We’re happy to announce the new release of ALM Performance v1.5, our monitoring and alerting tool for Jenkins, ClearCase, ClearQuest (formerly known as ALM Vitality tool).
This development cycle was intensive – we received and incorporated feedback from many of our users and we have tried to answer all needs with this latest version.
We’re happy to announce that we were able to provide good solutions in this release., This new version improves the tool and extends the monitoring capabilities and coverage for all ALM tools it monitors, including new checks and another operating system we can monitor.As you know, this tool continuously monitors many of ClearCase, Jenkins of ClearQuest components and IT resources and alerts you when a service or component has stopped functioning, giving you key information and helping you get a root cause analysis immediately.
This tool was built especially for ClearCase, Jenkins and ClearQuest users and administrators. We have incorporated our knowledge in a very unique way so you don’t have to waste time learning how to monitor these tools or be a monitoring or ITSM expert. Users can set up this tool within an hour!
What is new in this version? See all the details:
First of all, we’d like to introduce the new features which are common to all tools that ALM Performance monitors (including ClearCase, Jenkins and ClearQuest):
- New memory Check: The tool can now alert if consumed memory is more than XX % for more than NN consecutive minutes. Users can define these thresholds (separately for each monitored host) in a smart way that can filter-out the “white noise” of momentary peaks.
For instance: you can set a rule that alerts only if a given host is consuming more than 80% CPU for more than 2 consecutive minutes. Using it this way, the tool filters out events when the CPU is higher than 80% for one minute only (which for example could happen when loading application or doing heavy tasks for a very short time).
- New CPU check: similar to Memory Check above, the tool can now alert if consumed CPU is more than XX % for more than NN consecutive minutes.
- New Custom Check: You can run any script you want from the tool, and the tool will collect its output and represent it in both email alerts and the dashboard, in a way that tells you if a specific process was finished successfully or not.
This gives you full flexibility to cover any check you need.
Just to give some examples, we found some users who needed it for the following:- Check if ClearCase VOBs are locked
- Check if backup process was finished successfully
- Check if Jenkins can login successfully to LDAP (using a certain username)
- Check if a certain ClearQuest query can run successfully
This new check is also described below in this post.
- Extended agentless SSH support: we now support OpenSSH and Cygwin for monitoring Windows host and servers.
If you have to monitor Windows host, you must have SSH server installed on each host. OpenSSH and Cygwin applications are standard, very secure, well-established, easy to install and free of charge.
They are joined to our support of Bitvise SSH support (which is standard as well, but requires an extra fee payment to Bitvise vendor). - New sorting capability in dashboard, which enables you to quickly sort the list of errors by column criteria, including date and time; Hostname; Host type; Check type; Check status and description column
Figure 1: Dashboard of ALM Performance. You can now sort by any columns.
- New cloning host feature. This enables you to quickly set up additional hosts to monitor if you have a series of the same host type.
Figure 2: This is part of the settings application of ALM Performance.
New features unique to Jenkins:
- Mac OS X hosts are now supported. This enables you to monitor Jenkins slaves and masters (in the same way it was possible for Windows, Linux and UNIX so far).
Figure 3: Adding new Jenkins host - Monitor your Jenkins environment using Jenkins’ own user database or using LDAP authentication.
- Monitor more of your dynamic jobs list with less effort – smart retrieval of your jobs list allows you to add more jobs to monitor and edit your evolving jobs list using an easy to use and intuitive user interface.
- As mentioned above, there’s a new “Custom Check” in the tool that enables you to run any script you want and share its output with the tool’s email notification and dashboard.
We made an example script, written in Python, that demonstrates a common scenario you may find useful. The script makes sure that Jenkins recognizes a given username, which means the following:- If you sync Jenkins with ActiveDirectory (and LDAP), it means that they are working together as expected.
- If you work with local users, it means that the given username is well -recognized.
*We would be happy to create scripts dedicated to your environments and needs. For further information please contact us at apm@almtoolbox.com
New features unique to ClearCase:
- We changed the way that ALM performance monitors license availability when it’s based on FlexLM (for both ClearQuest and Clearcase): This check now runs locally on the monitored host (this ensures a more accurate check).
It checks if the monitored host can get a license.
If not – it immediately alerts for a lack of license. If yes – it checks how many licenses are available, and alerts according to predefined warning and error thresholds.
Figure 4: Available License Settings form. You can set Warning and critical thresholds for unavailability of licenses.
This check is running locally
- As mentioned above, there’s a new “Custom Check” in the tool that enables you to run any script you want and share its output with the tool’s email notification and dashboard.
We made an example script, written in Perl, which demonstrates a common scenario you may find useful. The script checks if your system has locked VOBs and lists the locked VOBs, but you can add any script you wish (for example a script that checks ClearCase backup).
*We would be happy to create scripts dedicated to your environments and needs. For further information please contact us at apm@almtoolbox.com
New features unique to ClearQuest:
- New for SQL Server users: we now support monitoring of SQL Server database running on a different machine than the web application.
Figure 5: 2 ClearQuest servers architecture with remote database server
Figure 6: ALM Performance settings application allows you to configure and monitor a remote SQL Server database - We have improved the ClearQuest Query Check: this check simulates the way that end-users are working with ClearQuest, so that it immediately alerts if users can’t run queries or charts.
Figure 7: ALM Performance dashboard. ClearQuest query check is the check on the far right.
Now this query runs much faster. It also provides better coverage by simulating a common query that works for all ClearQuest schema.
Figure 8: This is the ClearQuest web dashboard, including the common queries on the left panel. ALM Performance immediately alerts if users can’t run these queries.
- We changed the way that ALM performance monitors license availability when it’s based on FlexLM (for both ClearQuest and Clearcase): This check now runs locally on the monitored host (this ensures a more accurate check). It checks if the monitored host can get a license. If not – it immediately alerts for a lack of license.If yes – it checks how many licenses are available, and alerts according to pre-defined warning and error thresholds
Figure 9: Available License Settings form. You can set warning and critical thresholds for unavailability of licenses.
This check is running locally
- As mentioned above, there’s a new “Custom Check” in the tool that enables you to run any script you want and share its output with the tool’s email notification and dashboard. Here is one example we got from our users:
Script that runs a query or process and times the operation, the script returns an error or a warning when the run time is longer than it should be.
* We would be happy to create scripts dedicated to your environments and needs, for further information please contact us at apm@almtoolbox.com
ALM Performance is available with perpetual license or subscription license. For more details and pricing, please contact apm@almtoolbox.com.
