs the query and displays the results in the lower pane of the Query Designer. If the report does not show the data that you expected, you can revise the query and test it without recreating the report. After you have created the query, click OK.

8. You are returned to the Design the Query page of the wizard. Click Next.

9. On the Select the Report Type page of the wizard, select Tabular or Matrix. A tabular report returns columns; a matrix report uses an intersection of columns and rows for a more precise view of the data. Click Next.

10. On the Design the Table page of the wizard, select how you want the data in the table to be organized. The options are as follows:

· The Page option indicates the fields that appear at the page level of the report.

· The Group option indicates the fields by which to group the data in the table.

· The Details option indicates the fields that are displayed in the details section of the table.

To change the order of the fields in any group, select a field, and then click the up button or the down button. You can also accept the defaults by clicking Next.

11. On the Choose the Table Style page of the wizard there is a list of several styles that affect color and layout choices. Select the visual style you prefer for the table. Click Next.

12. On the Choose the Deployment Location page of the wizard, select where the report will be deployed. By default, the URL for the Operations Manager reporting server is entered. However, you should confirm that this URL is correct. Enter a name for the Deployment folder or accept the default.

13. On the Completing the Wizard page, enter a name for the report. This will be displayed on the report page. You can review the report summary data on this page. If you want to adjust any of the settings, click the Back button and make the appropriate changes. If you select the Preview report check box, the editor will open in the Preview tab instead of the Design tab. Click Finish to continue.

14. The basic layout of the report appears in the main window of BIDS. You will see the following two tabs:

· The Design tab, which shows the layout of the report with the fields returned from the query in place

· The Preview tab, which shows what the data looks like in the report

To create a report without using the report wizard

1. Open BIDS, click File, and then click New Project.

2. In the New Project window, in the Project Types pane, make sure that Business Intelligence Projects is selected. In the Templates pane, select Report Server Project. Enter a name for the project, and then click OK.

3. The project is created, but still shows the Start page as there is no report in the project yet. In the menu bar, click Project, and then click Add New Item. The Add New Item dialog box appears. In the Templates pane, select Report, and then click Add. The design surface appears in the main window with the Design tab selected, which shows a blank report.

4. You must add a data source and a dataset to your report in order to display any data. In the Report Data pane, click New, and then click Data Source. The Data Source Properties dialog box appears. Provide a name for the data source (DataWarehouseMain is recommended) or accept the default. If you have not created a shared data source, select Embedded connection; for the Type, select Microsoft SQL Server, and for the Connection string enter the connection information for the OperationsManagerDW database. If you created a shared data source previously, as discussed in Setting up the Environment, select Use shared data source reference, and then select the shared data source in the box. Click OK.

5. In the Report Data pane, click New, and then click Dataset. Enter a name for the dataset or use the default. Select the Data source, usually DataWarehouseMain, and then enter the query. This can either a query created earlier, or click the Query Designer button and create the query using the Graphical Query Designer. When you have finished, click OK.

6. The dataset appears in the Report Data window with the available dataset fields retrieved by the query displayed below the dataset name.

7. Click View, and then click Toolbox to display the Toolbox dialog box. The Toolbox contains several standard items that can be used in reports. From the Toolbox, select a Table, Matrix, Chart, or Gauge, depending on how you want to represent the data, and drag it onto the design surface of the report. From the Report Data window, drag the desired fields onto the Table, Matrix, Chart, or Gauge tool, as appropriate.

8. Check the appearance of the report by clicking the Preview tab.

The Performance Report

2013-03-07T02:19:00.002-08:00

The Performance Report

The Performance report is similar to the Availability report in that it retrieves data for a specified time period on specific entities and retrieves the information from various views. The purpose of the Performance report is to report on the change of a value over time.

The query retrieves some basic information from the vPerfDaily view, which, in this query, has the alias of vPerf:

SELECT

vPerf.DateTime,

vPerf.SampleCount,

vPerf.AverageValue,

vPerf.MinValue,

vPerf.MaxValue,

vPerf.StandardDeviation,

The query also retrieves the performance rules located in the vPerformanceRuleInstance view:

vPerformanceRuleInstance.RuleRowId,

vPerformanceRuleInstance.InstanceName,

As in the other queries, data is retrieved from the vManagedEntity view, in particular the ManagedEntityRowId, although the GUID, default name, and path are also retrieved:

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityGuid,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityDefaultName,

vManagedEntity.Path,

As in the Availability query, the query retrieves a display name if it exists:

ISNULL(vDisplayString.Name,vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeDefaultName)

AS DisplayName,

To display management group information, the query accesses the vManagementGroup view:

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupGuid,

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupDefaultName,

The query also accesses the vRule and vPerformanceRule views:

vRule.RuleGuid,

ISNULL(vDisplayStringRule.Name,vRule.RuleDefaultName) AS RuleDisplayName,

vPerformanceRule.MultiInstanceInd,

The query also retrieves group information from the temporary table #OptionList:

OptionList.[Group],

OptionList.GroupTitle,

OptionList.Position,

OptionList.ChartScale,

OptionList.ChartType,

OptionList.ChartColor,

OptionList.OptionXml,

vManagedEntityTypeImage.Image

The FROM clause in the Performance query is more complex than in the Alert or Availability queries. It begins with the information retrieved from vPerfDaily:

FROM Perf.vPerfDaily as vPerf

The query joins that to the performance rule view, using PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId as the foreign key:

INNER JOIN vPerformanceRuleInstance

ON vPerformanceRuleInstance.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId = vPerf.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId

The query then joins that to the vManagedEntity view, again using ManagedEntityRowId as the key:

INNER JOIN vManagedEntity

ON vPerf.ManagedEntityRowId = vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRow

Once joined to the vManagedEntity view, the query joins to the vManagedEntityType view to retrieve the type for the managed entity:

INNER JOIN vManagedEntityType

ON vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

The query also joins to the vManagementGroup view using the ManagementGroupRowId as the key:

INNER JOIN vManagementGroup

ON vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupRowId = vManagedEntity.ManagementGroupRowId

To retrieve performance information, the query needs to join the vRule and vPerformanceRule views to the vPerformanceRuleInstance view using the RuleRowId as the key in each case.

INNER JOIN vRule

ON vPerformanceRuleInstance.RuleRowId = vRule.RuleRowId

INNER JOIN vPerformanceRule

ON vPerformanceRuleInstance.RuleRowId = vPerformanceRule.RuleRowId

The query needs to join to the #InstanceList:

INNER JOIN #InstanceList AS InstanceList

ON (vPerformanceRuleInstance.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId = InstanceList.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId)

The query needs to join to the #OptionList:

INNER JOIN #OptionList As OptionList

ON (InstanceList.Position = OptionList.Position)

Finally, the query joins the ObjectList to the InstanceList and to the vManagedEntity view using the ManagedEntityRowId as the key:

INNER JOIN #ObjectList AS ObjectList

ON (InstanceList.Position = ObjectList.Position)

AND (vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId = ObjectList.ManagedEntityRowId)

The query then retrieves the image to use for the entity type:

LEFT OUTER JOIN vManagedEntityTypeImage

ON vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntityTypeImage.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

AND vManagedEntityTypeImage.ImageCategory = N'u16x16Icon'

Finally, the query joins the vDisplayString and vDisplayStringRule views to retrieve the necessary display strings for the report. The @LanguageCode is a parameter specified by the report designer.

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString

ON vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeGuid = vDisplayString.ElementGuid

AND vDisplayString.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString vDisplayStringRule

ON vRule.RuleGuid = vDisplayStringRule.ElementGuid

AND vDisplayStringRule.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

The WHERE clause is similar to the one in the Availability report. It retrieves all the data that falls between the two dates specified in the date picker:

WHERE (vPerf.DateTime >= DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @StartDate), convert(varchar(8), @StartDate, 112)))

AND (vPerf.DateTime < DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @EndDate), convert(varchar(8), @EndDate, 112)))

The important points to note in this query are that the ManagedEntityRowId is a useful foreign key, and the format of the WHERE clause is similar to that used in the Availability report.

Here’s what the complete query looks like

SELECT

vPerf.DateTime,

vPerf.SampleCount,

vPerf.AverageValue,

vPerf.MinValue,

vPerf.MaxValue,

vPerf.StandardDeviation,

vPerformanceRuleInstance.RuleRowId,

vPerformanceRuleInstance.InstanceName,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityGuid,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityDefaultName,

vManagedEntity.Path,

ISNULL(vDisplayString.Name,vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeDefaultName)

AS DisplayName,

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupGuid,

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupDefaultName,

vRule.RuleGuid,

ISNULL(vDisplayStringRule.Name,vRule.RuleDefaultName) AS RuleDisplayName,

vPerformanceRule.MultiInstanceInd,

OptionList.[Group],

OptionList.GroupTitle,

OptionList.Position,

OptionList.ChartScale,

OptionList.ChartType,

OptionList.ChartColor,

OptionList.OptionXml,

vManagedEntityTypeImage.Image

FROM Perf.vPerfDaily as vPerf

INNER JOIN vPerformanceRuleInstance

ON vPerformanceRuleInstance.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId = vPerf.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId

INNER JOIN vManagedEntity

ON vPerf.ManagedEntityRowId = vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId

INNER JOIN vManagedEntityType

ON vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

INNER JOIN vManagementGroup

ON vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupRowId = vManagedEntity.ManagementGroupRowId

INNER JOIN vRule

ON vPerformanceRuleInstance.RuleRowId = vRule.RuleRowId

INNER JOIN vPerformanceRule

ON vPerformanceRuleInstance.RuleRowId = vPerformanceRule.RuleRowId

INNER JOIN #InstanceList AS InstanceList

ON (vPerformanceRuleInstance.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId = InstanceList.PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId)

INNER JOIN #OptionList As OptionList

ON (InstanceList.Position = OptionList.Position)

INNER JOIN #ObjectList AS ObjectList

ON (InstanceList.Position = ObjectList.Position)

AND (vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId = ObjectList.ManagedEntityRowId)

LEFT OUTER JOIN vManagedEntityTypeImage

ON vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntityTypeImage.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

AND vManagedEntityTypeImage.ImageCategory = N'u16x16Icon'

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString

ON vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeGuid = vDisplayString.ElementGuid

AND vDisplayString.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString vDisplayStringRule

ON vRule.RuleGuid = vDisplayStringRule.ElementGuid

AND vDisplayStringRule.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

WHERE (vPerf.DateTime >= DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @StartDate), convert(varchar(8), @StartDate, 112)))

AND (vPerf.DateTime < DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @EndDate), convert(varchar(8), @EndDate, 112)))

The Availability Report

2013-03-07T02:14:00.001-08:00

The Availability Report

In contrast to the Alert report, the Availability report draws information from several different views. The Availability report shows the time in any given state (Red, Yellow, Green, White, Disabled, Planned Maintenance, and Unplanned Maintenance) for the monitored entities.

This report returns availability data, which is a state condition, so the information is in the vState views. The query starts off by selecting the amount of time in each state:

SELECTvState.InRedStateMilliseconds,

vState.InYellowStateMilliseconds,

vState.InGreenStateMilliseconds,

vState.InWhiteStateMilliseconds,

vState.InDisabledStateMilliseconds,

vState.InPlannedMaintenanceMilliseconds,

vState.InUnplannedMaintentanceMilliseconds,

vState.HealthServiceUnavailableMilliseconds

The report also needs to show which entities the information is associated with. Therefore, the query retrieves the name, ID, and path for the managed entities in the report. The ManagedEntityRowId is again important because it’s used as a foreign key later.

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityDefaultName,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityGuid,

vManagedEntity.Path,

The query also retrieves the type of the managed entity by retrieving the GUID for that entity:

vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeGuid,

The GUID for the managed entity type is enough to identify it but the report also displays the name for that type. If the management pack author did not include a display name, this field will not be available so the stored procedure uses an ISNULL statement to retrieve the name if it is available. If not, it retrieves the default name instead:

ISNULL(vDisplayString.Name,vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeDefaultName) AS DisplayName

The Availability report also displays an icon for each managed entity in the table so the query retrieves that image also:

vManagedEntityTypeImage.Image

In addition to the managed entity, the query also retrieves the monitor data:

vManagedEntityMonitor.ManagedEntityMonitorRowId,

The query also retrieves the display name for the monitor, just as it did for the managed entity. If the name isn’t available, the ISNULL statement substitutes the default monitor name.

ISNULL(vDisplayStringMonitor.Name,vMonitor.MonitorDefaultName) AS MonitorDisplayName,

The following two items are related to entity monitor dependencies:

vManagedEntityMonitorDependency.ParentManagedEntityRowId,

vManagedEntityMonitorDependency.[Level],

If the entities being monitoring are selected by Management Group, the query retrieves the ID and name of the group also:

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupGuid,

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupDefaultName

The SELECT clause retrieves all the data for display in the report. The next step is to determine where to select the data from. This information is with state data, which means you have a choice between vStateDailyFull and vStateHourlyFull. The Microsoft Generic Report Library uses vStateDailyFull:

FROM vStateDailyFull as vState

The query joins the vManagedEntityMonitor view to the state view in order to retrieve the monitors for the managed entities. The ManagedEntityRowId is the foreign key used:

INNER JOIN vManagedEntityMonitor ON

vState.ManagedEntityMonitorRowId = vManagedEntityMonitor.ManagedEntityRowId

The query also joins the vManagedEntity view. This connects the specified monitors to the managed entities, again using ManagedEntityRowId as the foreign key:

INNER JOIN vManagedEntity ON

vManagedEntityMonitor.ManagedEntityRowID = vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId

The query then joins the vManagedEntityType view using ManagedEntityTypeRowId as the foreign key:

INNER JOIN vManagedEntityType ON

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

Next, the query joins the vMonitor view to the state data. MonitorRowId is the key:

INNER JOIN vMonitor ON vState.MonitorRowId = vMonitor.MonitorRowId

The query also joins the dependencies:

INNER JOIN #ManagedEntityMonitorDependency AS vManagedEntityMonitorDependency ON

vState.ManagedEntityMonitorRowId = vManagedEntityMonitorDependency.ChildManagedEntityMonitorRowId

Finally, the query joins the management groups to their managed entities using the ManagementGroupRowId as the foreign key:

INNER JOIN vManagementGroup ON

vManagedEntity.ManagementGroupRowId = vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupRowId

The query then retrieves the image to use for the entity type:

LEFT OUTER JOIN vManagedEntityTypeImage

ON vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntityTypeImage.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

AND vManagedEntityTypeImage.ImageCategory = N'u16x16Icon'

The last few joins retrieve the display strings for the managed entity and the monitor:

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString ON

vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeGuid = vDisplaySTring.ElementGuid AND

vDisplayString.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString vDisplayStringMonitor ON

vMonitor.MonitorGuid = vDisplayStringMonitor.ElementGuid AND

vDisplayStringMonitor.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

The WHERE clause is the next part of the query:

WHERE (vState.DateTime >= DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @StartDate) + 1, convert (varchar(8), @StartDate, 112))) AND

(vState.DateTime < DATEADD (hh, DATEPART(hh, @EndDate) +1, convert(varchar(8) @EndDate, 112))) AND

(vState.Date BETWEEN DATEADD(day, -1, @StartDate) AND DATEADD(day, 1, @EndDate))

This clause retrieves all data that falls between the two dates that the report user specified in the date picker. @StartDate and @EndDate are the parameters from the date picker.

1. DATEPART(hh, @StartDate) returns the hour part of the @StartDate variable. This value is increased by 1 to return the next full hour after the time specified in @StartDate.

2. convert(varchar(8), @StartDate, 112) converts the @StartDate parameter to character data (varchar(8)) in the format yyyymmdd; the 112 specifies that format.

3. DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @StartDate) + 1, convert (varchar(8), @StartDate, 112)) adds the specified hour to the specified date, in yyyymmdd format, rounded up to the next hour.

The effect of the entire WHERE clause is to specify the vState data collected between the specified hours. This WHERE clause can be useful in many different reports, and is used throughout the Microsoft Generic Report Library.

