Source:Monitoring and Reporting

From SEPsesam
Revision as of 17:19, 14 December 2020 by Sta (talk | contribs) (Marked this version for translation)
Other languages:

Copyright © SEP AG 1999-2024. All rights reserved.

Any form of reproduction of the contents or parts of this manual is allowed only with the express written permission from SEP AG. When compiling and designing user documentation SEP AG uses great diligence and attempts to deliver accurate and correct information. However, SEP AG cannot issue a guarantee for the contents of this manual.

Docs latest icon.png Welcome to the latest SEP sesam documentation version 4.4.3 Beefalo/4.4.3 Beefalo V2. For previous documentation version(s), check SEP sesam Archive.


Overview

SEP sesam enables you to easily monitor your entire SEP sesam environment by using its Web UI or SEP sesam GUI. Various monitoring features and real-time monitoring capabilities provide the complete oversight of your environment as well as valuable insights into KPIs of the backup and restore process to help effectively manage, control, monitor and restore backups.

By using reports, you can not only check the details of all events but also get an overview of all active jobs, next events, and different states, e.g., data store status, backups, migrations, etc. You can send these reports and log files in the form of email notifications.

Monitoring SEP sesam environment

You can monitor your SEP sesam environment through SEP sesam GUI or by using Web UI.

Note that all monitoring, reporting and notifications functionality accessible in the SEP sesam GUI is also accessible in Web UI with the advantages of being user-friendly and visually attractive, providing immediate access to the Web UI from mobile browsers and being easily available to anyone you authorize.

Web UI Dashboard and Monitoring

Web UI displays all important key information for your environment with standard dashboard for easy visualization of job completion status, errors, storage usage and more, based on metrics updated in real-time.

  • You can monitor your backup infrastructure on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
  • You can check the status of backup-, migration-, replication-, restore-, and media actions job, data store status, backup and restore data size, data store utilization, upcoming events, etc.
  • You can expand the charts for better readability, generate reports, and filter the data.
  • For more details on Web UI and its various report widgets, see SEP sesam Web UI.
Web UI access

When running the SEP sesam GUI as an administrator, Web UI landing page opens by default with link to the Web UI (and links to documentation, etc). You can also access the online dashboard from the GUI by clicking the first icon – dashboard – in the toolbar or by selecting Dashboard in Main Selection -> Monitoring. Or you can simply type the following information in the browser address bar: http://[servername]:11401/sep/ui or https://[servername]:11401/sep/ui.

Monitoring in GUI

SEP sesam GUI provides monitoring capabilities for data protection activities, performance, and resource usage. The Main Selection navigation pane (located on the left side of the GUI window) is used to navigate through the components of the SEP sesam system. These include Clients, Data Stores, Loaders, Drives, Media Pools, Tasks and Scheduling, and provide the following dedicated views for monitoring SEP sesam environment.

Monitoring

SEP sesam GUI Monitoring feature allows you to check the last backup status, the status of SEP sesam processes, monitor drives, access the online dashboard, and check notifications (see section Notification Center). You can search and/or filter and export the data for reporting and analysis.

Job State

In addition, you can monitor the status of SEP sesam jobs, such as backups, restores, and migrations, by expanding the GUI item Job State and selecting All results to show details on all jobs, such as job ID, event type (backup, command, migration, restore, etc.), job status (successful or not), object (what was processed), task (its name, job's duration, start and end time), and other details.

Clicking the sub-item (Backups, Restores, Migrations and Replications, or Media Actions) provides detailed information on the selected job. For example, Backups provides detailed information on all backup jobs, including the task name, date of the last full backup, backup level, data size, throughput, assigned media pool, etc.

You can filter each status view to include only the tasks, status, clients, etc., that match certain criteria.

SEP Tip.png Tip
You can easily print or export different reports, as described in section SEP sesam reports.

Logging

The Logging view in GUI and System logs in Web UI are the central place to find information about what is occurring in your SEP sesam environment. SEP sesam creates the following protocols or log files for each backup day: the status file – State (<date of day>.status), the Day Log (<date of day>.prt), and the Error Log (<date of day>).

State
This detailed status log has one line written for each backup in chronological order.
Day Log
All SEP sesam modules write messages with a timestamp attached to it for each backup day. Each message contains a unique code consisting of message type (I=information, W=warning, E=error ), number, and originating module. You can filter the day log by using time selection (the from and to date) and search.
Error Log
Contains a record of critical errors that occurred during the backup day. This log is a subset of the entire day log where only error messages are recorded.

SEP sesam log files are used to detect operations that caused errors or malfunctions, for example, in case of a failed backup. For details, see Analyzing SEP sesam Log Files and Tips for Backup Troubleshooting. Log files are stored on the backup server in <SESAM ROOT>/var/prot. They can be printed or sent by email.

