Oracle® Enterprise Manager

Description

The System Monitoring Plug-in for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager extends Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control to add support for managing the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager. By deploying the plug-in in your Grid Control environment, you gain the following management features:

• Monitor the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.

• Gather configuration data and track configuration changes for the BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.

• Raise alerts and violations based on thresholds set on monitoring and configuration data.

• Provide rich out-of-box reports for the user interface based on the gathered data.

• Support monitoring by a remote Agent. For remote monitoring, the Agent does not need to be on the same computer as F5 BIG-IP.

Versions Supported

This plug-in supports the following versions of products:

• Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g Release 2 or higher Management Service and Agent

• F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager v9.1.x

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites must be met before you can deploy the plug-in:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g Release 2 or higher Management Service and Agent

• F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager configured to accept iControl web services calls from the Agent computer

• F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager configured to allow pings from the Agent computer

• User configured on F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager with Web User Role guest or higher. No https monitor should block the https calls for this user.

• Preferred credentials are set on all Agents where you want to deploy the plug-in. Unless you assign correct privileges, the deployment will fail.

Deploying the Plug-in

After you ensure that the prerequisites are met, follow these steps to deploy the plug-in:

1. Download the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager Plug-in archive to your desktop or computer on which the browser is launched. You can download the archive from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

2. Log in to Enterprise Manager Grid Control as a Super Administrator.

3. Click the Setup link in the upper right corner of the Grid Control Home page, then click the Management Plug-ins link on the left side of the Setup page.

4. Click Import.

5. Click Browse and select the plug-in archive.

6. Click List Archive.

7. Select the plug-in and click OK.

8. Verify that you have set preferred credentials on all Agents where you want to deploy the plug-in.

9. In the Management Plug-ins page, click the icon in the Deploy column for the F5 BIG-IP plug-in. The Deploy Management Plug-in wizard appears.

10. Click Add Agents, then select one or more Agents to which you want to deploy the plug-in. The wizard reappears and displays the Agent you selected.

11. Click Next, then click Finish.

    If you see an error message stating that the preferred credential is not set up, go to the Preferences page and add the preferred credentials for the Agent target type.

Adding Instances for Monitoring

After successfully deploying the plug-in, follow these steps to add the plug-in target to Grid Control for central monitoring and management:

1. From the Agent home page where the plug-in was deployed, select the BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager target type from the Add drop-down list, then click Go. The Add BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager page appears.

2. Provide the following information for the parameters:

   • Name — Name for the plug-in

   • Host Name — F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager host name or IP address.

   • Port — Port where the F5 BIG-IP plug-in can receive traffic, which is 443 by default for https

   • Username — Name of the user with guest or higher privilege for enabling the plug-in to access data

   • Password — Password for the login

3. Click Test Connection to make sure the parameters you entered (such as password) are correct.

4. Reenter the encrypted parameters from step 2 if the connection test was successful, then click OK.

Verifying and Validating the Plug-in

After waiting a few minutes for the plug-in to start collecting data, use the following steps to verify and validate that Enterprise Manager is properly monitoring the plug-in target:

1. Click the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager target link from the Agent home page Monitored Targets table. The F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager home page appears.

2. Verify that no metric collection errors are reported in the Metrics table.

3. Ensure that reports can be seen and no errors are reported by selecting the Reports property page.

4. Ensure that configuration data can be seen by clicking the View Configuration link in the Configuration section. If configuration data does not immediately appear, click Refresh in the View Configuration page.

Upgrading the Plug-in

1. Download the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager archive to your desktop or computer on which the browser is launched. You can download the archive from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

2. Log into Enterprise Manager Grid Control as a Super Administrator.

3. Click the Setup link in the upper right corner of the Grid Control Home page, then click the Management Plug-ins link on the left side of the Setup page.

4. Click Import.

5. Click Browse and select the plug-in archive that you have downloaded for upgrading.

6. Click List Archive.

7. Select the plug-in and click OK.

8. Verify that preferred credentials are set on all Agents to which you want to deploy the plug-in.

9. Blackout the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager targets for agents to which you want to deploy higher version of the plug-in. Ensure that you select immediate blackout.

10. In the Management Plug-ins page, click the icon in the Deploy column for the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager plug-in. The Deploy Management Plug-in wizard appears.

11. Click Add Agents, then select one or more Agents to which you want to deploy the plug-in. The wizard reappears and displays the Agent you selected.

12. Click Next, then click Finish.

    If you see an error message stating that the preferred credential is not set up, go to the Preferences page and add the preferred credentials for the Agent target type.

13. Remove blackout for the targets (required only if Step 9 applies).

Undeploying the Plug-in

Follow these steps to undeploy the plug-in from an Agent:

1. Log in to Enterprise Manager Grid Control as a Super Administrator.

2. Select the Targets tab, then the All Targets subtab. The All Targets page appears.

3. Select the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager and click Remove. You must do this step for all instances of the plug-in.

4. Make sure that the preferred credentials are set on the Agents where the plug-in is deployed.

5. Click the Setup link in the upper right corner of the All Targets page, then click the Management Plug-ins link on the left side of the Setup page. The Management Plug-ins page appears.

6. Click the icon in the Undeploy column for the F5 BIG-IP Plug-in. The Undeploy Management Plug-in page appears.

7. Check all the Agents that are currently deployed with the F5 BIG-IP Management Plug-in and click OK.

   You must undeploy the plug-in from every Agent in the system to completely remove it from the enterprise.

8. Select the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager Management Plug-in on the Management Plug-ins page and click Delete.

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