The IT of companies is more and more heterogeneous, with legacy systems and systems hosted by third party providers (Cloud). The supervision of the different elements is a must, as we have already mentioned several times on this blog.
Let's see through a concrete case how to set up a supervision of IaaS and PaaS infrastructures hosted in Azure while having bricks of its IS internally.
Context:
Our example is a car park manager, who has a connected system to indicate to the users of the car park, the available spaces. In this way, it can maximize the filling of the parking lot, while providing users with comfort by reducing the time spent searching for a space.
Our parking manager has a system based on 3 bricks:
- PaaS bricks in Azure with :
- an IoT Hub for real-time sensor status feedback
- an Azure BDD, a database for storing real-time data
- Several WebApps to expose APIs and a web interface for the manager
- a notification hub to send notifications to the manager when needed
- IaaS bricks in Azure to host :
- a Windows machine with a SQL Server ("BI" database)
- a Windows machine with PowerBI for the management and the realization of various reports
- Internal bricks for :
- Retrieve information
- Manage the display of light panels
- Manage the local network
Implementing monitoring with ServiceNav :
Step 1: Supervision of the elements
For PaaS bricks: Supervision via the MS-Azure-PaaS-Metrics service model and reporting of metrics required for supervision and comparison with thresholds.
For the IaaS bricks: Two options were possible: Set up a ServiceNavBox on the Azure platform as a VM in the same VLAN as the machines to be supervised or supervise via the APIs with the Host Alive by Azure API equipment model and the associated service models from the ServiceNav Box set up in its Internal IT. We finally opted for a ServiceNav Box as a VM in the Azure cloud.
For the internal bricks: "classic" supervision with the installation of a ServiceNav Box as close as possible to the equipment in the local information system. The ServiceNav Box is connected to the ServiceNav SaaS platform. It interrogates the equipment (server, windows services, network equipment, light panels, etc.) via SNMP and WMI.
Second step: Setting up a MAP
From a diagram made with PowerPoint showing the client's infrastructure, and by placing the different elements on a MAP, we were able to build a very visual representation of the infrastructure giving its state in real time and the important metrics.
Step 3: Implementing Service Weather
By aggregating all the control points, it is then possible to build a service weather forecast indicating the complete state of the parking management system. It is then possible to calculate the SLA on the complete availability of the service.
Conclusion
With ServiceNav and its integrated service and device models, it is possible to monitor a mixed infrastructure: Azure Cloud and Legacy internal IT.
From technical supervision to functional operation, real-time vision of the entire infrastructure and calculation of SLAs, ServiceNav supports all the teams involved in the customer's project.
