Enterprise Monitoring SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform with Zabbix – Part 2

In the first part of the blog on Enterprise Monitoring SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform with Zabbix – Part 1, we had created and configured Zabbix server agent and host groups for our SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. In this second part of the blog, we will configure and setup monitoring and corresponding actions.

Adding Application to Template

A template  contains the set of applications that we need to monitor. Now let us see how to create an  application for our BI platform.

• Navigate to Template section under Configuration tab and click on the previously created template BI_PLATFORM_TEMPLATE

• Click on Application from the second level list and click on ‘Create Application’ from the right corner

• Enter the application name as BI_PLATFORM_APP and click on Save to create the application. Now the application is created.

Adding Items to monitor in application

We will add each process to monitor as items in zabbix . Zabbix has some inbuilt monitoring keys that can be used to monitor the process/service and the host system. We will be creating items for the following :

1. BOEXI40Tomcat – BI Tomcat Service
2. BOEXI40SI<Hostname> where hostname is your BI Platform hostname – SI Agent Service
3. exe – BI Tomcat windows process
4. exe process – CMS Server windows process

• Navigate to Template section under Configuration tab and click on our template BI_PLATFORM_TEMPLATE
• Select the items from the second level list and click on the ‘Create item’ from the right corner

• Enter the name for the item and select type as Zabbix agent
• Select the appropriate host interface that was defined when creating the host
• Select the time interval. 60 seconds is recommended for production monitoring.
• Select the application as BI_PLATFORM_APP

• Enter the following key and show value for the items

Perform the above steps for all the four items that are to be monitored.

Creating Triggers to monitor the items

Triggers specify the change in state of the items in the application. It triggers a particular action based on some conditions. For eg., when CMS process is down or when the Apache process exits abruptly, etc.

• Navigate to Template section under Configuration tab and click on our template BI_PLATFORM_TEMPLATE
• Select the Triggers from the second level list and click on the from the right corner

• Create the Triggers for each item as per the below table. Replace <Hostname> with the hostname that was defined when creating the host

Now that you have set the trigger, your application will now be monitored by Zabbix.

Creating Actions for Triggers

Actions are the commands that are executed once the trigger is alerted. These commands are executed on the host system with the help of Zabbix agent.

• Navigate to Action section under Configuration tab and click on from the right corner

• Enter the Action name as BO_RESTART and navigate to the conditions tab
• Select the New Condition as Trigger and type the name of the Trigger that you created in the previous step. Add all the four triggers that were created.

• Similarly, add the Template name as BI_PLATFORM_TEMPLATE

• Navigate to the Operations section and create a new Action operation as per the details below:

The action is now created. Every time the trigger is set, the action would execute and restart the BI platform and Apache Server.

Additional Monitoring

Although Zabbix is a very powerful enterprise grade monitoring tool in itself, you can also set additional monitoring tasks like Web URL monitoring for SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform which is triggered when the BOE URL is not reachable. Monitoring CMS Database, memory usage and disk space for the platform host is also a feature provided by Zabbix. You could refer here for additional process to monitor BusinessObjects Servers monitoring and their executables path

Monitoring is an integral part of any platform and having an extended monitoring system helps us to setup proactive measures than reactive measures. Do you use monitoring in your platform? Try this out and let us know!