June 3, 2008

Q: Longitude has a built-in solution for monitoring Cisco network devices. Can Longitude monitor non-Cisco network devices?

A: Yes. Longitude’s built-in Cisco solution uses a standard RFC1213 MIB for data collection, so in many cases, you can use it to monitor non-Cisco devices out of the box. The Cisco solution proactively monitors key performance metrics including bandwidth utilization, IP packet errors, TCP errors, TCP retransmits, UDP errors, queue lengths, etc. Longitude alerts you when there is a problem, and also provides pre-configured, on-demand reports and graphs to help you understand performance trends and ensure maximum availability. For more information about built-in monitoring of Cisco and other network devices, please consult the Data Sheet for the Cisco Solution (http://www.heroix.com/downloads/pdf/Longitude_Network.pdf).

If you wish to monitor items not collected by the built-in solution, then Longitude’s SNMP Studio enables you to monitor any SNMP-based device or application, including switches, routers and other hardware devices, as well as middleware and custom applications. The SNMP Studio also provides an interface for browsing Management Information Base (MIB) files. SNMP Studio comes pre-loaded with a variety of MIBs, and additional MIBs can be added easily. Creating a solution in SNMP Studio is as simple as browsing a MIB tree to select SNMP objects for collection and then filling in brief forms in order to configure integrated events and reports for Longitude to create. For more information, please consult the Data Sheet for the SNMP Studio (http://www.heroix.com/downloads/pdf/Longitude_SNMP_Studio.pdf).

Posted by Alison Murphy, Senior Technical Support Engineer

March 25, 2008

Q: How do I manage the size and disk usage of the Longitude database?

A: Longitude uses an open source SAP database, which is automatically created with 3 GB allocated on the drive you choose when you install Longitude. The database will auto-expand on that drive when it reaches either 80% full or less than 100MB free. You can manually extend it on the same drive, but that is rarely needed given Longitude’s self-maintaining features.

Do not gauge database consumption based on what Windows shows as the size of the \Longitude\sapdb\indep_data\wrk\FZEDB1\DATA0001 file. Even if Windows shows that file at 3 GB, the database is not necessarily nearing the full 3 GB allocated.

You can check the consumption by logging into the WebDbm:

http://localhost:7230/webdbm

u: dbm
p: {the password you specified for the original Longitude user during installation}

See the screen shot below.

Posted by Greg Savas, Technical Support Engineer