Unlike the Alert Report, the Availability report uses information from several different views, most of which can be joined on the ManagedEntityRowId. Also note how the vManagedEntityType and vMonitor views are joined if you want to include that information in your custom report.

Here’s what the complete query looks like:

SELECT

vState.DateTime,

vState.InRedStateMilliseconds,

vState.InYellowStateMilliseconds,

vState.InGreenStateMilliseconds,

vState.InWhiteStateMilliseconds,

vState.InDisabledStateMilliseconds,

vState.InPlannedMaintenanceMilliseconds,

vState.InUnplannedMaintentanceMilliseconds,

vState.HealthServiceUnavailableMilliseconds

vState.IntervalDurationMilliseconds,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId,

vManagedEntityMonitor.ManagedEntityMonitorRowId,

vManagedEntityTypeImage.Image,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityDefaultName,

vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeGuid,

vManagedEntityMonitorDependency.ParentManagedEntityRowId,

vManagedEntityMonitorDependency.[Level],

ISNULL(vDisplayStringMonitor.Name,vMonitor.MonitorDefaultName) AS MonitorDisplayName,

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityGuid,

vManagedEntity.Path,

ISNULL(vDisplayString.Name,vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeDefaultName) AS DisplayName

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupGuid,

vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupDefaultName

FROM vStateDailyFull as vState

INNER JOIN vManagedEntityMonitor ON

vState.ManagedEntityMonitorRowId = vManagedEntityMonitor.ManagedEntityRowId

INNER JOIN vManagedEntity ON

vManagedEntityMonitor.ManagedEntityRowID = vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityRowId

INNER JOIN vManagedEntityType ON

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeRowId

INNER JOIN vMonitor ON

vState.MonitorRowId = vMonitor.MonitorRowId

INNER JOIN #ManagedEntityMonitorDependency AS vManagedEntityMonitorDependency ON

vState.ManagedEntityMonitorRowId = vManagedEntityMonitorDependency.ChildManagedEntityMonitorRowId

INNER JOIN vManagementGroup ON

vManagedEntity.ManagementGroupRowId = vManagementGroup.ManagementGroupRowId

LEFT OUTER JOIN vManagedEntityTypeImage ON

vManagedEntity.ManagedEntityTypeRowId = vManagedEntityTypeImage.ManagedEntityTypeRowId AND

vManagedEntityTypeImage.ImageCategory = N’u16x16Icon’

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString ON

vManagedEntityType.ManagedEntityTypeGuid = vDisplaySTring.ElementGuid AND

vDisplayString.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

LEFT OUTER JOIN vDisplayString vDisplayStringMonitor ON

vMonitor.MonitorGuid = vDisplayStringMonitor.ElementGuid AND

vDisplayStringMonitor.LanguageCode = @LanguageCode

WHERE (vState.DateTime >= DATEADD(hh, DATEPART(hh, @StartDate) + 1, convert (varchar(8), @StartDate, 112))) AND

(vState.DateTime < DATEADD (hh, DATEPART(hh, @EndDate) +1, convert(varchar(8) @EndDate, 112))) AND

(vState.Date BETWEEN DATEADD(day, -1, @StartDate) AND DATEADD(day, 1, @EndDate))

Inside a Generic Report

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Inside a Generic Report

Before you start building your own queries, it may be helpful to see how the queries for the built-in reports work. The sections below look at the queries used by three existing reports from the Microsoft Generic Report Library: The Availability report, the Alerts report, and the Performance report. For each report, the query is located in a stored procedure. The stored procedures are reproduced here so you can see the Transact-SQL code.

The Alert Report

The purpose of the Alert report is to present a simple list of alerts raised by the managed objects specified in the parameters of the report. The report in the Generic Library can list events of all severities (Information, Warning, and Critical) and all Priorities (Low, Medium, and High). For each alert, it provides the Alert Name, Repeat Count, Priority, the Object that raised the alert, and the first and last dates where the alert appeared.

This query deals with Alert data, so it uses the vAlert view. First, it retrieves the AlertName, Severity, and Priority, which are all basic information. It also retrieves the ManagedEntityRowId, which will be used as a foreign key later in the query:

SELECT

Alert.vAlert.AlertName,

Alert.vAlert.Severity,

Alert.vAlert.Priority,

Alert.vAlert.ManagedEntityRowId,

Each time the alert is raised it creates a new record. To get the first and last dates where the alert was raised, this query uses the MAX and MIN functions:

MAX(Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime) AS LastRaisedTime,

MIN(Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime) AS FirstRaisedTime,

The query also uses the MIN function to retrieve the AlertDescription. The description is just text, but using MIN guarantees that the query will retrieve only one entry for the given alert. This is required because the descriptions should all be identical:

MIN(Alert.vAlert.AlertDescription) AS AlertDescription,

To get the number of times an alert was repeated, the query uses the COUNT function. This simply counts the number of rows retrieved and indicates how many times the event was raised:

COUNT(*) AS RepeatCount,

Finally, the query retrieves the SiteName and the AlertProblemGuid. It does not use the AlertGuid because that row is unique for each individual Alert. Instead, it uses the AlertProblemGuid, which identifies the specific type of alert:

Alert.vAlert.SiteName,

Alert.vAlert.AlertProblemGuid

To define the FROM clause, the query retrieves all of the rows above from the vAlert view. It then joins that information to several temporary tables. The #ObjectList table holds the objects passed in to the query from the report. The vAlert.Severity and vAlert.Priority fields are simply integers, which can be used with the #SeverityList.Severity field and the #PriorityList.Priority tables to return text strings:

FROM Alert.vAlert

INNER JOIN #ObjectList ON #ObjectList.ManagedEntityRowId = Alert.vAlert.ManagedEntityRowId

INNER JOIN #SeverityList ON #SeverityList.Severity = Alert.vAlert.Severity

INNER JOIN #PriorityList ON #PriorityList.Priority = Alert.vAlert.Priority

The WHERE clause simply limits the query by the dates and the site name (if any) that was passed from the report form. The variables preceded by the @ symbol are parameters defined in the report form.

WHERE

Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime >= @StartDate AND

Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime < @EndDate AND

(@SiteName IS NULL OR Alert.vAlert.SiteName = @SiteName)

Finally, there’s a simple GROUP BY clause which groups records with identical results into summary rows, so that the report does not contain duplicate alerts:

GROUP BY

Alert.vAlert.AlertName,

Alert.vAlert.Severity,

Alert.vAlert.Priority,

Alert.vAlert.ManagedEntityRowId,

Alert.vAlert.SiteName,

Alert.vAlert.AlertProblemGuid

Here’s what the complete query looks like:

SELECT

Alert.vAlert.AlertName,

Alert.vAlert.Severity,

Alert.vAlert.Priority,

Alert.vAlert.ManagedEntityRowId,

MAX(Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime) AS LastRaisedTime,

MIN(Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime) AS FirstRaisedTime,

MIN(Alert.vAlert.AlertDescription) AS AlertDescription,

COUNT(*) AS RepeatCount,

Alert.vAlert.SiteName,

Alert.vAlert.AlertProblemGuid

FROM Alert.vAlert

INNER JOIN #ObjectList ON #ObjectList.ManagedEntityRowId = Alert.vAlert.ManagedEntityRowId

INNER JOIN #SeverityList ON #SeverityList.Severity = Alert.vAlert.Severity

INNER JOIN #PriorityList ON #PriorityList.Priority = Alert.vAlert.Priority

WHERE

Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime >= @StartDate AND

Alert.vAlert.RaisedDateTime < @EndDate AND

(@SiteName IS NULL OR Alert.vAlert.SiteName = @SiteName)

GROUP BY

Alert.vAlert.AlertName,

Alert.vAlert.Severity,

Alert.vAlert.Priority,

Alert.vAlert.ManagedEntityRowId,

Alert.vAlert.SiteName,

Alert.vAlert.AlertProblemGuid

Although this query may seem complicated, its function isn’t. It retrieves most of the values from the vAlert view, filtered by date, with additional access to some outside lists.

The OperationsManagerDW Schema

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The OperationsManagerDW Schema

The OperationsManagerDW database stores data for use in reports. This is in contrast to the OperationsManager database, which stores data for use at the Operations Manager console. A large number of database views are provided in order to make queries easier to write, without requiring you to have detailed knowledge of the schema.

Datasets

There are five main groupings, or datasets, within the OperationsManagerDW database:

Alert

Contains records of alerts raised by the management pack rules and monitors.

Event

Contains records of event data collected by management pack rules.

Performance

Contains data regarding the performance of managed entities (objects monitored by Operations Manager), collected by management pack rules.

State

Contains data collected by monitors about the state of a managed entity.

ManagedEntity

Provides information about monitored objects, management packs, management groups, and relationships. The views in this dataset are typically joined to other views (Alert, Event, Performance, and so on) to provide the name of the monitored object, or to scope the query to a specific group, management pack, or management group.

Each of these datasets corresponds to a different category of reports in the operator console.

Database Views

The tables of the OperationsManagerDW database should never be accessed directly. Instead, a number of database views are provided for access. When structural changes are made to the OperationsManagerDW database, every effort is made to ensure that the views are consistent so that existing reports can be used without changes. The tables, however, may be changed, and these changes may cause existing reports that query the tables directly to no longer work properly.

Key Views for Each Dataset

Alert Dataset

Alerts are generated by rules and monitors in Operations Manager and are stored in the database together with their respective details and parameters. No aggregation or summarization is performed. Alert data can be seen in four views in the Data Warehouse database:

Alert.vAlert

This view contains general information about the alert: Name, Description, Severity, the workflow that created it, the time that it was created, and the managed entity that it is associated with. This view can be joined to the other alert views on the AlertGuid column. It may also be joined to the ManagedEntity, Rule, and Monitor views to retrieve additional details.

Alert.vAlertDetail

This view contains the Custom Field, Owner, and TicketID data for the alert. It can be joined to the Alert.vAlert view on the AlertGuid column.

Alert.vAlertResolutionState

This view contains information about each Resolution State that the alert has been in, when it was set, and how long it was in the state. This view can be joined to the Alert.vAlert view on the AlertGuid column.

Alert.vAlertParameter

This view contains the value for each parameter in the alert. It can be joined to the Alert.vAlert view on the AlertGuid column.

Sample Alert Dataset Query

To retrieve the number of alerts generated yesterday, use the following Transact-SQL query:

SELECT COUNT (AlertName)

FROM

Alert.vAlert

WHERE DATEDIFF(dd,0,RaisedDateTime) = DATEDIFF(dd,0,GETDATE()-1)

Event Dataset

Events are collected from monitored objects by Event Collection Rules in Operations Manager and are stored in the database together with their respective details and parameters. No aggregation or summarization is performed. Event data can be seen in several views in the Data Warehouse database:

Event.vEvent

This is the main view for Events. It contains the unique ID for the Event (EventOriginId), the date/time of the Event, the Event Number, and other unique IDs that can be joined to the other Event views to get the details of the Event.

Event.vEventDetail

This view can be joined to the Event.vEvent view on the EventOriginId column to provide the event description found in the EventData column.

Event.vEventParameter

This view can be joined to the Event.vEvent view on the EventOriginId column to provide the event parameters. This is generally the same information that is in the event description, with part of it in each parameter. Separate joins should be done from the Event.vEvent view for each parameter that is needed.

Event.vEventRule

This view contains the RuleRowId of the rule that generated the event and the ManagedEntityRowId of the managed entity that the alert came from. This view should be joined to the Event.vEvent, vRule, and vManagedEntity views to get these details.

vEventCategory

This view provides the event category information and can be joined on the EventCategoryRowId column in the Event.vEvent view.

vEventLevel

This view provides the event Level (Warning, Error, and so on) and can be joined on the EventLevelId column in the Event.vEvent view.

vEventUserName

This view provides the user name that was logged with the event and can be joined on the UserNameRowId column in the Event.vEvent view.

vEventChannel

This view provides the channel for the event. This will be either the name of the event log (Application, System, and so on) or a name supplied in a custom event collection rule. This view can be joined on the EventChannelRowId column in the Event.vEvent view.

vEventPublisher

This view provides the publisher for the event. This will be either the Source in the event log or a name supplied in a custom event collection rule. This view can be joined on the EventPublisherRowId column in the Event.vEvent view.

vEventLoggingComputer

This view provides the name of the computer that logged the event and can be joined on the LoggingComputerRowId column in the Event.vEvent view.

Sample Event Dataset Query

To retrieve the ten most frequently occurring events in the OperationsManagerDW database, use the following Transact-SQL query:

SELECT TOP 10 EventDisplayNumber, COUNT(*) AS Events

FROM Event.vEvent

GROUP BY EventDisplayNumber

ORDER BY Events DESC

Performance Dataset

Performance data is available in daily and hourly aggregates, which contain the minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation of the values collected. You will generally query either the Perf.vPerfDaily or Perf.vPerfHourly views and join them to other views to get the managed entity and rule information. The vPerfRaw view can be queried (instead of the hourly or daily views) to get the value of each sample. By default, this data is kept for a shorter time than the hourly and daily aggregated data. For optimal report performance, it is recommended that you use vPerfDaily or vPerfHourly instead of vPerfRaw. The Performance data views are as follows:

Perf.vPerfDaily and Perf.vPerfHourly

These views contain the hourly and daily aggregated performance data. The minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation of the values in the vPerfRaw view are calculated and stored in these views. These views can be joined to the vManagedEntity table on the ManagedEntityRowId column to get the information for the object that the values were collected from. They can then be joined to the vPerformanceRuleInstance view on the PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId column to get the name of the performance object and counter and the rule that was used to collect them.

vPerformanceRuleInstance

This view contains the ID for the instance of the counter that was collected together with the IDs for the performance counters and the rules that collected them. Use this view to link the daily/hourly aggregation views to the vPerformanceRule view on the PerformanceRuleInstanceId column, and then to the vRule view on the RuleRowId column.

vPerformanceRule

This view contains the counter and object names that were collected and can be joined to the PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId column in the vPerformanceRuleInstance view.

vRule

This view contains the name of the rule that collected the performance counter and can be joined on the RuleRowId column in the vPerformanceRuleInstance view. It also contains a ManagmentPackRowId column which can be joined to the vManagementPack view to get the information about the management pack that contains the rule.

Sample Performance Dataset Query

To retrieve the top ten performance rule instances being monitored, use the following query:

SELECT TOP 10 PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId, COUNT(*) AS Count

FROM Perf.vPerfDaily

GROUP BY PerformanceRuleInstanceRowId

ORDER BY Count DESC

State Dataset

The State data views contain data on how long any given monitor was in each possible state (Healthy, Warning, Critical, and so on). The data is summarized for each object and aggregated daily and hourly. The State data views are described and illustrated below:

vStateHourlyFull and vSTateDailyFull

These views contain the hourly and daily aggregated state data and contain data on how long each monitor/managed entity combination was in each possible state. The MonitorRowId and ManagedEntity columns can be joined to the vMonitor and vManagedEntity views to get information about the monitor that changed the state and the managed entity that the state was changed for. It is not recommended that you use these views in Availability reports; use State.vStateHourly and State.vStateDaily instead.

State.vStateHourly and State.vStateDaily

These views are derived from the vStateHourlyFull and vStateDailyFull and are used in availability reports. These views can be joined to the vManagedEntityMonitor on the ManagedEntityMonitorRowId column.

vMonitor

This view contains the information about the monitor that caused the state change and can be joined on the MonitorRowId column of the vStateHourlyFull and vStateHourlyDaily views.

