[hobbit] Alternate view for Management

Thu Jul 23 22:33:17 CEST 2009

It looks like the NAME and COMMENT tags only apply for the host entry that is preferred with the "prefer" tag. This means that it will change the name for both pages and that I can't have the host display a friendly name on one page but an actual hostname on the other.

The only way that I could find to make this work was to use "include" instead of "dispinclude", then create a second "fake host" entry with a different hostname and duplicate all of the tests using the "testip" tag, then use the NAME tag on this second "fake host". This means that all tests are duplicated and that the tests reported on this page are against the IP (and would not reflect host resolution issues.)

I know that there are a lot of you out there that are smarter than me and that know Xymon inside and out. Am I trying to get Xymon to do something that it just isn't capable of performing? I hate to have to build and manage a separate Xymon server that is just for the management view and reporting so that I can have this "Friendly View" type of report, but would that be my best option at this point?

Thanks!

-

Harold Ballinger
IT Coordinator
Heritage Healthcare, Inc.
 (888) 335-2620  | helpdesk
 (864) 224-3626  | office
 (864) 224-3093  | fax

[cid:image001.jpg at 01CA0BB1.5D5DDD70]

Visit our website: www.heritage-healthcare.com<http://www.heritage-healthcare.com/>

From: Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:hballinger at heritage-healthcare.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 2:57 PM
To: 'hobbit at hswn.dk'
Subject: RE: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

Ok, I've made it halfway to my goal and just need a little nudge.

I modified my bb-hosts to have includes for each page of hosts:

include bb-hosts-hosted
include bb-hosts-remote
include bb-hosts-connectivity
include bb-hosts-facilities
include bb-hosts-servers
include bb-hosts-test
include bb-hosts-corporate

I then also included:

dispinclude bb-hosts-services

and I then created the bb-hosts-services to look like:

page services Business Services
group-compress Website
111.222.33.44 www.mydomain.com # http://www.mydomain.com NAME:"Company Website" COMMENT:"Company Website" DESCR:"webserver:Company Website"
222.33.44.55  media.mydomain.com # http://media.mydomain.com ftp NAME:"Company Media Files" COMMENT:"Company Media Files" DESCR:"webserver:Company Media Files"
33.44.55.66   webstats.mydomain.com       # http://webstats.mydomain.com NAME:"Website Statistics" COMMENT:"Website Statistics" DESCR:"webserver:Website Statistics"

I was attempting to get the "Business Services" page to have "friendly names" only and not the actual hostnames. I am building this one page so that I can run an Availability Report and print this single page for a 10,000 ft view of business critical services. I would like for the headings and hostnames to be "friendly names" instead of actual hostnames since the target audience for this report will be non-technical. (The actual hostnames with all appropriate tests are already defined in their appropriate pages and those pages are the ones used by IT in their day-to-day jobs.)

It looks like the dispinclude does what I expected and does not duplicate the tests for these hosts, but I couldn't find a way to make the hostnames "friendly". The NAME, COMMENT, and DESCR don't seem to have any affect at all on this output. The comment doesn't even show up in parenthesis as it normally would.

I seem to have hit a roadblock... Any ideas?

-

Harold Ballinger
IT Coordinator
Heritage Healthcare, Inc.
 (888) 335-2620  | helpdesk
 (864) 224-3626  | office
 (864) 224-3093  | fax

[cid:image001.jpg at 01CA0BB1.5D5DDD70]

Visit our website: www.heritage-healthcare.com<http://www.heritage-healthcare.com/>

From: Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:hballinger at heritage-healthcare.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:17 PM
To: hobbit at hswn.dk
Subject: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

Our support staff likes having our monitoring system setup & organized by logical category/type. However, management is more interested in a view that is organized by business impact.

For example:

IT Top Level View-
  Hosted Services             Corporate Connectivity
  Corporate Servers         Corporate Desktops
  Remote Laptops       Facility Connectivity
  Facility Desktops

Management Top Level View-
  Email (Subpage containing all dependent hosts/services)
  HRMS (same as above)
 Sales CRM
 i.e. a listing for each "service" provided - possibly even maintained below subpages for each business unit

Management wants availability and impact by the specific service and business unit impacted (10,000 foot view showing all dependencies), while IT is interested in the detail of the cogs/gears that make it all work.

Do I just create a second listing for all of the hosts on a separate page structure? Would this generate twice as many network tests for the hosts that are listed duplicate times?

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
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