When you want to get more information about specific events or modules or when asked by support in the course of diagnosing your specific problem, you can run SEP sesam with a higher log level than default (0 for backup and restore). Note that increasing the log level increases the amount of information being logged and may negatively affect the performance of SEP sesam. For details, see Setting Log Level.

SEP Tip.png Tip
It is recommended that you configure the interfaces (Alarm, Disaster and/or Notify) to automate sending email reports of errors and license violations, log files, and to help carry out the disaster recovery process in case of a SEP sesam Server breakdown. See section Email notifications.

You can check the log information of the SEP sesam Server interfaces by selecting the target interface (Alarm, Disaster or Notify) in GUI under Main Selection -> Interfaces or in Web UI under System logs.

Email notifications

SEP sesam allows you to send the logging messages (daily protocol, events and errors) to an email account. This feature is based on interface scripts that have to be activated via GUI or manually by copying the templates that are available in the SEP sesam directory <SESAM_ROOT>/skel/templates. For details, see Configuring interfaces.

SEP sesam interfaces require a configured email account to be able to send the selected notifications via email. You can configure it from the menu bar -> Configuration -> E-mail Settings, select the Use Sesam mail program option, click New and then configure the account with the account name sesam (the default email account; lowercase). For details, see Configuring email account and recipients.

It is recommended to configure the following interfaces to receive a daily log and notifications when certain events happen in SEP sesam environment.

  • sm_notify: Notify is executed on the SEP sesam Server. It can be used for reporting on successfully finished and erroneous events, such as backup, restore, migration, media initialization, and start/finish of a NEWDAY event.
  • Click on the right "Expand" button to view a sample failed jobs report

    Reporting failed job.jpg

  • sm_alarm: Alarm is executed on the SEP sesam Server to warn the system administrator when a fatal error occurs or in case of a license violation.
  • sm_disaster: This interface must be properly configured to help carry out the disaster recovery process. For details on how to prepare for it, see SEP sesam Server Disaster Recovery. The disaster interface sends an email describing the recovery procedure in the event of a disaster and an attachment containing the SEP sesam bootstrap database with all essential data for the disaster recovery.
  • Click on the right "Expand" button to view a sample disaster log

    Disaster log.jpg

For details on how to configure the interface scripts, see Configuring interfaces.

SEP sesam reports

SEP sesam reports provide various information on your backup environment. For example, you can check the status of the last backup, check which clients in your network are not configured for backup, the data storage usage and more.

Web UI reports

SEP sesam Web UI provides various reports by clicking Reports on the left navigation menu of the Web UI (browser: https://[servername]:11401/sep/ui/#/server-report).

The following reports are available as a drop-down list at the top left corner: Available Media Report, Backup Storage Report, Clients Report, Failed Jobs Report, Jobs Overview Report, Readcheck Report, Used Media Report, License Report (MSP Unit or Volume Frontside).

Web UI reporting.jpg

The reports can be filtered by using the date range picker or selector or by sesam_date, start_time, stop_time. You can send the reports in the form of email notifications, as described in Email notifications.

GUI reports

Depending on what you want to check, you can define the criteria and generate various types of reports using the SEP sesam GUI, including:

  • Location reports
  • License reports
  • Client reports
  • License reports
  • All results list
  • Backups list
  • Restores list
  • Migrations and Replications list
  • Media Actions list

You can manage the GUI reports in the following ways.

  • By generating a report for each client or location: Main Selection -> Topology -> Location/Clients, right-click the client/location and then select the Client/Location Report.
  • By printing or exporting reports: Use the Print or Export button at the top-right corner of the content pane. You can export reports in excel or csv format.
  • Print export.jpg
  • By sending email notifications, as described in Email notifications.
SEP Tip.png Tip
You can change the level of reported messages for a backup or restore session by changing the log level. For details, see Setting Log Level.

Additionally, you can use SEP sesam logs to check the recorded events and troubleshoot possible problems, as described above in Logging.

Notification Center

Notification Center is used to dynamically send different types of messages – notifications from SEP sesam Server to all open GUIs. These messages inform the user about license violations, unconfigured interfaces, etc., and contain other important information, such as the announcement of a new release or the notification of the error. Notifications are sent via RSS feeds. You can subscribe to a SEP sesam RSS feed via your email application or web browser, see Subscribing to SEP sesam RSS feeds.

Notifications can be accessed in Web UI and in SEP sesam GUI at the upper right corner by clicking the flag. (In GUI, it is also available under Monitoring -> Notification Center or from the menu bar -> Window -> Show Notification Center.) For more details, see Notification Center.