Sample State Dataset Query

To retrieve the ManagedEntityMonitorRowID for any entity that has been in the red (Critical) state for more than one minute, use the following query:

SELECT ManagedEntityMonitorRowId

FROM State.vStateHourly

WHERE InRedStateMilliseconds > 60000

Managed Entity Dataset

The managed entity dataset provides information about monitored objects, management packs, relationships, and management groups. These views are typically joined to other views (Alert, Event, Performance, or State) to provide the name of the monitored object or to scope the query to a specific group, management pack, or management group.

vManagedEntity

This view provides the names for all monitored objects in the OperationsManagerDW database. This view is generally joined to views from the other datasets to provide the name of the object that the collected data applies to. This view can also be joined to the vManagedEntityType view on the ManagedEntityTypeRowId column to scope the list of objects down to a specific type of object, to the vRelationship view on the ManagementGroupRowId column to scope the list of objects down to a specific group, and to the vManagementGroup view on the ManagementGroupRowId column to scope the list of objects to a specific management group.

vManagedEntityType

This view provides information about the types of objects that occur in the vManagedEntity view (operating system, database, and so on). This view can be joined to the vManagedEntity view on the ManagedEntityTypeRowID column. This view can also be joined to the vManagementPack view on the ManagementPackRowId column to show which management pack defines each type of object.

vManagementPack

This view provides information about the Management Packs in the Operations Manager environment and can be joined to the vManagedEntityType, vMonitor, and vRule views.

vRelationship

This view provides relationship information, which can be used to retrieve group membership for Managed Entities. This view can be joined to the vManagedEntity view on the SourceManagedEntityRowId and TargetManagedEntityRowId columns.

vRelationshipType

This view provides information about the type of relationships identified in the vRelationship view and can be joined to other views on the RelationshipTypeRowId column.

vManagementGroup

This view provides information about Management Groups that send data to the Data Warehouse and can be joined to several other views on the ManagementGroupRowId column.

The OperationsManagerDW Schema

2013-03-01T05:43:00.001-08:00

The OperationsManagerDW Schema

The most important part of writing a custom report is generating the correct query to extract the information you need from the OperationsManagerDW database. To write the correct query, you need to understand the database schema. Reports should only query the database views built into OperationsManagerDW; you should not access the tables directly.

In This Section

The OperationsManagerDW Schema

Before you can start to write a custom report, you need to know what views in the OperationsManagerDW database hold the information you want to retrieve. For custom queries, you only need to access a subset of the schema. This section covers this subset of the schema and introduces the views that you’ll need to access in order to write a custom query.

Inside a Generic Report

A good way to become familiar with the SQL queries you’ll need in order to create custom reports is to look inside one of the published reports that are installed with the Operations Manager Management Pack. This section examines the SQL queries in several of the reports and explains how they function, which will enable you to build your own queries.

Creating Custom Queries

Once you understand the schema and how the queries work in the existing reports, this section shows you how to write your own custom report query. This section will use multiple examples, starting with a basic query that retrieves just one counter across several computers, and then moving to more complex examples. Although these examples address specific custom reporting needs, the intent is that you will be able to use them as a model to create your own custom queries.

Custom Report Parameters

Operations Manager reports contain a parameter area that allows users to specify the bounds of the database query with respect to target objects, monitoring times, and other options. You can define what parameters are available in your custom report, and populate those parameters with the default data that users are most likely to want. This section explains how to customize the parameter area of your custom report.

Localizing Reports

This section describes how to localize management packs for multiple language support.

Using Stored Procedures in a Custom Report

Stored procedures provide more convenience and security than using embedded Transact-SQL queries in a report, but they also require some additional configuration. This section describes how to create stored procedures, use them in reports, and create scripts to enable stored procedures to be distributed with management packs.

Using a Report Builder

Unlike linked reports, custom reports require that you design the report using a report designer, either in SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), Visual Studio Report Developer, or SQL Server Report Builder. This section explains how to use BIDS to create clear and useful reports.

Operations Manager 2007 Report Authoring Guide

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Operations Manager 2007 Report Authoring Guide

This guide provides the details for creating a custom report in Operations Manager 2007 R2. You should use this guide if you have reporting requirements that cannot be addressed with one of the reports provided in the management packs that you have installed in your management group or by one of the generic reports that are installed by default.

Introducing Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

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Introducing Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

Contents

An Overview of System Center Operations Manager 2007

The Challenges of Monitoring and Management

Addressing the Challenges: What System Center Operations Manager 2007 Provides

A Common Foundation for Monitoring and Managing Desktops, Servers, and More

Customizable, Model-Based Management

Service Monitoring for Distributed Applications

Management Servers and Agents

Understanding Management Servers

Root Management Servers

Management Groups

Understanding Agents

Installing Agents

How Agents Gather and Send Information

Working with Many Agents: Managing Clients

Working with No Agents: Agentless Management

Accessing Management Information

Controlling Access: Role-Based Security

Management Packs

What Management Packs Do: Some Examples

Describing What’s Managed: Objects

Tracking Object State: Monitors

Other Elements of Management Packs

Modifying an Installed Management Pack

Managing Complete Applications: Service Monitoring

Conclusion

About the Author

An Overview of System Center Operations Manager 2007

Modern organizations of any size all have one thing in common: their computing environment isn’t simple. Everybody’s world contains hardware and software of different vintages from different vendors glued together in different ways. Managing this world—keeping these diverse, multifaceted systems running—is unavoidably complex.

Despite this complexity, two fundamental management requirements are clear. The first is the need to monitor the hardware and software in the environment, keeping track of everything from application availability to disk utilization. The operations staff that keeps the environment running must have a clear and complete picture of the current state of their world. The second requirement is the ability to respond intelligently to the information this monitoring produces. Whenever possible, this response should avoid incidents by addressing underlying problems before something fails. In any case, the operations staff must have effective tools for fixing failed systems and applications.

The goal of Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager 2007 is to meet both of these requirements. The successor to Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005, the product is focused on managing Windows environments, including desktops, servers, and the software that runs on them. It can also be used to manage non-Windows systems and software, devices such as routers and switches, and more. Released in early 2007, Operations Manager aims at providing a solution for monitoring and managing a Windows-oriented computing world.

The Challenges of Monitoring and Management

Think about what’s required for effective monitoring and management in an enterprise computing environment. Keeping track of what’s happening on the myriad of machines in an organization means dealing with diverse software, including desktop and server operating systems, databases, web servers, and applications, together with all sorts of hardware, such as processors, disk drives, routers, and much, much more. All of these components must inform the people managing this world of their status.

This is bound to generate lots of information. The operations staff will certainly need some kind of dedicated interface that organizes this plethora of data into understandable graphics and numbers. They’d also probably like a Web version of this interface, an option that would increase their ability to manage this world remotely. And for some scenarios, such as creating scripts, a command line interface is the best choice. Yet while a variety of user interfaces are required for working with management data as it’s generated, the ability to generate reports on historical data is also essential. How can the people responsible for maintaining this environment know how they’re doing without some way to track their history? Real-time interfaces are certainly important, but so is an intelligent way to examine long-term trends.

Here’s another challenge: No single organization—vendor or end user—can afford to have people on staff who are expert in managing each part of a complex IT world. Instead, a management and monitoring tool must provide a way to apply packaged expertise via software. The product must also be capable of providing a platform for third parties to create this kind of package.

And there’s more. The IT Information Library (ITIL) and the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) both promote an IT Service Management (ITSM) approach. Rather than focusing solely on the details of managing individual technologies, ITSM emphasizes the services that IT provides to the business it’s part of. Given that the business people who pay for it see IT entirely in terms of these services, this approach makes perfect sense. Yet doing it successfully requires explicit support for defining and monitoring distributed applications as a whole. An organization’s email service is made up of many parts, for example, including email server software, database software, and the machines this software runs on. Providing a way to monitor and manage this combination as a single service improves IT’s ability to offer the performance and reliability that the business expects.

Effectively monitoring and managing a modern computing environment requires addressing all of these problems. The next section gives an overview of how Operations Manager does this.

Addressing the Challenges: What System Center Operations Manager 2007 Provides

While Operations Manager provides a variety of functions, three of them stand out as most important: providing a common foundation for monitoring and managing desktops, servers, and more; taking a customizable, model-based approach to management; and supporting service monitoring of complete distributed applications. What follows describes each of these three.

A Common Foundation for Monitoring and Managing Desktops, Servers, and More

Despite the diversity of enterprise computing, a single product can provide a broad foundation for a significant part of an organization’s management challenges. Understanding how Operations Manager does this requires a basic grasp of the product’s architecture. The figure below shows its major components.

As the diagram shows, the software that comprises Operation Manager is divided into servers and agents. The servers, which run on Windows Server 2003 and the forthcoming Windows Server codename “Longhorn”, divide into two categories:

n The Operations Manager management server. This server relies on an operational database, and it’s the primary locus for handling real-time information received from agents. As the diagram shows, it also provides an access point for the product’s various user interfaces.

n The Operations Manager reporting server. This server relies on a data warehouse, a database capable of storing large amounts of information received from agents for long periods. The reporting server can run predefined and custom reports against this historical data.

Unlike management and reporting servers, the Operations Manager agent runs on both client and server machines. This agent runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista clients, as well as Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server codename “Longhorn”. To manage non-Windows devices, such as routers and switches, Operations Manager managers and agents can connect to them using SNMP or the newer WS-Management protocol. There’s also an option that allows retrieving basic management information from Windows systems that aren’t running agents.

Agents send four primary kinds of information to management servers:

n Events, indicating that something interesting has occurred on the managed system. An agent might send an event indicating that a login attempt has failed, for instance, or that a failed hardware component has been brought back to life.

n Alerts, indicating that something has happened that requires an operator’s attention. For example, an agent might send an event for every failed login, but send an alert if four failed logins occur within three minutes on the same account.

n Performance data, regularly sent updates on various aspects of the managed component’s performance.

n Discovery data, information about discovered objects. Rather than requiring an operator to explicitly identify the objects to be managed, each agent can discover them itself, a process that’s described later in this paper.

All of this information is sent to the operational database and/or the data warehouse, and all of it can be accessed through Operations Manager’s user interfaces. Operations staff will most often rely on the Operations Manager console, a Windows application that can display events, show alerts, graph performance over time, and more. A large subset of the Console’s functions can also be performed through the Operations Manager Web console, providing browser-based access to this information. And for creating scripts or for people who just prefer a command line interface, the product also allows access via the Operations Manager command shell.

This broad foundation is essential for modern monitoring and management. It’s not enough, though—more is required. How, for instance, can a single product address the diversity of managed components in a typical enterprise? How Operations Manager addresses this is described next.

Customizable, Model-Based Management

Any attempt to address the broad problem of monitoring and management in a single product faces an unavoidable limitation: No one vendor can have all of the specialized knowledge required to handle the wide range of software and hardware that its customers use. Instead, what’s needed is a generalized framework for packaging specialized management knowledge and behavior, packages that can then be plugged into a common management foundation.

This is exactly what’s provided by Operations Manager’s management packs (MPs). Each MP packages together the knowledge and behavior required to manage a particular component, such as an operating system, a database management system, a server machine, or something else. These MPs are then installed into Operations Manager, as the figure below shows.

Since creating an MP requires specialized knowledge about managing the component this MP targets, each one is typically created by the organization that knows the most about that component. As the figure above suggests, for example, Microsoft has created MPs for client and server versions of Windows as well as for Exchange Server, SQL Server, and other Microsoft products. Other vendors have created MPs for non-Microsoft software and hardware about which they have specialized knowledge. Hewlett-Packard provides an MP for its ProLiant server machines, for example, while Dell offers MPs for its servers.

As the figure shows, each MP can contain several things, including the following:

n Monitors, letting an agent track the state of various parts of a managed component.

n Rules, instructing an agent to collect performance and discovery data, send alerts and events, and more.

n Tasks, defining activities that can be executed by either the agent or the console.

n Knowledge, providing textual advice to help operators diagnose and fix problems.

n Views, offering customized user interfaces for monitoring and managing this component.

n Reports, defining specialized ways to report on information about this managed component.

When an MP is installed, its various parts wind up in different places. The monitors and rules, for instance, are downloaded to the agents on the appropriate machines, while the knowledge and reports remain on the management and reporting servers. Wherever its contents are used, the goal is always the same: providing the specialized knowledge and behavior required to monitor and manage a particular component.

To get a sense of how the various components of an MP might work together, imagine that an application running on some managed system notices that it lacks sufficient disk space to function. This application writes an event into the system’s event log indicating this, then shuts itself down. The Operations Manager agent on this system continually monitors the event log, and so it quickly notices this event. If the application’s MP contains an appropriate rule, the agent will send a specific alert to the management server when this event occurs. The operator sees the alert in the Operations Manager console, and he also sees the MP-provided knowledge associated with this alert. Reading this knowledge, he learns that he should direct the agent to run a task that deletes the temp directory on the application’s machine, then restart the application. This entire process, from detection of the problem to its ultimate resolution, depends on the information contained in the MP.

Of course, it would be better to avoid this problem in the first place. One way to do this is to keep an eye on things such as free disk space on the machine hosting this application, then inform an operator when a problem looms. Doing this requires creating a model of what a healthy managed component looks like, then indicating any deviation from its normal state. In Operations Manager, this is exactly what monitors are for. Each MP defines a set of objects that can be managed, then specifies a group of monitors for those objects. These monitors keep track of the state of each object, making it easier to avoid problems like application crashes before they occur. In the language of Operations Manager, the set of monitors for a managed object comprise a health model for that object. By tying together the health models for the various objects on a system, an overall health model can be created that reflects the state of the system as a whole.

Allowing each MP to define its own set of managed objects makes sense. Yet the best an MP’s creators can do is define generic objects; they can’t know exactly what’s on any given system. For example, the SQL Server MP defines an object representing a database. When this MP is installed on a real system, that machine might have one, two, or more actual databases. How are these concrete instances of the MP’s generic object type found? One approach would be to require an operator to identify each instance manually, a task that nobody would enjoy. Instead, Operations Manager allows each MP to include specific discovery rules (also called just discoveries) that let the agent locate these instances. The goal is to make finding the things that need to be managed as straightforward as possible.

Providing this generalized approach to defining management knowledge and behavior requires a common technology to create these definitions. Like other products in the System Center family, Operations Manager relies on an XML-based language called the System Definition Model (SDM) to do this. All MPs are expressed in SDM, providing a standard format for their creators to use. Defining MPs with SDM also implies a more general, less Windows-specific infrastructure for management. Although Operations Manager remains a Windows-oriented product, it’s significantly less wedded to the Microsoft world than was its predecessor.

In fact, SDM is the basis of an in-progress standard known as the Service Modeling Language (SML). Embraced by Microsoft, BEA, BMC, CA, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, and Sun, SML will provide a vendor-neutral foundation for describing managed systems. The value of a model-based approach to this problem is clear, and it’s a fundamental aspect of Operations Manager.

Service Monitoring for Distributed Applications

The goal of virtually every IT department is to provide services to the organization it’s part of. Monitoring and managing the various parts of the IT environment is an essential aspect of doing this. Yet business people don’t really care about the state of individual components. Instead, their concern is for the services they see. Can they send and receive email? Are the applications they need right now running effectively? This service-based concern makes sense, since it reflects what’s most important to the organization as a whole. Yet each service is likely made up of a number of underlying components, including both software and hardware. Looking at each of an application’s components separately isn’t enough.

What’s needed is a way to monitor and manage a distributed application—the combination of components that underlie a particular service—as a whole. Operations Manager provides this through service monitoring. The diagram below illustrates this idea.

Think, for example, about a custom ASP.NET application. As the figure suggests, this application’s main components might include IIS, the application itself, SQL Server, a specific database, the network used to connect these components, and more. From a technology point of view, all of these are distinct pieces, and without some way to group them together, an operator would be hard pressed to know that they actually comprise a single distributed application. From the perspective of a business user, however, all that matters is the service this entire application provides. If any part of it is malfunctioning, the entire service is likely to be unavailable. Letting the operator know that, say, a failed disk drive is actually part of this business-critical application can help that operator understand the importance of getting it back on line as quickly as possible. Rather than viewing their world as discrete components, operations staff can instead have a perspective that’s closer to what their customers see: a service-based view.

Management Servers and Agents

Getting a grip on Operations Manager requires understanding a number of different concepts. None of these ideas are more fundamental than management servers and agents, and so the place to begin is by looking more deeply at these bedrock parts of the product.

Understanding Management Servers

Management servers are at the center of Operations Manager. Agents send them alerts, events, performance data, and more, and they’re also the access point for the product’s user interfaces. While the basic architecture is straightforward, as shown earlier, understanding Operations Manager requires knowing a bit more about management servers. This section takes a slightly more detailed look at this important part of the product.

