IBM/Tivoli Netcool Probes' Best Practices Guide

The flagship of IBM's enterprise fault management solution is Tivoli Netcool. Netcool triggers the Enterprise's reflex to a break down in the IT infrastructure. Netcool is fed by a variety of Probes that collect disparate events from applications, systems, and networks. Through the probe rules these different events are normalized, triaged, prioritized, and finally routed to enable the organization to respond appropriately. The greatest threat to the Netcool solution is rules file entropy. Entropy is enabled by: * Configuration Flexibility via the rules files programming syntax. * Code obfuscation: * The uncoupling of knowledge management, which describes the meaning/purpose of the rules files code. * Poor presentation means for both meaning and function of the rules. * Lack of audit ability of the rules. To combat entropy and extend the useful lifespan of the probe rules files, this book proposes additional hands-on best practices.