Keeping a monitoring system updated

Methods of synchronized automatic provisioning.

Do you want to know how you can automate your provisioning process? Compose IT has helped several large companies to automate their provisioning and we know the value of an automated process.

Automating a provisioning process can be done in many ways. Below we will describe a few methods of transferring information from one system to another. All the following methods can be used with all input methods. No matter if you want to input information in one or several systems and have the update transferred to all other systems, or if you have an inventory system that auto discovers change and synchronizes the changes with all other systems. These methods will work!

1 Synchronize new updates on a regular schedule

This is done by keeping track of what updates previously have been synchronized and only collecting the new updates. It can be done in a few different ways: By having something in the middle that knows the state of the target system and uses that to find the updates in the inventory system. It then pushes the delta updates to the target system. It can also be done by having the inventory system keeps track of the updates that has occurred since the last check for target system relevant information and then push the delta updates to the target system.

Advantage: A small set of data is transferred on every update check.

2 Synchronize on notice

This is done in a similar way as the example of the described method above. The inventory system keeps track of what has occurred. But instead of checking if something has happened on a regular schedule and pushing the updates to the target system. It notifies the target system that updates has occurred as soon as an update happen. Then the target system collects the relevant updates from the inventory system.

Advantage: The target system collects the updates as soon as they happen, and the inventory don’t need to keep track of what’s interesting for the target system. When updates happen in real-time the target system mirrors the reality in any given time.

3 Synchronize the entire inventory on a regular schedule

This is done by having the inventory system create a customized file with all relevant information that the target system process on a regular schedule. This can also be done by having the target system request a full set of relevant information from the inventory system.

Advantage:  In the unlikeliness of an undiscovered update the target system will still get the relevant information including the updates. We would recommend that this is used as a compliment to the delta updates. Since this can be hard to do with a high frequency due to the large data volumes.

4 Compile changes from multiple systems

This is done by having a script find updates in several inventory systems and compile a list of updates that it then inserts into a database. This database is then read by the target system which keeps track of what new updates has occurred.

Advantage: There can be several inventory systems that feeds the target system with updates. There can also be multiple target systems reading the same database.

All these methods can be combined and used simultaneously. For example, you can combine methods nr 4 & 2 so there is a script collecting data from several systems when notified. As soon as the script has collected the data and inserted it to the database the target system gets notified and collects the updates. If every update to the database also is logged than it is easy to see the history and keep track of what and when updates has occurred.

Compose IT has used this and many other combinations of the described methods to integrate inventory, fault, network and performance systems.

If you want to know more or if you need help integrating your systems and automating your provisioning process, get in touch and we will be happy to help you to solve your problems!