Root Management Servers

Every agent communicates with exactly one management server. While many organizations could potentially meet their needs with a single management server, it’s common to install two or more management servers, then divide agents among these servers. In this case, the first server that’s installed becomes the root management server. This root server communicates with any other management servers that have been installed, and it also communicates with its own agents.

The root management server performs several unique functions. All of Operations Manager’s user interfaces connect only to the root management server, for example, as shown earlier. Given this central role, it’s common to cluster a root management server. (All of these connected management servers rely on a single operational database, so it’s also a good idea to cluster it.) If a root management server fails, an administrator can promote another management server, allowing it to become the new root.

Management Groups

A collection of Operations Manager servers and agents is known as a management group. Each management group contains one root management server, zero or more other management servers, an operational database, and zero or more agents. The figure below illustrates how the various parts of a management group fit together.

Operations Manager can support many agents in a single management group—the exact number depends on a variety of factors--but organizations that need more than this can install multiple management groups. And although it’s neither required nor shown in the diagram, a management group can also contain a reporting server.

As mentioned earlier, each agent is assigned to one primary management server. If its assigned server becomes unavailable, an agent will automatically begin communicating with another management server in its management group. When its primary management server reappears, the agent will switch back to it. In both cases, no administrative intervention is necessary. While an administrator can explicitly control which management server an agent should communicate with if its primary server fails, this isn’t required.

Another option is to create tiered management groups. With this approach, the root management server in a local management group is associated with the root management server in a connected management group. Once this is done, it’s possible to monitor and manage the connected group from the console of the local group. There are some limitations—the console doesn’t support performing all administrative actions in the connected group—but this option can make sense in some situations. For example, creating tiered management groups can be a useful way to connect groups within any large Operations Manager deployment. It can also make sense when connecting a management group at headquarters with a subordinate management group in a branch office, particularly if the branch is accessed via a lower-speed connection.

Especially in large enterprises, installing more than one systems management product is common. Making a multi-vendor management environment work well can require connecting these products together. To allow this, Operations Manager includes the Operations Manager Connector Framework (MCF). MCF allows other management products to exchange alerts and other information with an Operations Manager management server, making it easier to use multiple tools in a single organization.

Some organizations, such as government agencies, have a legal requirement to track failed logins, multiple login attempts, and other security-related aspects of their IT environments. To provide direct support for this, Operations Manager includes the Audit Collection Service (ACS). This service relies on its own database maintained by a management server. If ACS is used, relevant security information is sent to the ACS database rather than to the standard operational database, making it simpler for organizations to comply with their legal mandate.

Understanding Agents

Management servers are an important part of Operations Manager, but they’d be useless without agents. This section takes a closer look at what agents do and how they do it.

Installing Agents

Before an agent can do anything useful, it must be installed on a target computer. One option is to install agents manually on individual machines. Yet especially in a large organization, installing agents individually on all of the managed systems can be an onerous task. To make installation easier, Operations Manager provides a wizard that lets an operator query Active Directory for machines matching some criteria, then install agents on all of them. And for organizations that use Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) or its successor, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, either of these products can also be used to install agents.

However it’s installed, a new agent needs to determine which management server it should communicate with. For installations that use Active Directory, the wizard allows specifying the management server each agent should talk to. For manually installed agents, the person performing the installation can explicitly specify a management server. If no server is specified, a manually installed agent as well as one installed by a tool such as Configuration Manager will contact Active Directory when it first starts running to learn which management server it should communicate with.

How Agents Gather and Send Information

Once it’s installed, an agent’s behavior is defined entirely by the management packs that are downloaded to that machine. The monitors, rules, and other information in each MP tell the agent what objects it should monitor and determine what information it sends to a management server. To acquire this information, agents can do several things, including:

n Watching the event log on this machine. An agent reads everything that’s placed in this log.

n Accessing Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). WMI is an interface to the Windows operating system that allows access to a variety of information about the hardware and software on a machine. This interface is Microsoft’s implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard created by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

n Running scripts provided by a management pack to collect specific information.

n Accessing performance counters.

n Executing synthetic transactions. A synthetic transaction accesses an application as if it were a user of that application, such as by attempting to login or requesting a web page. In some situations, such as with applications that generate little useful management information, synthetic transactions are the best way to learn about an application’s state. They can also be used to determine current characteristics, such as whether the login process is taking an abnormal amount of time.

Based on the rules and monitors in the management packs installed on its system, an agent sends events, alerts, and performance data to its associated management server. The management server writes all of this information to both the operational database and the data warehouse, making it available for immediate use and for creating reports. Management servers can also communicate with agents, instructing them to do things such as change a rule in a management pack, install a new management pack, or run a task.

With MOM 2005, 90% of the traffic between an agent and a management server was commonly performance data sent by rules. To minimize this traffic (and the storage requirements it implies), Operations Manager allows setting the relevant rules in a management pack so that no new performance information is transmitted unless a value has changed by, say, at least 5%. The management server can then infer that nothing has changed significantly if it receives no new information. For example, think about an agent that’s monitoring free disk space on a server. This number is likely to be the same over many hours, and so it makes sense to send performance information only when a significant change occurs.

It’s worth pointing out that not every shutdown of an application or machine indicates a problem; scheduled maintenance can require scheduled downtime. To prevent an agent from sending needless alerts in this case, an operator can put some or all of the objects on a system into maintenance mode. If just one database needs fixing, for example, that single object could be placed into maintenance mode. Similarly, an entire application or an entire machine can be placed in maintenance mode if necessary. The goal is to avoid distracting operators with meaningless alerts during scheduled shutdowns.

Like any other software, agents execute under some identity. A simple approach would be to have the entire agent run under a single identity using a single account. While this works, it’s not an optimal solution (although it is what’s done in MOM 2005). The problem with this is that the agent’s identity needs to have the union of all permissions required by the management packs installed on that system. The result is that agents tend to have identities with lots of privileges, something that doesn’t make most IT operations people especially happy. To avoid this problem, Operations Manager introduces the idea of run-as execution. Rather than assign a single identity to an agent, an administrator can instead define individual identities—separate accounts—for different things this agent does. If necessary, individual parts of a management pack, such as a monitor or a rule, can be assigned specific identities, then run as that identity. Rather than assigning agents a single account with many privileges, each function the agent performs can instead have only the permissions it needs.

Agents communicate with management servers using a Microsoft-defined protocol. Each agent maintain a queue of information to be sent, which allows prioritizing traffic—alerts always go to the front of the queue. If connectivity is lost, the queue stores information until the management server is reachable again. The communication protocol between agents and management servers also provides compression to reduce the bandwidth required, along with Kerberos-based security. Both the management server and the agent must prove their identities using Kerberos mutual authentication, and information sent between the two is encrypted using the standard Kerberos approach.

For agents that aren’t part of a Windows domain, such as those running on web servers in a DMZ, security between agents and managers can use certificates installed on both sides rather than Kerberos. A management server can also use certificate-based security to communicate with another management server. Referred to as a gateway server, this second management server might be in an untrusted Active Directory forest, for example. This option is also useful for a service provider that wishes to manage other organizations by connecting to their management servers across the Internet.

Working with Many Agents: Managing Clients

Managing desktops is different from managing servers in a number of ways. One of the most important—and most obvious—is that there are a lot more desktop machines than there are servers. To allow operators to work effectively with large numbers of clients, Operations Manager provides a couple of options.

One approach, called aggregate client monitoring, exploits the fact that operators typically don’t need to monitor the exact state of every client machine. Instead, an operator can define client groups, then keep track of the state of the entire group. She can still run tasks and do other things to individual machines, but having a single state available for all of the machines in the group makes monitoring easier. This option also allows running reports on client groups showing things such as the percentage of machines that have acceptable performance each month or the number of systems that experienced down time when upgraded to Office 2007. In fact, it’s likely that most organizations will find that the ability to create these broad reports is the most valuable aspect of aggregate client monitoring.

A second option for working with clients effectively is mission-critical client monitoring. Here, an operator chooses specific desktop machines to monitor directly. Operations staff in a financial services firm might choose to include each trader’s desktop machine, for example, while those in a retail environment might specify all of the critical point-of-sale systems. This approach lets the most important clients be monitored directly without requiring that every desktop machine get this level of attention.

Combining the two approaches is also possible. IT operations staff might use aggregate monitoring to manage most desktops in groups, for example, while still choosing specific clients for mission-critical monitoring. And like most things in Operations Manager, how a client is monitored is determined by the management pack that’s installed on that system.

Working with No Agents: Agentless Management

Not everything that needs to be managed is capable of running an Operations Manager agent. Because of this, it’s also possible to manage systems without agents. The absence of an agent limits what can be done, but this approach can still be useful in some situations.

One option, agentless exception monitoring (AEM), relies on the Windows Error Reporting client, a standard part of Windows, rather than an Operations Manager agent. This client notices application and operating system crashes, then asks the user for permission to send this information to Microsoft (a prompt with which most people are familiar). With AEM, this information can be sent to Operations Manager servers, letting operations staff examine it, create reports based on it, and decide whether it should be forwarded to Microsoft’s main database. While AEM provides only limited information about Windows machines, it does offer a way to track some important aspects of a machine and the applications running on it.

Another option, one that targets non-Windows devices, is the ability to monitor other systems using SNMP or WS-Management. Using this approach, Operations Manager can work with routers, switches, printers, and anything else that supports either of these standard protocols. The diagram below shows a simple illustration of how this might look.

As the diagram shows, both management servers and agents are capable of monitoring devices (although agents are the most common choice). While Operations Manager provides built-in support for SNMP and WS-Management, this kind of monitoring also requires installing a management pack that knows how to work with the device being monitored. Management packs that allow this are available for equipment from Cisco, HP, and other vendors.

It’s fair to say that the focus of Operations Manager is monitoring and managing Windows desktops and Windows servers. Still, the ability to work with other kinds of devices can also be important. The product’s support for SNMP and WS-Management, together with the appropriate management packs, makes this possible.

Accessing Management Information

Agents generate a large amount of information. To let operations staff use this information effectively, Operations Manager provides two options: immediate access via interactive user interfaces and the ability to run historical reports. This section looks at both.

User Interfaces

As shown earlier, Operations Manager includes three distinct user interfaces: the console, the Web console, and the command shell. All three are useful, and understanding Operations Manager requires knowing something about each one.

The Console

The Operations Manager console is the primary interface for most users of the product. Information sent by agents, including events, alerts, and performance data, can be written into this database, and so the console presents a current view of what’s happening in the environment. Operations staff can also run reports from the console, providing them with a historical perspective.

Presenting the vast amount of available information in a coherent way is challenging. Operations Manager addresses this challenge by displaying monitoring information in a number of different views, each accessible through the console. The best way to get a sense of what this looks like is to see some of the most important of these views.

The screen shot below shows the console’s State view. This example shows the state of SQL Server’s database engine, but State views are available for many objects in the environment. As this screen shows, this view provides a quick way to see what parts of the object are healthy (those with green labels) and which are not (those with red labels). The content of this view is derived from information sent by the monitors defined in the management pack for this component.

Having a summary picture of an object’s state is useful. It’s also important to know when something has happened to an object that requires attention. The console’s Alerts view provides this. As the screen shot below illustrates, this view shows the active alerts in this managed environment. In this example, two databases are offline, and so two alerts are displayed. Details for one of these alerts are shown in the lower pane, including knowledge supplied by the management pack for this component. As described earlier, the goal of this knowledge is to help the operator resolve whatever is causing this alert.

Both monitors and rules can send an alert, and either one can also send an event. Operations Manager provides an Events view to display these events, although that view isn’t shown here. Performance data, however, is sent solely by rules. To display this information, the console provides a Performance view, an example of which is shown below. This example graphs the performance of a server machine’s processor, but management packs can include rules that send a variety of other performance data.

Having different views is nice—in fact, it’s essential—but being able to see several things at once is also useful. To allow this, the Operations Manager console lets its users create Dashboard views. Each dashboard shows a customized combination of other views. For example, the screen shot below shows a dashboard created to monitor SQL Server, and it includes state information, performance data (this time showing free disk space), and more. In a typical organization, dashboards are likely to be a common approach to monitoring the computing environment.

The Web Console

Most often, an operator will use the Operations Manager console, which typically runs on a machine that’s inside an organization’s firewall. Yet what happens when the operator is at home or in a hotel room, but still needs access to Operations Manager? The Web console was created for situations like these. Using this tool, an operator can perform a (large) subset of the functions possible with the main Operations Manager console.

Like the main console, the Web console provides a variety of views, including a State view, an Alerts view, a Performance view, a Dashboard view, and more. In general, these views look much their counterparts in the main console. Here’s the Web console version of the Alerts view, for instance:

As in the main console Alerts view, this one shows active alerts, then allows a closer look at an alert’s details. This once again includes any knowledge supplied by the management pack about how to resolve this alert. Other Web console views provide similar information with similar layouts to the corresponding main console view.

The Web console isn’t intended to replace Operations Manager’s main console. Instead, providing a Web-based option lets some of the most important management functions be performed from any place with an Internet connection. The goal is to make life better for the people who keep distributed environments running.

The Command Shell

Graphical interfaces are usually the right choice for monitoring an environment. How else could a range of diverse information be displayed in an intelligible way? Given this reality, it’s fair to say that the Operations Manager console and the Web console will be the most popular interfaces to this product. Yet there are cases where a standard graphical interface isn’t the best option. While it’s great for displaying information, a point-and-click approach can be inefficient and slow for running commands or creating scripts. In situations like this, a traditional command line interface can be a better choice.

To allow this, Operations Manager provides the command shell. Built using Microsoft PowerShell, it gives users a command line interface as well as the ability to create programs called cmdlets. Operations Manager provides a set of built-in cmdlets, such as get-Alert to access alerts on a particular managed component, get-ManagementPack to learn about an installed management pack, and others. Its users can also create their own cmdlets. For example, suppose an operator wishes to disable all rules in all management packs that target databases. Doing this manually via the console would be possible, but it would also be painful. Writing a script for this, perhaps relying on one or more built-in cmdlets, would probably be easier.

Other Options

With three user interface options—the console, the Web console, and the command shell—it might seem like Operations Manager covers all of the possible bases. But what if a third party, such as another software firm or in-house developers at a large organization, wishes to create a custom interface to the product? To allow this, Operations Manager provides a software development kit (SDK). This set of programmable interfaces makes available all of the functionality provided by the console, and so third parties can create software that does anything the console allows. While this approach probably won’t be a mainstream choice, it’s an important option to have in some cases.

Interactive user interfaces are certainly important—they’re essential—but nobody spends all of their time in front of a screen. Yet problems can arise that require attention even when no one sees an on-screen alert. To handle cases like this, Operations Manager allows operators to determine which alerts should send notifications. For example, an operator might wish to receive a notification for any alert generated by a Windows server system in her firm’s main office that has remained unresolved for more than 60 minutes. This notification might be sent as an email, an instant message, an SMS text message, or something else, and it provides a way to reach an operator who’s not currently sitting at the console. The goal is to allow people to learn about problems that need their attention no matter where they might be.

Reporting

Interactive access to management information is fundamental to effective management. Yet seeing trends and understanding long-term behavior of the managed components requires more than an interactive interface. The ability to generate reports is also essential.

As shown earlier, reporting in Operations Manager depends on a reporting server. This server is built on SQL Server Reporting Services, although it makes some additions to this base technology. Relying on the Operations Manager data warehouse, a reporting server can be installed on the same machine as a management server or on its own machine. Management servers send data directly to the data warehouse—there’s no need to move it manually from the operational database before running reports.

Operations Manager provides a number of built-in reports. Among others, these generic reports include:

n Performance reports, which can display the performance of various things over a specified period of time.

n Alert reports, providing a view into the alert histories of managed components.

n Event reports, allowing long-term tracking of events sent by a component.

n Availability reports, showing the history of availability for managed components.

For example, the performance report below shows CPU utilization on a Windows Server machine over a ten-day period. As in SQL Server Reporting Services, reports can be created as PDF files, as shown here, or in other formats.

