Introduction to Administering EntireX Broker with Command Central

This document covers the following Command Central topics that are specific to EntireX:

Note:
Command Central functionality that is not EntireX-specific is described in the separate Command Central documentation or the online help provided with Command Central. On Empower, the documentation is provided under webmethods > EntireX > EntireX 10.1 > Additional Documentation.


Scope

Software AG Command Central is a tool that release managers, infrastructure engineers, system administrators, and operators can use to perform administrative tasks from a single location. Command Central can assist with the following configuration, management, and monitoring tasks:

  • Infrastructure engineers can see at a glance which products and fixes are installed, where they are installed, and compare installations to find discrepancies.

  • System administrators can configure environments by using a single web user interface or command-line tool. Maintenance involves minimum effort and risk.

  • Release managers can prepare and deploy changes to multiple servers using command-line scripting for simpler, safer lifecycle management.

  • Operators can monitor server status and health, as well as start and stop servers from a single location. They can also configure alerts to be sent to them in case of unplanned outages.

Note:
Command Central is available for Broker instances running on UNIX and Windows platforms.

For EntireX, you can use Command Central to perform the following operations on EntireX Broker:

  • View the number of EntireX Brokers running in each environment of your IT landscape

  • View the versions of EntireX Brokers

  • Monitor EntireX Broker installations

  • Monitor runtime status, KPIs (key performance indicators), and alerts of EntireX Broker instances

  • Start, stop, and restart EntireX Broker

  • Configure the following parameters of EntireX Broker:

    • Application Monitoring

    • Attribute File

    • Autostart

    • Monitoring KPIs

    • Persistent Store

    • SSL Ports

    • TCP Ports

    • Security

    • Trace

  • Enable and specify EntireX Broker Trace Level temporarily

  • Display Services

  • Stop Service

  • Display Server Instances of a Service

  • Stop Server Instance

  • Create new EntireX Brokers

  • Delete existing EntireX Brokers

Note:
Software AG Platform Manager (installed by default with Command Central) uses EntireX Broker Admin to obtain information about EntireX Brokers, so EntireX Broker Admin must be running if you want to administer EntireX Brokers through Command Central.

For more information see the separate Command Central documentation or the online help provided with Command Central.

Monitoring EntireX Broker KPIs

The visual key performance indicators (KPIs) and alerts enable you to monitor webMethods EntireX Broker's health. The following KPIs help you administer, troubleshoot, and resolve performance issues in EntireX Broker:

graphics/intro_kpi.png

KPI Description
Clients Number of active clients.
Servers Number of active servers.
Conversations Number of active conversations.

Configuration Types that EntireX Broker Supports

The EntireX Broker component supports the configuration instances listed in the following table.

Instance Type Use to...
APPLICATION-MONITORING APPLICATION-MONITORING Configure Application Monitoring.
ATTRIBUTE-FILE ATTRIBUTE-FILE Show and edit the EntireX Broker Attribute file.
BROKER-AUTOSTART BROKER-AUTOSTART The autostart value of an EntireX Broker instance determines whether it will be started when the computer is restarted.
SSL BROKER-PORTS Show and edit the EntireX Broker SSL Transport parameters.
TCP BROKER-PORTS Show and edit the EntireX Broker TCP Transport parameters.
BROKER-PSTORE BROKER-PSTORE Define how unit-of-work messages are stored to disk.
BROKER-SECURITY BROKER-SECURITY Enable or disable EntireX Broker security.
BROKER-TRACELEVEL BROKER-TRACELEVEL Show and edit the EntireX Broker Trace Level.
MONITORING-KPI MONITORING-KPI Show and edit the Monitoring KPI settings, like the marginal and critical bounds, etc.

Note:
The default SSL Port configuration uses default certificates provided with the installation, but we strongly recommend you create your own. This means, however, that you may provide an incorrect certificate in the Command Central graphical user interface. This has the effect that the Monitoring KPIs are not presented correctly and the original communication exception cannot be shown in the GUI. However, the original exception is available in the wrapper.log of the SPM profile. Look for the string pattern "cannot get KPIs! RpcException 0013" in the log file and check the EntireX Error Messages and Codes for the original RpcException.