Glossary

administrative domain

An arbitrary collection of hosts and networks that the Sun Management Center monitors as a single hierarchal entity. You can choose to divide your enterprise into several domains, each domain to be managed by different users.

agent

A software process, usually corresponding to a particular local managed host, that carries out manager requests. An agent makes local system and application information available to remote users.

alarm

An abnormal event that is detected by a Sun Management Center agent and that might indicate current or impending problems. The agent passes information about the abnormal event to the Sun Management Center server. The server passes this information on as an alarm when the abnormal event matches a predefined alarm threshold.

alarm acknowledgment

Sun Management Center users can acknowledge alarms, indicating that the alarm does not represent a serious problem or that the problem is being resolved. Acknowledged alarms take a lower priority than unacknowledged alarms.

Attribute Editor

A window that provides information about the selected object. In addition, the Attribute Editor enables you to customize various monitoring criteria for that object. The monitoring criteria are dependent on the type of object. There are Attribute Editors for domains, hosts, modules, and data properties.

autonomous agents

Agents that can work independently from each other.

bus

A point-to-point network component. Used by the software to represent a network link to which many other hosts can be connected.

community

A string that is similar to a password and that is used to authenticate access to an agent's monitored data.

complex alarm

A complex alarm is based on a set of conditions being true. Unlike simple alarms, you cannot set thresholds for complex alarms.

composite object

Hardware that has multiple instances of the Solaris operating environment running inside a single chassis. These objects are “composites” from the Sun Management Center point of view because the objects consist of several parts shown inside a group or container. These parts include the following:

• One object for each instance of the Solaris operating environment

• Two objects that represent an active and backup system controller

• One object that represents the hardware chassis and related equipment such as fans and power supplies

console window

A graphical user interface component of Sun Management Center software used to view information and status for monitored hosts and managed objects and to interact with Sun Management Center agents. All Sun Management Center functions are available from a Java Console. Some functions are also available from a web console.

developer environment

A demonstration environment in which developers can test customized modules designed to work with the Sun Management Center software. See the Sun Management Center 3.6.1 Developer Environment Reference Manual for more information.

Discovery

A Sun Management Center tool available from the main console window that is used to find hosts, routers, networks, and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) devices that can be reached from the Sun Management Center server.

dynamic loadable modules

A Sun Management Center agent module that can be loaded or unloaded at runtime, enabling monitored properties to be displayed on the main console window without having to restart the console or agent.

event

A change in the state of a managed object.

file scanning

The act of scanning a file, usually a log file, for certain patterns (regular expressions) that might be indicative of problems or significant information. Sun Management Center agents use file scanning to assist in the monitoring of systems and applications when these components do not provide direct access to status information.

FMD

(Fault Management Daemon). A daemon process running on Solaris 10 that monitors hardware and software faults in the system.

FMRI

(Fault Management Resource Identifier). A unique identifier that identifies each service on the system.

graphical user interface

The graphical user interface, or GUI, is a window that provides the user with a method of interacting with the computer and its special applications, usually with a mouse or other selection device. The window usually includes such things as windows, an intuitive method of manipulating directories and files, and icons.

hierarchy view

A window view that defines objects in a hierarchy or tree relationship. Objects are grouped depending on the rank of the object in the hierarchy.

hop

The number of routers through which a packet goes before reaching its destination.

instance

A single word or alpha-character string that is used internally within the Sun Management Center agent to identify uniquely a particular module or a row within a module.

manage

In Sun Management Center software, manage is defined as being able to observe (monitor) and manipulate the object. For example, management privileges include acknowledging and closing alarms, loading and unloading modules, changing alarm thresholds, and so on. Management privileges are similar to read, write, and execute access.

MCP

(Module Configuration Propagation). MCP refers to the process of copying scripts and module configuration files from one host to another host or group of hosts.

MIB

Management information base. A MIB is a hierarchical database schema that describes the data that is available from an agent. Sun Management Center agents use the MIB to store monitored data that can be accessed remotely.

module

A software component that can be loaded dynamically to monitor data resources of systems, applications, and network devices.

monitor

In Sun Management Center software, monitor is defined as being able to observe objects, alarms, and properties. Monitoring privileges are similar to read-only access. Contrast with manage.

NAT

(Network Address Translation). A network configuration feature that enables an IP address to appear as a different IP address, often used for security or efficiency reasons.

node

A workstation or server.

object

A particular resource, such as a computer host, network interface, or software process, that Sun Management Center software can monitor or manage. A managed object is an object that you can manipulate. For example, you can acknowledge and turn off an alarm condition for an object that you can manage. A monitored object is an object that you can observe but not acknowledge or otherwise manage.

production environment

One of two environments in which Sun Management Center software is deployed. The production environment is a real environment (as opposed to a test environment) in which you manage and monitor your hardware.

remote server context

A collection of Sun Management Center agents and a particular server layer with which the remote agents are associated.

request caching

The consolidation of duplicate outstanding requests that originated from multiple consoles. This strategy eliminates the execution of redundant requests.

rule

An alarm check mechanism that allows for complex or special purpose logic in determining the status of a monitored host or node.

seed

The password used to generate the Sun Management Center security keys. The seed is an alpha-numeric string of up to eight characters. This string is not necessarily a UNIX password. You can select your own seed, or accept the default seed (maplesyr) provided by the Sun Management Center software. If you select your own seed, be sure to record the seed for later reference.

segment

An object that represents a network segment and that is used as a basis for a local network.

server

The collection of programs and processes (SNMP-based trap, event, topology, configuration, and Java server) that work on behalf of a Sun Management Center user to help manage a particular set of networks, hosts, and devices. The server usually sends requests to Sun Management Center agents, accepts collected data from the agents, and passes the data to the main console window for display.

server context

A Sun Management Center sever layer and its associated agents.

simple alarm

Alarms that are based on one condition becoming true. You can set alarm thresholds for simple alarms.

SNMP

(Simple Network Management Protocol). A simple protocol that enables networked entities (hosts, routers, and so on) to exchange monitoring information.

SNMPv2 usec

SNMP version 2, user-based security model security standards.

Sun Management Center superuser

A valid user on a server host. The superuser decides what the agents are in the context of the server. By default, the superuser password is used as a seed for security key generation.

Sun Management Center user

Members of the symon group in the /etc/group file.

topology view

The view that displays the members of the object selected in the hierarchy view.

URL

(Uniform Resource Locator). A URL is a textual specification that describes a resource that can be accessed through the network.

whole root zone

A zone that does not inherit packages from the global zone.

zone

A virtualized operating system environment that you can set up for systems that run the Solaris 10 Operating System. Every Solaris system contains a global zone, the default zone for the system.