For all of the built-in reports, IT operations staff can determine the components that should be included in the report, set the time span covered (including defining relative dates, e.g., “two days ago”), and control other options. Once they’re defined, reports can be run on demand or scheduled to run regularly. A performance report might be set to run at 10 pm each Sunday night, for example, while availability reports might run daily or at other intervals.

Operations Manager reports can also be used in other ways. A report can be interactive, for instance, so someone looking at an availability report might click on a particular machine in that report, then be presented with the console’s current State view for this machine. It’s also possible to see other views, execute tasks, and run other reports directly from within the current report.

Although reports must be run from the console—the Web console can’t be used—their output can be accessed directly from the Web. A report can be sent to a document library in Windows SharePoint Services, for example, making it easier for IT managers and others who don’t commonly have direct console access to view them. In fact, some of Operations Manager’s built-in reports are specifically targeted at IT managers rather than more technically oriented operations people.

Reporting is a core part of most management technologies, and Operations Manager is no exception. By providing its own data warehouse, the product allows an organization to maintain large amounts of historical data about the computing environment. By providing a range of built-in reports, it lets operations staff and others access this information in useful ways.

Controlling Access: Role-Based Security

Operations Manager potentially allows access to anything in the managed environment. Yet letting every user of this tool have full access to everything isn’t what most organizations want. There must be some way to control who can access information, run tasks, and do other management work. The approach Operations Manager uses to do this is called role-based security.

A role is defined as the combination of a profile and a scope. A profile defines what operations someone can do, while a scope specifies the objects on which she’s allowed to perform these operations. The intersection of the two yields a limited set of objects on which an operator is allowed to perform only a defined set of operations.

For example, a profile might allow someone to view alerts and run tasks, but not allow him to change any rules in management packs. Operations Manager provides a group of built-in profiles, including the following:

n Administrator: A user with this profile can do anything—all operations are allowed on any objects (in fact, scopes don’t apply to administrators). This profile will typically be limited to a small number of people in an organization, since most operations staff won’t need this level of power.

n Author: As the name suggests, a user with this profile can make changes to the environment. This includes things such as creating and modifying rules and monitors in installed management packs. An author can also monitor the environment, viewing events, alerts, and other information

n Operator: Users with this profile are expected to focus primarily on monitoring the environment. Accordingly, they can view events, alerts, and other information, but they’re not allowed to create new rules, define new management packs, or make other changes.

Whatever profile a role is based on, a person in that role can only perform operations on the objects specified by its scope (with the exception of roles where scopes don’t apply, such as administrator). For example, someone whose job was solely focused on keeping the email system running might be given a role with an operator profile and a scope containing only Exchange Server objects, views, and tasks. A co-worker whose responsibilities were focused on managing an SAP application might be given a role with an author profile and a scope containing only SAP-related objects, views, and tasks. Standard roles are also defined, such as a Report Operator role that controls the ability to run reports of various kinds. Used intelligently, roles can give an organization fine-grained control over what their operations staff is allowed to do.

Management Packs

Operations Manager provides a general foundation for monitoring and managing systems and software. This foundation knows nothing about how to do these things for specific components, however. Providing this specialized knowledge is the responsibility of management packs.

As mentioned earlier, each MP is described using the XML-based SDM. The Operations Manager console provides an authoring view that can be used to create MPs, and Microsoft has announced plans to provide a standalone MP authoring tool. And since they’re just XML, a determined author could theoretically create an MP using Notepad, although this isn’t likely to be a very productive approach. The important thing to understand is that an MP primarily contains configuration information, not executable software.

Each MP is installed into the operational database, with different parts of its contents then downloaded and used by different parts of Operations Manager. It’s worth nothing that the MP format used by Operations Manager isn’t the same as that used by its predecessor, MOM 2005. Because of this, MPs created for this earlier technology must be converted using a Microsoft-supplied tool, then re-installed into the operational database.

MPs are the brains of Operations Manager, determining exactly how monitoring and management happen for each managed component. Understanding them requires knowing something about what they contain and how they function. The rest of this section digs a bit deeper into the structure and contents of this important aspect of Operations Manager.

What Management Packs Do: Some Examples

To get a sense of what management packs do and of how diverse their functions can be, it’s useful to look briefly at a few examples. In all of these cases, the MPs provide information about the availability of this component—is it running?—and basics such as how much space is left on the disk it relies on. Each one also provides performance information about the component it targets. Beyond these basics, however, different MPs provide quite different things.

For example, MPs that target Windows server operating systems let an operator determine things such as which Windows services are running, which applications (if any) are crashing repeatedly, and whether IP address conflicts are occurring. Operations Manager also provides MPs for Windows client systems that let an operator learn whether this machine can access the Internet, read from and write to file servers, and perform other functions.

Just as Operations Manager supports both server and client operating systems, it also supports MPs for applications running in both places. Once again, the basics are the same, which each MP able to report whether an application is running, monitor its performance, and provide other standard information. Each one also provides application-specific information as well. For example, the MP for Exchange Server lets an operator see detailed information about mailboxes and messages, while the SQL Server MP provides data about the number of deadlocks that occur, the execution of stored procedures, and more.

Microsoft also provides an MP for Microsoft Office that lets an operator see whether Office applications are crashing or hanging, measure their resource consumption, and determine how responsive they are. He can also determine whether they’re working normally, such as checking whether Outlook can send and receive mail. All of these things are vitally important to users, and so they’re also important to operations staff.

Describing What’s Managed: Objects

Every management pack defines a model, described in SDM, of the component that it’s managing. This model is expressed as one or more classes, each representing something that can be monitored and managed. A class also defines attributes, values that can describe an object of that class. When an MP’s information is sent down to an agent, the agent relies on specific discovery rules in the MP to find the actual instances of the classes this pack defines. To discover these instances, an agent might look for a specific registry key, query WMI, or perform some other action. However it's done, the result is a hierarchy of objects, each of some class and with a specific set of attributes, representing the things this MP targets.

A note on terminology: When talking to management pack authors, Microsoft uses the terms “class” and “instance”, concepts that are familiar to developers. In the Operations Manager console, however, the terms “target” and “object” are used instead. This paper uses “class” rather than “target”, but the terms “instance” and “object” are used interchangeably throughout.

When an agent is first deployed, it knows that it’s running on a Windows computer. Accordingly, it creates an instance of a Windows computer object, then asks its management server for all rules (including discovery rules), monitors, and other relevant aspects of the Windows MP. Once they’re downloaded, the discovery rules can find other objects on this machine, such as SQL Server or a DNS server. The agent then requests that the rules, monitors, discoveries, and so on for these classes also be downloaded from the various MPs in which they’re contained. This process of progressive discovery continues until all managed objects on the system have been found.

Using this approach, an agent constructs a hierarchy of managed objects from multiple MPs. The figure below shows a simple picture of how this might look.

The MP for the Windows Server operating system defines a class for the computer it runs on, while the SQL Server MP defines classes representing a SQL Server database and an instance of SQL Server itself. In this simplified example, the computer object appears directly above two instances of SQL Server. One of these instances has two SQL Server database objects below it, while the other has only a single database object. All of this, along with populating the attributes associated with each object, is created automatically by the agent. And to catch any changes that occur, the discovery process is regularly re-run, including each time the machine reboots or the agent on that machine is restarted.

One more aspect of the figure above requires explanation: the green checks in each object. This symbol represents the object’s state, as illustrated in the console’s State view earlier. Each object’s state provides a quick summary of its condition. One object’s state can affect another, however, allowing a more intelligent perspective on what’s really happening. All of this depends on monitors, and how it works is described next.

Tracking Object State: Monitors

A primary goal of management is keeping software and the hardware it depends on running well. One way to do this is to wait until something fails, then fix it. This approach can work, but it’s usually not the best solution. Just as with our personal health, avoiding problems before they happen is much better. Rather than just react to potentially catastrophic failures, we can keep track of the health of the objects we’re managing to prevent serious problems whenever possible. In other words, we can create and monitor a health model for a component.

Operations Manager relies on monitors to do this. Each monitor reflects the state of some aspect of an object, changing as that state changes. For example, a monitor tracking disk utilization might be in one of three states: green if the disk is less than 75% full, yellow if it’s between 75% and 90% full, and red if the disk is more than 90% utilized. A monitor tracking a particular application’s availability might have only two states: green if the application is running and red if it’s not.

The author of each management pack defines what monitors it contains, how many states each monitor has, and what aspect of the managed object this monitor tracks. A monitor can determine what its state should be in several different ways. It might examine particular performance counters every 90 seconds, for example, or regularly issue a particular WMI query. A monitor might also watch the event log for events that affect its state. Think, for example, about a monitor representing whether an application can communicate with a particular database. The application might write an event to the event log when this communication fails, causing the monitor to change its state to red. When communication is restored, the application might write a new event indicating this, causing the monitor to change its state back to green. This example illustrates an important fact about monitors (and about application manageability in general): Applications should be written in certain ways to make themselves manageable—they should be instrumented—and the creators of management packs must know how to take advantage of this instrumentation.

Whenever a monitor changes its state, this change is sent to both the operational database and the data warehouse. This information allows the operator to see the current state of an object or group of objects. The console State view shown earlier is just a window into the set of monitors that represent the state of one or more managed objects.

All of the monitors for a particular managed object are organized into a hierarchy. Every monitor hierarchy has four standard monitors that live just below its root: performance, security, configuration, and availability. Each monitor defined by a management pack appears below one of these four, with the choice made by the management pack’s author. Any change in a monitor’s state can cause a change in the state of the monitor above it. This allows problems to bubble up through the hierarchy of monitors and the objects whose states they represent.

The figure above, which uses the same simple set of objects shown earlier, illustrates how monitor states can percolate through a hierarchy of managed objects. In this example Database 1 has a problem: perhaps a disk drive has failed. The monitor that watches this aspect of the database notices this and sets its state to red. This state change causes the standard availability monitor for this object to also set its state to red, which in turn sets the monitor for the object’s overall state to red.

The monitor for the database’s overall state also appears in the monitor hierarchy for its parent object, SQL Server 1. This object has two databases, however, only one of which has failed. Accordingly, this object’s availability monitor is set to yellow rather than red, a decision that was made by the author of the SQL Server management pack. This is once again reflected in the overall state for this object, the state of which is also set to yellow.

Just as the overall state of the database appeared in the SQL Server 1 monitor hierarchy, the overall state of this SQL Server instance appears in the Computer object. (Recall that Computer is defined in a different MP from the other objects shown here—MP boundaries don’t limit this kind of monitor interaction.) The Computer object also sets its availability monitor and its overall state to yellow, indicating that while the computer is functioning, there is a problem that needs attention.

Along with state changes, monitors can also send alerts, events, and even performance data. Their primary role, however, is to provide an accurate representation of state. By allowing the state of an object to depend on the state of objects below it, monitors provide an intelligent way to model the health of an entire system. Yet doing this requires creating an effective set of monitors and relationships between those monitors. Put another way, the people who create each management pack must be able to define an appropriate health model for the component this pack targets. To do this for its own products, Microsoft relies on input from the teams that create them, from its customers, and from its own services group.

Other Elements of Management Packs

Monitors are essential to every management pack. As mentioned earlier, however, MPs can also contain a number of other things. This section gives brief descriptions of these, including rules, tasks, knowledge, views, reports, and synthetic transactions.

Rules

Monitors and the health models they enable are fundamental to how Operations Manager does its work. There are cases, however, where monitors aren’t appropriate. Suppose a system needs to collect data regularly from several performance counters, for instance, then send this information to the management server and data warehouse. Because they’re designed to model states, monitors aren’t capable of doing this.

To address this kind of problem, MPs include rules. A simple way to think about rules is as an if/then statement. For example, an MP for an application might contain rules such as the following:

n If a message indicating that the application is shutting down appears in the event log, send an alert.

n If a logon attempt fails, send an event indicating this failure.

n If five minutes have elapsed since the last update was sent and the new value is more than 2% different from the previous one, send the value of the machine’s free disk space performance counter.

As these examples show, rules can send alerts, events, or performance data. Rules can also run scripts, allowing a rule to attempt to restart a failed application. Even the discovery process described earlier depends on specialized sets of discovery rules.

The distinction between monitors and rules can seem subtle, but it’s not: monitors maintain state, rules don’t. Unlike monitors, rules are just expressions of things an agent should do. If something changes the state of an object, it should be modeled using a monitor. If it doesn’t change an object’s state, an MP is likely to use a rule instead.

Tasks

A task is a script or other executable code that runs either on the management server or on the server, client, or other device that’s being managed. Tasks can potentially perform any kind of activity, including restarting a failed application, deleting files, and more, subject to the limitations of the identity they’re running under. Like other aspects of an MP, each task is associated with a particular managed object. Running chkdsk only makes sense on a disk drive, for example, while a task that restarts Exchange Server is only meaningful on a system that’s running Exchange. If necessary, an operator can also run the same task simultaneously on multiple managed systems.

Monitors can have two special kinds of tasks associated with them: diagnostic tasks that try to discover the cause of a problem, and recovery tasks that try to fix the problem. These tasks can be run automatically when the monitor enters an error state, providing an automated way to solve problems. They can also be run manually, since automated recovery isn’t always the preferred approach.

Knowledge

While tasks can help diagnose and fix problems, they aren’t much good to an operator unless she knows which ones to use in a particular situation. And like it or not, the skill level and experience of operations staff isn’t always what their managers would like it to be. By providing pre-packaged knowledge, a management pack can help less capable staff find and fix problems more effectively.

As shown in an earlier screenshot, knowledge appears as human-readable text in the console, and its goal is to help an operator diagnose and fix problems. Embedded in this text can be links to tasks, allowing the author of this knowledge to walk an operator through the recovery process. For example, the operator might first be instructed to run task A, then based on the result of this task, run either task B or task C. Knowledge can also contain embedded links to performance views and to reports, giving the operator direct access to information needed to solve a problem. And as with every aspect of a management pack, an MP’s knowledge must be created by people who deeply understand the component this pack addresses. If this isn’t the case, the information it contains isn’t likely to be of much use to the operators who depend on it.

Views

The Operations Manager console provides standard views for State, Alerts, Performance, and more, as shown earlier. Yet a particular MP might find it useful to include specialized views of its own. Since each pack defines its own unique set of objects, its creators might also choose to provide customized views that show only these objects, or only alerts on these objects, or some other more specialized perspective. MPs can contain custom views to address cases like these, and the people who create those MPs frequently take advantage of this ability: custom views are common.

Reports

Just as a management pack can contain views customized for the objects that MP targets, it can also contain custom reports. For example, a management pack might include a customized definition of one of Operations Manager’s built-in reports, specifying the exact objects that the report should target. The creator of a management pack can also build custom reports from scratch with the Report Definition Language (RDL) used with SQL Server Reporting Services. More complex reports can also have stored procedures, use indexes, and more, allowing reports that access lots of data to offer better performance.

Modifying an Installed Management Pack

No matter how good the creators of a particular management pack might be, there’s no way that they’ll set everything perfectly for all of the environments that MP will be used in. Maybe a particular rule doesn’t make sense in an organization, or perhaps an unnecessary alert is being sent. If an MP allows it, operators with the right security permissions are able to change some or all of what this MP defines to match their requirements. An MP can also be sealed, however, which means that it can’t be directly modified. All Microsoft-provided MPs are sealed, for example, as are some provided by third parties.

Whether or not an MP is sealed, an operator can create overrides. Rather than permanently changing the MP, an override makes a change without directly modifying the underlying monitor or rule or other element. This lets the operator revert to the MP’s original settings if necessary, an option that’s often useful to have.

Managing Complete Applications: Service Monitoring

In the beginning, systems management focused on managing servers. Today, this focus has expanded to include clients, applications, and more. Yet in most cases, the real goal is to manage the services that people actually use: email, line-of-business applications, and others. All of these services are provided by combinations of hardware and software, and so managing them as a whole requires some way to group together the relevant components into a single manageable entity. This is exactly what Operations Manager’s service monitoring allows.

Using the Distributed Application Designer, a tool accessible via the authoring section of the Operations Manager console, an administrator can define the various components that make up a service. This designer provides standard templates for defining common application types, such as messaging and line-of-business applications. These templates can be customized as needed to reflect the details of a particular service. Once the definition is complete, the tool generates a management pack for this service, complete with a monitor-based health model. This MP can then be installed on the relevant agents just like any other MP.

The screen shot below shows an example of how a distributed application defined in this way might look. Using the console’s Diagram view (which can also be applied to other aspects of the managed environment), it shows the various components that make up this particular service: a web application, the database it depends on, and more. As with any other health model, this one shows a hierarchy of objects, each with a state. In this example, one of the databases is in a red state, a problem that bubbles up to the overall state for this service.

Monitoring and managing individual components of a service is clearly useful. Yet adding the ability to manage all of these components as a unified group with a single health model can provide significantly more business value. As systems management continues to move toward ITIL-based IT service management, tools that directly support this service-oriented view become more important.

Conclusion

The computing environment of most organizations gets more complex every day. The tools IT operations staffs use to monitor and manage this environment must keep pace, adding the capabilities people need to do their jobs. This evolution has been reflected in Microsoft’s offerings. From its beginning as Microsoft Operations Manager 2000, a product focused on managing servers, System Center Operations Manager 2007 now supports client management, the ability to view distributed applications as unified services, state-based management with health models, and more.

It’s a safe bet that information technology will continue to advance. Even when those changes are improvements—and they usually are—they still increase the management complexity of the environment. Given this, no one should expect System Center Operations Manager 2007 to be the last word in systems management. Yet for organizations with a significant investment in Microsoft software, this tool can play a useful role in monitoring and managing their world.

Configuring OSPF

2013-02-26T05:29:00.008-08:00

Configuring OSPF

This chapter describes how to configure OSPF. For a complete description of the OSPF commands in this chapter, refer to the “OSPF Commands” chapter of the Network Protocols Command Reference, Part 1. To locate documentation of other commands that appear in this chapter, use the command reference master index or search online.

Open shortest path first (OSPF) is an IGP developed by the OSPF working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Designed expressly for IP networks, OSPF supports IP subnetting and tagging of externally derived routing information. OSPF also allows packet authentication and uses IP multicast when sending/receiving packets.

We support RFC 1253, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) MIB, August 1991. The OSPF MIB defines an IP routing protocol that provides management information related to OSPF and is supported by Cisco routers.

For protocol-independent features, see the chapter “Configuring IP Routing Protocol-Independent Features” in this document.

Cisco’s OSPF Implementation

Cisco’s implementation conforms to the OSPF Version 2 specifications detailed in the Internet RFC 1583. The list that follows outlines key features supported in Cisco’s OSPF implementation:

• Stub areas—Definition of stub areas is supported.

• Route redistribution—Routes learned via any IP routing protocol can be redistributed into any other IP routing protocol. At the intradomain level, this means that OSPF can import routes learned via IGRP, RIP, and IS-IS. OSPF routes can also be exported into IGRP, RIP, and IS-IS. At the interdomain level, OSPF can import routes learned via EGP and BGP. OSPF routes can be exported into EGP and BGP.

• Authentication—Plain text and MD5 authentication among neighboring routers within an area is supported.

• Routing interface parameters—Configurable parameters supported include interface output cost, retransmission interval, interface transmit delay, router priority, router “dead” and hello intervals, and authentication key.

• Virtual links—Virtual links are supported.

• NSSA areas—RFC 1587.

• OSPF over demand circuit—RFC 1793.

OSPF Configuration Task List

Note To take advantage of the OSPF stub area support, default routing must be used in the stub area.

OSPF Configuration Task List

OSPF typically requires coordination among many internal routers, area border routers (routers connected to multiple areas), and autonomous system boundary routers. At a minimum, OSPF-based routers or access servers can be configured with all default parameter values, no authentication, and interfaces assigned to areas. If you intend to customize your environment, you must ensure coordinated configurations of all routers.

To configure OSPF, complete the tasks in the following sections. Enabling OSPF is mandatory; the other tasks are optional, but might be required for your application.

Enable OSPF

Configure OSPF Interface Parameters

Configure OSPF over Different Physical Networks

Configure OSPF Area Parameters

Configure OSPF Not So Stubby Area (NSSA)

Configure Route Summarization between OSPF Areas

Configure Route Summarization when Redistributing Routes into OSPF

Create Virtual Links

Generate a Default Route

Configure Lookup of DNS Names

Force the Router ID Choice with a Loopback Interface

Control Default Metrics

Configure OSPF on Simplex Ethernet Interfaces

Configure Route Calculation Timers

Configure OSPF over On Demand Circuits

Log Neighbor Changes

Monitor and Maintain OSPF

In addition, you can specify route redistribution; see the task “Redistribute Routing Information” in the chapter “Configuring IP Routing Protocol-Independent Features” for information on how to configure route redistribution.

Enable OSPF

As with other routing protocols, enabling OSPF requires that you create an OSPF routing process, specify the range of IP addresses to be associated with the routing process, and assign area IDs to be associated with that range of IP addresses. Perform the following tasks, starting in global configuration mode:

Task		Command

Step 1	Enable OSPF routing, which places you	router ospf process-id
	in router configuration mode.

Step 2	Define an interface on which OSPF runs	network address wildcard-mask area area-id
	and define the area ID for that interface.

Configure OSPF Interface Parameters

Our OSPF implementation allows you to alter certain interface-specific OSPF parameters, as needed. You are not required to alter any of these parameters, but some interface parameters must be consistent across all routers in an attached network. Those parameters are controlled by the ip ospf hello-interval, ip ospf dead-interval, and ip ospf authentication-key. commands. Therefore, be sure that if you do configure any of these parameters, the configurations for all routers on your network have compatible values.

In interface configuration mode, specify any of the following interface parameters as needed for your network:

Task	Command

Explicitly specify the cost of sending a packet on	ip ospf cost cost
an OSPF interface.

Specify the number of seconds between link state	ip ospf retransmit-interval seconds
advertisement retransmissions for adjacencies
belonging to an OSPF interface.

Set the estimated number of seconds it takes to	ip ospf transmit-delay seconds
transmit a link state update packet on an OSPF
interface.

Set priority to help determine the OSPF	ip ospf priority number
designated router for a network.

Specify the length of time, in seconds, between	ip ospf hello-interval seconds
the hello packets that the Cisco IOS software
sends on an OSPF interface.

Set the number of seconds that a device’s hello	ip ospf dead-interval seconds
packets must not have been seen before its
neighbors declare the OSPF router down.

Assign a specific password to be used by	ip ospf authentication-key key
neighboring OSPF routers on a network segment
that is using OSPF’s simple password
authentication.

Enable OSPF MD5 authentication.	ip ospf message-digest-key keyid md5 key

Configure OSPF over Different Physical Networks

OSPF classifies different media into the following three types of networks by default:

• Broadcast networks (Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI)

• Nonbroadcast multiaccess networks (SMDS, Frame Relay, X.25)

• Point-to-point networks (HDLC, PPP)

You can configure your network as either a broadcast or a nonbroadcast multiaccess network.

X.25 and Frame Relay provide an optional broadcast capability that can be configured in the map to allow OSPF to run as a broadcast network. See the x25 map and frame-relay map command descriptions in the Wide-Area Networking Command Reference for more detail.

Configure Your OSPF Network Type

You have the choice of configuring your OSPF network type as either broadcast or nonbroadcast multiaccess, regardless of the default media type. Using this feature, you can configure broadcast networks as nonbroadcast multiaccess networks when, for example, you have routers in your network that do not support multicast addressing. You also can configure nonbroadcast multiaccess networks (such as X.25, Frame Relay, and SMDS) as broadcast networks. This feature saves you from having to configure neighbors, as described in the section “Configure OSPF for Nonbroadcast Networks.”

Configuring nonbroadcast, multiaccess networks as either broadcast or nonbroadcast assumes that there are virtual circuits from every router to every router or fully meshed network. This is not true for some cases, for example, because of cost constraints, or when you have only a partially meshed network. In these cases, you can configure the OSPF network type as a point-to-multipoint network. Routing between two routers not directly connected will go through the router that has virtual circuits to both routers. Note that you must not configure neighbors when using this feature.

An OSPF point-to-multipoint interface is defined as a numbered point-to-point interface having one or more neighbors. It creates multiple host routes. An OSPF point-to-multipoint network has the following benefits compared to nonbroadcast multiaccess and point-to-point networks:

• Point-to-multipoint is easier to configure because it requires no configuration of neighbor commands, it consumes only one IP subnet, and it requires no designated router election.

• It costs less because it does not require a fully meshed topology.

• It is more reliable because it maintains connectivity in the event of virtual circuit failure.

To configure your OSPF network type, perform the following task in interface configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure the OSPF network type for a specified	ip ospf network {broadcast \| non-broadcast \|
interface.	point-to-multipoint}

See the “OSPF Point-to-Multipoint Example” section at the end of this chapter for an example of an OSPF point-to-multipoint network.

Configure OSPF for Nonbroadcast Networks

Because there might be many routers attached to an OSPF network, a designated router is selected for the network. It is necessary to use special configuration parameters in the designated router selection if broadcast capability is not configured.

Configure OSPF Area Parameters

These parameters need only be configured in those devices that are themselves eligible to become the designated router or backup designated router (in other words, routers or access servers with a nonzero router priority value).

To configure routers that interconnect to nonbroadcast networks, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure routers or access servers	neighbor ip-address [priority number] [poll-interval
interconnecting to nonbroadcast networks.	seconds]

You can specify the following neighbor parameters, as required:

• Priority for a neighboring router

• Nonbroadcast poll interval

• Interface through which the neighbor is reachable

Configure OSPF Area Parameters

Our OSPF software allows you to configure several area parameters. These area parameters, shown in the following table, include authentication, defining stub areas, and assigning specific costs to the default summary route. Authentication allows password-based protection against unauthorized access to an area.

Stub areas are areas into which information on external routes is not sent. Instead, there is a default external route generated by the area border router, into the stub area for destinations outside the autonomous system. To further reduce the number of link state advertisements sent into a stub area, you can configure no-summary on the ABR to prevent it from sending summary link advertisement (link state advertisements Type 3) into the stub area.

In router configuration mode, specify any of the following area parameters as needed for your network:

Task	Command

Enable authentication for an OSPF area.	area area-id authentication

Enable MD5 authentication for an OSPF area.	area area-id authentication message-digest

Define an area to be a stub area.	area area-id stub [no-summary]

Assign a specific cost to the default summary	area area-id default-cost cost
route used for the stub area.

Configure OSPF Not So Stubby Area (NSSA)

NSSA area is similar to OSPF stub area. NSSA does not flood Type 5 external link state advertisements (LSAs) from the core into the area, but it has the ability of importing AS external routes in a limited fashion within the area.

NSSA allows importing of Type 7 AS external routes within NSSA area by redistribution. These Type 7 LSAs are translated into Type 5 LSAs by NSSA ABR which are flooded throughout the whole routing domain. Summarization and filtering are supported during the translation.

Use NSSA to simplify administration if you are an Internet service provider (ISP), or a network administrator that must connect a central site using OSPF to a remote site that is using a different routing protocol.

Configure Route Summarization between OSPF Areas

Prior to NSSA, the connection between the corporate site border router and the remote router could not be run as OSPF stub area because routes for the remote site cannot be redistributed into stub area. A simple protocol like RIP is usually run and handle the redistribution. This meant maintaining two routing protocols. With NSSA, you can extend OSPF to cover the remote connection by defining the area between the corporate router and the remote router as an NSSA.

In router configuration mode, specify the following area parameters as needed to configure OSPF NSSA:

Task	Command

Define an area to be NSSA.	area area-id nssa [no-redistribution]
	[default-information-originate]

In router configuration mode on the ABR, specify the following command to control summarization and filtering of Type 7 LSA into Type 5 LSA:

Task	Command

(Optional) Control the summarization and	summary address prefix mask [not advertise] [tag tag]
filtering during the translation.

Implementation Considerations

Evaluate the following considerations before implementing this feature:

• You can set a Type 7 default route that can be used to reach external destinations. When configured, the router generates a Type 7 default into the NSSA by the NSSA ABR.

• Every router within the same area must agree that the area is NSSA; otherwise, the routers will not be able to communicate with each other.

If possible, avoid using explicit redistribution on NSSA ABR because confusion may result over which packets are being translated by which router.

Configure Route Summarization between OSPF Areas

Route summarization is the consolidation of advertised addresses. This feature causes a single summary route to be advertised to other areas by an ABR. In OSPF, an ABR will advertise networks in one area into another area. If the network numbers in an area are assigned in a way such that they are contiguous, you can configure the ABR to advertise a summary route that covers all the individual networks within the area that fall into the specified range.

To specify an address range, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Specify an address range for which a single	area area-id range address mask [advertise \|
route will be advertised.	not-advertise]

Configure Route Summarization when Redistributing Routes into OSPF

When redistributing routes from other protocols into OSPF (as described in the chapter “Configuring IP Routing Protocol-Independent Features”), each route is advertised individually in an external link state advertisement (LSA). However, you can configure the Cisco IOS software to advertise a single route for all the redistributed routes that are covered by a specified network address and mask. Doing so helps decrease the size of the OSPF link state database.

To have the software advertise one summary route for all redistributed routes covered by a network address and mask, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Specify an address and mask that covers	summary-address address mask
redistributed routes, so only one summary route is
advertised.

Create Virtual Links

In OSPF, all areas must be connected to a backbone area. If there is a break in backbone continuity, or the backbone is purposefully partitioned, you can establish a virtual link. The two end points of a virtual link are Area Border Routers. The virtual link must be configured in both routers. The configuration information in each router consists of the other virtual endpoint (the other ABR), and the nonbackbone area that the two routers have in common (called the transit area). Note that virtual links cannot be configured through stub areas.

To establish a virtual link, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Establish a virtual link.	area area-id virtual-link router-id [hello-interval seconds]
	[retransmit-interval seconds] [transmit-delay seconds]
	[dead-interval seconds] [[authentication-key key] \|
	[message-digest-key keyid md5 key]]

To display information about virtual links, use the show ip ospf virtual-links EXEC command. To display the router ID of an OSPF router, use the show ip ospf EXEC command.

Generate a Default Route

You can force an autonomous system boundary router to generate a default route into an OSPF routing domain. Whenever you specifically configure redistribution of routes into an OSPF routing domain, the router automatically becomes an autonomous system boundary router. However, an autonomous system boundary router does not, by default, generate a default route into the OSPF routing domain.

To force the autonomous system boundary router to generate a default route, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Force the autonomous system boundary router	default-information originate [always] [metric
to generate a default route into the OSPF	metric-value] [metric-type type-value] [route-map
routing domain.	map-name]

Configure Lookup of DNS Names

See the discussion of redistribution of routes in the “Configuring IP Routing Protocol-Independent Features” chapter.

Configure Lookup of DNS Names

You can configure OSPF to look up Domain Naming System (DNS) names for use in all OSPF show command displays. This feature makes it easier to identify a router, because it is displayed by name rather than by its router ID or neighbor ID.

To configure DNS name lookup, perform the following task in global configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure DNS name lookup.	ip ospf name-lookup

Force the Router ID Choice with a Loopback Interface

OSPF uses the largest IP address configured on the interfaces as its router ID. If the interface associated with this IP address is ever brought down, or if the address is removed, the OSPF process must recalculate a new router ID and resend all its routing information out its interfaces.

If a loopback interface is configured with an IP address, the Cisco IOS software will use this IP address as its router ID, even if other interfaces have larger IP addresses. Since loopback interfaces never go down, greater stability in the routing table is achieved.

OSPF automatically prefers a loopback interface over any other kind, and it chooses the highest IP address among all loopback interfaces. If no loopback interfaces are present, the highest IP address in the router is chosen. You cannot tell OSPF to use any particular interface.

To configure an IP address on a loopback interface, perform the following tasks, starting in global configuration mode:

Task		Command

Step 1	Create a loopback interface, which	interface loopback 0
	places you in interface configuration
	mode.

Step 2	Assign an IP address to this interface.	ip address address mask

Control Default Metrics

In Cisco IOS Release 10.3 and later, by default, OSPF calculates the OSPF metric for an interface according to the bandwidth of the interface. For example, a 64K link gets a metric of 1562, while a T1 link gets a metric of 64.

The OSPF metric is calculated as ref-bw divided by bandwidth, with ref-bw equal to 10⁸ by default, and bandwidth determined by the bandwidth command. The calculation gives FDDI a metric of 1. If you have multiple links with high bandwidth, you might want to specify a larger number to differentiate the cost on those links. To do so, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Differentiate high bandwidth links.	ospf auto-cost reference-bandwidth ref-bw

Configure OSPF on Simplex Ethernet Interfaces

Because simplex interfaces between two devices on an Ethernet represent only one network segment, for OSPF you must configure the transmitting interface to be a passive interface. This prevents OSPF from sending hello packets for the transmitting interface. Both devices are able to see each other via the hello packet generated for the receiving interface.

To configure OSPF on simplex Ethernet interfaces, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Suppress the sending of hello packets through	passive-interface type number
the specified interface.

Configure Route Calculation Timers

You can configure the delay time between when OSPF receives a topology change and when it starts a shortest path first (SPF) calculation. You can also configure the hold time between two consecutive SPF calculations. To do this, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure route calculation timers.	timers spf spf-delay spf-holdtime

Configure OSPF over On Demand Circuits

The OSPF on demand circuit is an enhancement to the OSPF protocol that allows efficient operation over on demand circuits like ISDN, X.25 SVCs and dial-up lines. This feature supports RFC 1793,

Extending OSPF to Support Demand Circuits.

Prior to this feature, OSPF periodic hello and link state advertisements (LSAs) updates would be exchanged between routers that connected the on demand link, even when no changes occurred in the hello or LSA information.

With this feature, periodic hellos are suppressed and the periodic refreshes of LSAs are not flooded over the demand circuit. These packets bring up the link only when they are exchanged for the first time, or when a change occurs in the information they contain. This operation allows the underlying datalink layer to be closed when the network topology is stable.

This feature is useful when you want to connect telecommuters or branch offices to an OSPF backbone at a central site. In this case, OSPF for on demand circuits allows the benefits of OSPF over the entire domain, without excess connection costs. Periodic refreshes of hello updates, LSA updates, and other protocol overhead are prevented from enabling the on demand circuit when there is no “real” data to transmit.

Overhead protocols such as hellos and LSAs are transferred over the on demand circuit only upon initial setup and when they reflect a change in the topology. This means that critical changes to the topology that require new SPF calculations are transmitted in order to maintain network topology integrity. Periodic refreshes that do not include changes, however, are not transmitted across the link.

To configure OSPF for on demand circuits, perform the following tasks, beginning in global configuration mode:

Task		Command

Step 1	Enable OSPF operation.	router ospf process-id

Step 2	Configure OSPF on an on demand circuit.	ip ospf demand-circuit

Log Neighbor Changes

If the router is part of a point-to-point topology, then only one end of the demand circuit must be configured with this command. However, all routers must have this feature loaded.

If the router is part of a point-to-multipoint topology, only the multipoint end must be configured with this command.

Implementation Considerations

Evaluate the following considerations before implementing this feature:

• Because LSAs that include topology changes are flooded over an on demand circuit, it is advised to put demand circuits within OSPF stub areas, or within NSSAs to isolate the demand circuits from as many topology changes as possible.

• To take advantage of the on demand circuit functionality within a stub area or NSSA, every router in the area must have this feature loaded. If this feature is deployed within a regular area, all other regular areas must also support this feature before the demand circuit functionality can take effect. This is because type 5 external LSAs are flooded throughout all areas.

• You do not want to do on a broadcast-based network topology because the overhead protocols (such as hellos and LSAs) cannot be successfully suppressed, which means the link will remain up.

Log Neighbor Changes

To configure the router to send a syslog message when an OSPF neighbor state changes, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Send syslog message when a neighbor state	ospf log-adj-changes
changes.

Configure this command if you want to know about OSPF neighbor changes without turning on the debugging command debug ip ospf adjacency. The ospf log-adj-changes command provides a higher level view of changes to the state of the peer relationship with less output.

Monitor and Maintain OSPF

You can display specific statistics such as the contents of IP routing tables, caches, and databases. Information provided can be used to determine resource utilization and solve network problems. You can also display information about node reachability and discover the routing path your device’s packets are taking through the network.

To display various routing statistics, perform the following tasks in EXEC mode:

Task	Command

Display general information about OSPF routing	show ip ospf [process-id]
processes.

OSPF Configuration Examples

Task	Command

Display lists of information related to the OSPF	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database
database.	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database [router]

	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database [network]
	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database [summary]
	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database
	[asb-summary] [link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id] database [external]
	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database
	[database-summary]

Display the internal OSPF routing table entries to	show ip ospf border-routers
Area Border Router (ABR) and Autonomous
System Boundary Router (ASBR).

Display OSPF-related interface information.	show ip ospf interface [interface-name]

Display OSPF-neighbor information on a	show ip ospf neighbor [interface-name] [neighbor-id]
per-interface basis.	detail

Display a list of all LSAs requested by a router.	show ip ospf request-list [nbr] [intf] [intf-nbr]

Display a list of all LSAs waiting to be	show ip ospf retransmission-list [nbr] [intf] [intf-nbr]
retransmitted.

Display OSPF-related virtual links information.	show ip ospf virtual-links

OSPF Configuration Examples

The following sections provide OSPF configuration examples:

• OSPF Point-to-Multipoint Example

• Variable-Length Subnet Masks Example

• OSPF Routing and Route Redistribution Examples

• Route Map Examples

OSPF Point-to-Multipoint Example

In Figure 20, Mollie uses DLCI 201 to communicate with Neon, DLCI 202 to Jelly, and DLCI 203 to Platty. Neon uses DLCI 101 to communicate with Mollie and DLCI 102 to communicate with Platty. Platty communicates with Neon (DLCI 401) and Mollie (DLCI 402). Jelly communicates with Mollie (DLCI 301).

Mollie’s Configuration

hostname mollie

interface serial 1

ip address 10.0.0.2 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.1 201 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.3 202 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.4 203 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Neon’s Configuration

hostname neon

interface serial 0

ip address 10.0.0.1 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.2 101 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.4 102 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Platty’s Configuration

hostname platty

interface serial 3

ip address 10.0.0.4 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

clock rate 1000000

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.1 401 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.2 402 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

OSPF Configuration Examples

Jelly’s Configuration

hostname jelly

interface serial 2

ip address 10.0.0.3 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

clock rate 2000000

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.2 301 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Variable-Length Subnet Masks Example

OSPF, static routes, and IS-IS support variable-length subnet masks (VLSMs). With VLSMs, you can use different masks for the same network number on different interfaces, which allows you to conserve IP addresses and more efficiently use available address space.

In the following example, a 30-bit subnet mask is used, leaving two bits of address space reserved for serial line host addresses. There is sufficient host address space for two host endpoints on a point-to-point serial link.

interface ethernet 0

ip address 131.107.1.1 255.255.255.0

! 8 bits of host address space reserved for ethernets

interface serial 0

ip address 131.107.254.1 255.255.255.252

! 2 bits of address space reserved for serial lines

! Router is configured for OSPF and assigned AS 107 router ospf 107

! Specifies network directly connected to the router network 131.107.0.0 0.0.255.255 area 0.0.0.0

OSPF Routing and Route Redistribution Examples

OSPF typically requires coordination among many internal routers, area border routers, and autonomous system boundary routers. At a minimum, OSPF-based routers can be configured with all default parameter values, with no authentication, and with interfaces assigned to areas.

Three examples follow:

• The first is a simple configuration illustrating basic OSPF commands.

• The second example illustrates a configuration for an internal router, ABR, and ASBRs within a single, arbitrarily assigned, OSPF autonomous system.

• The third example illustrates a more complex configuration and the application of various tools available for controlling OSPF-based routing environments.

Basic OSPF Configuration Example

The following example illustrates a simple OSPF configuration that enables OSPF routing process 9000, attaches Ethernet 0 to area 0.0.0.0, and redistributes RIP into OSPF, and OSPF into RIP:

interface ethernet 0

ip address 130.93.1.1 255.255.255.0 ip ospf cost 1

Configuring OSPF

2013-02-26T05:29:00.005-08:00

Configuring OSPF

For protocol-independent features, see the chapter “Configuring IP Routing Protocol-Independent Features” in this document.

Cisco’s OSPF Implementation

Cisco’s implementation conforms to the OSPF Version 2 specifications detailed in the Internet RFC 1583. The list that follows outlines key features supported in Cisco’s OSPF implementation:

• Stub areas—Definition of stub areas is supported.

• Authentication—Plain text and MD5 authentication among neighboring routers within an area is supported.

• Virtual links—Virtual links are supported.

• NSSA areas—RFC 1587.

• OSPF over demand circuit—RFC 1793.

OSPF Configuration Task List

Note To take advantage of the OSPF stub area support, default routing must be used in the stub area.

OSPF Configuration Task List

To configure OSPF, complete the tasks in the following sections. Enabling OSPF is mandatory; the other tasks are optional, but might be required for your application.

Enable OSPF

Configure OSPF Interface Parameters

Configure OSPF over Different Physical Networks

Configure OSPF Area Parameters

Configure OSPF Not So Stubby Area (NSSA)

Configure Route Summarization between OSPF Areas

Configure Route Summarization when Redistributing Routes into OSPF

Create Virtual Links

Generate a Default Route

Configure Lookup of DNS Names

Force the Router ID Choice with a Loopback Interface

Control Default Metrics

Configure OSPF on Simplex Ethernet Interfaces

Configure Route Calculation Timers

Configure OSPF over On Demand Circuits

Log Neighbor Changes

Monitor and Maintain OSPF

Enable OSPF

Task		Command

Step 1	Enable OSPF routing, which places you	router ospf process-id
	in router configuration mode.

Step 2	Define an interface on which OSPF runs	network address wildcard-mask area area-id
	and define the area ID for that interface.

Configure OSPF Interface Parameters

In interface configuration mode, specify any of the following interface parameters as needed for your network:

Task	Command

Explicitly specify the cost of sending a packet on	ip ospf cost cost
an OSPF interface.

Specify the number of seconds between link state	ip ospf retransmit-interval seconds
advertisement retransmissions for adjacencies
belonging to an OSPF interface.

Set the estimated number of seconds it takes to	ip ospf transmit-delay seconds
transmit a link state update packet on an OSPF
interface.

Set priority to help determine the OSPF	ip ospf priority number
designated router for a network.

Specify the length of time, in seconds, between	ip ospf hello-interval seconds
the hello packets that the Cisco IOS software
sends on an OSPF interface.

Set the number of seconds that a device’s hello	ip ospf dead-interval seconds
packets must not have been seen before its
neighbors declare the OSPF router down.

Assign a specific password to be used by	ip ospf authentication-key key
neighboring OSPF routers on a network segment
that is using OSPF’s simple password
authentication.

Enable OSPF MD5 authentication.	ip ospf message-digest-key keyid md5 key

Configure OSPF over Different Physical Networks

OSPF classifies different media into the following three types of networks by default:

• Broadcast networks (Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI)

• Nonbroadcast multiaccess networks (SMDS, Frame Relay, X.25)

• Point-to-point networks (HDLC, PPP)

You can configure your network as either a broadcast or a nonbroadcast multiaccess network.

Configure Your OSPF Network Type

• Point-to-multipoint is easier to configure because it requires no configuration of neighbor commands, it consumes only one IP subnet, and it requires no designated router election.

• It costs less because it does not require a fully meshed topology.

• It is more reliable because it maintains connectivity in the event of virtual circuit failure.

To configure your OSPF network type, perform the following task in interface configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure the OSPF network type for a specified	ip ospf network {broadcast \| non-broadcast \|
interface.	point-to-multipoint}

See the “OSPF Point-to-Multipoint Example” section at the end of this chapter for an example of an OSPF point-to-multipoint network.

Configure OSPF for Nonbroadcast Networks

Configure OSPF Area Parameters

To configure routers that interconnect to nonbroadcast networks, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure routers or access servers	neighbor ip-address [priority number] [poll-interval
interconnecting to nonbroadcast networks.	seconds]

You can specify the following neighbor parameters, as required:

• Priority for a neighboring router

• Nonbroadcast poll interval

• Interface through which the neighbor is reachable

Configure OSPF Area Parameters

In router configuration mode, specify any of the following area parameters as needed for your network:

Task	Command

Enable authentication for an OSPF area.	area area-id authentication

Enable MD5 authentication for an OSPF area.	area area-id authentication message-digest

Define an area to be a stub area.	area area-id stub [no-summary]

Assign a specific cost to the default summary	area area-id default-cost cost
route used for the stub area.

Configure OSPF Not So Stubby Area (NSSA)

Configure Route Summarization between OSPF Areas

In router configuration mode, specify the following area parameters as needed to configure OSPF NSSA:

Task	Command

Define an area to be NSSA.	area area-id nssa [no-redistribution]
	[default-information-originate]

In router configuration mode on the ABR, specify the following command to control summarization and filtering of Type 7 LSA into Type 5 LSA:

Task	Command

(Optional) Control the summarization and	summary address prefix mask [not advertise] [tag tag]
filtering during the translation.

Implementation Considerations

Evaluate the following considerations before implementing this feature:

• You can set a Type 7 default route that can be used to reach external destinations. When configured, the router generates a Type 7 default into the NSSA by the NSSA ABR.

• Every router within the same area must agree that the area is NSSA; otherwise, the routers will not be able to communicate with each other.

If possible, avoid using explicit redistribution on NSSA ABR because confusion may result over which packets are being translated by which router.

Configure Route Summarization between OSPF Areas

To specify an address range, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Specify an address range for which a single	area area-id range address mask [advertise \|
route will be advertised.	not-advertise]

Configure Route Summarization when Redistributing Routes into OSPF

To have the software advertise one summary route for all redistributed routes covered by a network address and mask, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Specify an address and mask that covers	summary-address address mask
redistributed routes, so only one summary route is
advertised.

Create Virtual Links

To establish a virtual link, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Establish a virtual link.	area area-id virtual-link router-id [hello-interval seconds]
	[retransmit-interval seconds] [transmit-delay seconds]
	[dead-interval seconds] [[authentication-key key] \|
	[message-digest-key keyid md5 key]]

To display information about virtual links, use the show ip ospf virtual-links EXEC command. To display the router ID of an OSPF router, use the show ip ospf EXEC command.

Generate a Default Route

To force the autonomous system boundary router to generate a default route, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Force the autonomous system boundary router	default-information originate [always] [metric
to generate a default route into the OSPF	metric-value] [metric-type type-value] [route-map
routing domain.	map-name]

Configure Lookup of DNS Names

See the discussion of redistribution of routes in the “Configuring IP Routing Protocol-Independent Features” chapter.

Configure Lookup of DNS Names

To configure DNS name lookup, perform the following task in global configuration mode:

Task	Command

Configure DNS name lookup.	ip ospf name-lookup

Force the Router ID Choice with a Loopback Interface

To configure an IP address on a loopback interface, perform the following tasks, starting in global configuration mode:

Task		Command

Step 1	Create a loopback interface, which	interface loopback 0
	places you in interface configuration
	mode.

Step 2	Assign an IP address to this interface.	ip address address mask

Control Default Metrics

Task	Command

Differentiate high bandwidth links.	ospf auto-cost reference-bandwidth ref-bw

Configure OSPF on Simplex Ethernet Interfaces

To configure OSPF on simplex Ethernet interfaces, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Suppress the sending of hello packets through	passive-interface type number
the specified interface.

Configure Route Calculation Timers

Task	Command

Configure route calculation timers.	timers spf spf-delay spf-holdtime

Configure OSPF over On Demand Circuits

The OSPF on demand circuit is an enhancement to the OSPF protocol that allows efficient operation over on demand circuits like ISDN, X.25 SVCs and dial-up lines. This feature supports RFC 1793,

Extending OSPF to Support Demand Circuits.

To configure OSPF for on demand circuits, perform the following tasks, beginning in global configuration mode:

Task		Command

Step 1	Enable OSPF operation.	router ospf process-id

Step 2	Configure OSPF on an on demand circuit.	ip ospf demand-circuit

Log Neighbor Changes

If the router is part of a point-to-point topology, then only one end of the demand circuit must be configured with this command. However, all routers must have this feature loaded.

If the router is part of a point-to-multipoint topology, only the multipoint end must be configured with this command.

Implementation Considerations

Evaluate the following considerations before implementing this feature:

• You do not want to do on a broadcast-based network topology because the overhead protocols (such as hellos and LSAs) cannot be successfully suppressed, which means the link will remain up.

Log Neighbor Changes

To configure the router to send a syslog message when an OSPF neighbor state changes, perform the following task in router configuration mode:

Task	Command

Send syslog message when a neighbor state	ospf log-adj-changes
changes.

Monitor and Maintain OSPF

To display various routing statistics, perform the following tasks in EXEC mode:

Task	Command

Display general information about OSPF routing	show ip ospf [process-id]
processes.

OSPF Configuration Examples

Task	Command

Display lists of information related to the OSPF	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database
database.	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database [router]

	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database [network]
	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database [summary]
	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database
	[asb-summary] [link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id] database [external]
	[link-state-id]
	show ip ospf [process-id area-id] database
	[database-summary]

Display the internal OSPF routing table entries to	show ip ospf border-routers
Area Border Router (ABR) and Autonomous
System Boundary Router (ASBR).

Display OSPF-related interface information.	show ip ospf interface [interface-name]

Display OSPF-neighbor information on a	show ip ospf neighbor [interface-name] [neighbor-id]
per-interface basis.	detail

Display a list of all LSAs requested by a router.	show ip ospf request-list [nbr] [intf] [intf-nbr]

Display a list of all LSAs waiting to be	show ip ospf retransmission-list [nbr] [intf] [intf-nbr]
retransmitted.

Display OSPF-related virtual links information.	show ip ospf virtual-links

OSPF Configuration Examples

The following sections provide OSPF configuration examples:

• OSPF Point-to-Multipoint Example

• Variable-Length Subnet Masks Example

• OSPF Routing and Route Redistribution Examples

• Route Map Examples

OSPF Point-to-Multipoint Example

Mollie’s Configuration

hostname mollie

interface serial 1

ip address 10.0.0.2 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.1 201 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.3 202 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.4 203 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Neon’s Configuration

hostname neon

interface serial 0

ip address 10.0.0.1 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.2 101 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.4 102 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Platty’s Configuration

hostname platty

interface serial 3

ip address 10.0.0.4 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

clock rate 1000000

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.1 401 broadcast frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.2 402 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

OSPF Configuration Examples

Jelly’s Configuration

hostname jelly

interface serial 2

ip address 10.0.0.3 255.0.0.0

ip ospf network point-to-multipoint encapsulation frame-relay

clock rate 2000000

frame-relay map ip 10.0.0.2 301 broadcast

router ospf 1

network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

Variable-Length Subnet Masks Example

interface ethernet 0

ip address 131.107.1.1 255.255.255.0

! 8 bits of host address space reserved for ethernets

interface serial 0

ip address 131.107.254.1 255.255.255.252

! 2 bits of address space reserved for serial lines

! Router is configured for OSPF and assigned AS 107 router ospf 107

! Specifies network directly connected to the router network 131.107.0.0 0.0.255.255 area 0.0.0.0

OSPF Routing and Route Redistribution Examples

Three examples follow:

• The first is a simple configuration illustrating basic OSPF commands.

• The second example illustrates a configuration for an internal router, ABR, and ASBRs within a single, arbitrarily assigned, OSPF autonomous system.

• The third example illustrates a more complex configuration and the application of various tools available for controlling OSPF-based routing environments.

Basic OSPF Configuration Example

The following example illustrates a simple OSPF configuration that enables OSPF routing process 9000, attaches Ethernet 0 to area 0.0.0.0, and redistributes RIP into OSPF, and OSPF into RIP:

interface ethernet 0

ip address 130.93.1.1 255.255.255.0 ip ospf cost 1

UML basics: An introduction to the Unified Modeling Language

2013-02-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

UML basics: An introduction to the Unified

Modeling Language

A little background

As I mentioned, UML was meant to be a unifying language enabling IT professionals to model computer applications. The primary authors were

Jim Rumbaugh, Ivar Jacobson, and Grady Booch, who originally had their own competing methods (OMT, OOSE, and Booch). Eventually, they joined forces and brought about an open standard. (Sound familiar? A similar phenomenon spawned J2EE, SOAP, and Linux.) One reason UML has become a standard modeling language is that it is programming-language independent. (UML modeling tools from IBM Rational are used extensively in J2EE shops as well in .Net shops.) Also, the UML notation set is a language and not a methodology. This is important, because a language, as opposed to a methodology, can easily fit into any company's way of conducting business without requiring change.

Since UML is not a methodology, it does not require any formal work products (i.e., "artifacts" in IBM Rational Unified Process^® lingo). Yet it does provide several types of diagrams that, when used within a given methodology, increase the ease of understanding an application under development. There is more to UML than these diagrams, but for my purposes here, the diagrams offer a good introduction to the language and the principles behind its use. By placing standard UML diagrams in your methodology's work products, you make it easier for UML-proficient people to join your project and quickly become productive. The most useful, standard UML diagrams are: use case diagram, class diagram, sequence diagram, statechart diagram, activity diagram, component diagram, and deployment diagram.

It is beyond the scope of this introductory article to go into great detail about each type of diagram. Instead, I will provide you with enough information for a general understanding of each one and then supply more details in later articles.

Use-case diagram

A use case illustrates a unit of functionality provided by the system. The main purpose of the use-case diagram is to help development teams visualize the functional requirements of a system, including the relationship of "actors" (human beings who will interact with the system) to essential processes, as well as the relationships among different use cases. Use-case diagrams generally show groups of use cases -- either all use cases for the complete system, or a breakout of a particular group of use cases with related functionality (e.g., all security administration-related use cases). To show a use case on a use-case diagram, you draw an oval in the middle of the diagram and put the name of the use case in the center of, or below, the oval. To draw an actor (indicating a system user) on a use-case diagram, you draw a stick person to the left or right of your diagram (and just in case you're wondering, some people draw prettier stick people than others). Use simple lines to depict relationships between actors and use cases, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Sample use-case diagram

A use-case diagram is typically used to communicate the high-level functions of the system and the system's scope. By looking at our use-case diagram in Figure 1, you can easily tell the functions that our example system provides. This system lets the band manager view a sales statistics report and the Billboard 200 report for the band's CDs. It also lets the record manager view a sales statistics report and the Billboard 200 report for a particular CD. The diagram also tells us that our system delivers Billboard reports from an external system called Billboard Reporting Service.

In addition, the absence of use cases in this diagram shows what the system doesn't do. For example, it does not provide a way for a band manager to listen to songs from the different albums on the Billboard 200 - - i.e., we see no reference to a use case called Listen to Songs from Billboard 200. This absence is not a trivial matter. With clear and simple use-case descriptions provided on such a diagram, a project sponsor can easily see if needed functionality is present or not present in the system.

Class diagram

The class diagram shows how the different entities (people, things, and data) relate to each other; in other words, it shows the static structures of the system. A class diagram can be used to display logical classes, which are typically the kinds of things the business people in an organization talk

about -- rock bands, CDs, radio play; or loans, home mortgages, car loans, and interest rates. Class diagrams can also be used to show implementation classes, which are the things that programmers typically deal with. An implementation class diagram will probably show some of the same classes as the logical classes diagram.The implementation class diagram won't be drawn with the same attributes, however, because it will most likely have references to things like Vectors and HashMaps.

A class is depicted on the class diagram as a rectangle with three horizontal sections, as shown in Figure 2. The upper section shows the class's name; the middle section contains the class's attributes; and the lower section contains the class's operations (or "methods").

Figure 2: Sample class object in a class diagram

In my experience, almost every developer knows what this diagram is, yet I find that most programmers draw the relationship lines incorrectly. For a class diagram like the one in Figure 3,you should draw the inheritance relationship¹ using a line with an arrowhead at the top pointing to the super class, and the arrowhead should a completed triangle. An association relationship should be a solid line if both classes are aware of each other and a line with an open arrowhead if the association is known by only one of the classes.

Figure 3: A complete class diagram, including the class object shown in Figure 2

In Figure 3, we see both the inheritance relationship and two association relationships. The CDSalesReport class inherits from the Report class. A CDSalesReport is associated with one CD, but the CD class doesn't know anything about the CDSalesReport class. The CD and the Band classes both know about each other, and both classes can be associated to one or more of each other.

A class diagram can incorporate many more concepts, which we will cover later in this article series.

Sequence diagram

Sequence diagrams show a detailed flow for a specific use case or even just part of a specific use case. They are almost self explanatory; they show the calls between the different objects in their sequence and can show, at a detailed level, different calls to different objects.

A sequence diagram has two dimensions: The vertical dimension shows the sequence of messages/calls in the time order that they occur; the horizontal dimension shows the object instances to which the messages are sent.

A sequence diagram is very simple to draw. Across the top of your diagram, identify the class instances (objects) by putting each class instance inside a box (see Figure 4). In the box, put the class instance name and class name separated by a space/colon/space " : " (e.g., myReportGenerator : ReportGenerator). If a class instance sends a message to another class instance, draw a line with an open arrowhead pointing to the receiving class instance; place the name of the message/method above the line. Optionally, for important messages, you can draw a dotted line with an arrowhead pointing back to the originating class instance; label the return value above the dotted line. Personally, I always like to include the return value lines because I find the extra details make it easier to read.

Reading a sequence diagram is very simple. Start at the top left corner with the "driver" class instance that starts the sequence. Then follow each message down the diagram. Remember: Even though the example sequence diagram in Figure 4 shows a return message for each sent message, this is optional.

Figure 4: A sample sequence diagram

By reading our sample sequence diagram in Figure 4, you can see how to create a CD Sales Report. The aServlet object is our example driver. aServlet sends a message to the ReportGenerator class instance named gen. The message is labeled generateCDSalesReport, which means that the ReportGenerator object implements this message handler. On closer inspection, the generateCDSalesReport message label has cdId in parentheses, which means that aServlet is passing a variable named cdId with the message. When gen instance receives a generateCDSalesReport message, it then makes subsequent calls to the CDSalesReport class, and an actual instance of a CDSalesReport called aCDReport gets returned. The gen instance then makes calls to the returned aCDReport instance, passing it parameters on each message call. At the end of the sequence, the gen instance returns aCDReport to its caller aServlet.

Please note: The sequence diagram in Figure 4 is arguably too detailed for a typical sequence diagram. However, I believe it is simple enough to understand, and it shows how nested calls are drawn. Also, with junior developers, sometimes it is necessary to break down sequences to this explicit level to help them understand what they are supposed to do.

Statechart diagram

The statechart diagram models the different states that a class can be in and how that class transitions from state to state. It can be argued that every class has a state, but that every class shouldn't have a statechart diagram. Only classes with "interesting" states -- that is, classes with three or more potential states during system activity -- should be modeled.

As shown in Figure 5, the notation set of the statechart diagram has five basic elements: the initial starting point, which is drawn using a solid circle; a transition between states, which is drawn using a line with an open arrowhead; a state, which is drawn using a rectangle with rounded corners; a decision point, which is drawn as an open circle; and one or more termination points, which are drawn using a circle with a solid circle inside it. To draw a statechart diagram, begin with a starting point and a transition line pointing to the initial state of the class. Draw the states themselves anywhere on the diagram, and then simply connect them using the state transition lines.

Figure 5: Statechart diagram showing the various states that classes pass through in a functioning system

The example statechart diagram in Figure 5 shows some of the potential information they can communicate. For instance, you can tell that loan processing begins in the Loan Application state. When the pre-approval process is done, depending on the outcome, you move to either the Loan Pre-approved state or the Loan Rejected state. This decision, which is made during the transition process, is shown with a decision point -- the empty circle in the transition line. By looking at the example, a person can tell that a loan cannot go from the Loan Pre-Approved state to the Loan in Maintenance state without going through the Loan Closing state. Also, by looking at our example diagram, a person can tell that all loans will end in either the Loan Rejected state or the Loan in Maintenance state.

Activity diagram

Activity diagrams show the procedural flow of control between two or more class objects while processing an activity. Activity diagrams can be used to model higher-level business process at the business unit level, or to model low-level internal class actions. In my experience, activity diagrams are best used to model higher-level processes, such as how the company is currently doing business, or how it would like to do business. This is because activity diagrams are "less technical" in appearance, compared to sequence diagrams, and business-minded people tend to understand them more quickly.

An activity diagram's notation set is similar to that used in a statechart diagram. Like a statechart diagram, the activity diagram starts with a solid circle connected to the initial activity. The activity is modeled by drawing a rectangle with rounded edges, enclosing the activity's name. Activities can be connected to other activities through transition lines, or to decision points that connect to different activities guarded by conditions of the decision point. Activities that terminate the modeled process are connected to a termination point (just as in a statechart diagram).

Optionally, the activities can be grouped into swimlanes, which are used to indicate the object that actually performs the activity, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Activity diagram, with two swimlanes to indicate control of activity by two objects: the band manager, and the reporting tool

In our example activity diagram, we have two swimlanes because we have two objects that control separate activities: a band manager and a reporting tool. The process starts with the band manager electing to view the sales report for one of his bands. The reporting tool then retrieves and displays all the bands that person manages and asks him to choose one. After the band manager selects a band, the reporting tool retrieves the sales information and displays the sales report. The activity diagram shows that displaying the report is the last step in the process.

Component diagram

A component diagram provides a physical view of the system. Its purpose is to show the dependencies that the software has on the other software components (e.g., software libraries) in the system. The diagram can be

shown at a very high level, with just the large-grain components, or it can be shown at the component package level.²

Modeling a component diagram is best described through an example. Figure 7 shows four components: Reporting Tool, Billboard Service, Servlet 2.2 API, and JDBC API. The arrowed lines from the Reporting Tool component to the Billboard Service, Servlet 2.2 API, and JDBC API components mean that the Reporting Tool is dependent on those three components.

Figure 7: A component diagram shows interdependencies of various software components the system comprises

Deployment diagram

The deployment diagram shows how a system will be physically deployed in the hardware environment. Its purpose is to show where the different components of the system will physically run and how they will communicate with each other. Since the diagram models the physical runtime, a system's production staff will make considerable use of this diagram.

The notation in a deployment diagram includes the notation elements used in a component diagram, with a couple of additions, including the concept of a node. A node represents either a physical machine or a virtual machine node (e.g., a mainframe node). To model a node, simply draw a three-dimensional cube with the name of the node at the top of the cube. Use the naming convention used in sequence diagrams: [instance name] : [instance type] (e.g., "w3reporting.myco.com : Application Server").

Figure 8: Deployment diagram. Because the Reporting Tool component is drawn inside of IBM WebSphere, which in turn is drawn inside of the node w3.reporting.myco.com, we know that users will access the Reporting Tool via a browser running on their local machine, and connecting via HTTP over their company's intranet.

The deployment diagram in Figure 8 shows that the users access the Reporting Tool by using a browser running on their local machine and connecting via HTTP over their company's intranet to the Reporting Tool. This tool physically runs on the Application Server named w3reporting.myco.com. The diagram shows the Reporting Tool component drawn inside of IBM WebSphere, which in turn is drawn inside of the node w3.reporting.myco.com. The Reporting Tool connects to its reporting database using the Java language to IBM DB2's JDBC interface, which then communicates to the actual DB2 database running on the server named db1.myco.com using native DB2 communication. In addition to talking to the reporting database, the Report Tool component communicates via SOAP over HTTPS to the Billboard Service.

Conclusion

Although this article provides only a brief introduction to Unified Modeling Language, I encourage you to start applying the information you have learned here to your own projects and to dig more deeply into UML. There are several software tools that help you to integrate UML diagrams into your software development process, but even without automated tools, you can use markers on a whiteboard or paper and pencils to draw your UML diagrams and still achieve benefits.

Knowledge Store

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UML basics: An introduction to the Unified Modeling Language