Performance Of The Epicenter Server; Tuning The Alarm System - Extreme Networks EPICenter Guide Manual

Tuning the Alarm System

A setting of Light (recommended) means the elapsed time between groups of MAC address polling
requests will be calculated to place a lighter load on the EPICenter server. As a result, it will take longer
for the server to accomplish a complete polling cycle. Moving the load indicator towards Heavy will
shorten the elapsed time between groups of MAC address polling requests, at the cost of a heavier load
on the EPICenter server.
You can use the EPICenter Server State Summary Report to see the MAC address polling frequency
based on the current setting of the MAC Polling server properties. The Server State Summary report
tells you how long it took to complete the most recent polling cycle, as well as the average time it has
taken to perform a complete polling cycle. Based on this data you can determine if you need to adjust
the MAC Polling System Load factor.
Telnet Polling
Telnet polling is used for MAC address polling, for retrieving Netlogin information, for retrieving ESRP
information on older Extreme switches, and for retrieving Alpine power supply IDs. You cannot modify
its frequency other than as discussed for MAC polling in the previous section. You can disable Telnet
polling entirely, however, in the Devices area of Server Properties in the Admin applet.
If you disable Telnet Polling, MAC address polling is also disabled.

Performance of the EPICenter Server

Performance of the EPICenter server itself is affected by the number of devices you are managing as
well as the resources of the system on which the EPICenter server is running.
You can use the Windows Task Manager or a tool such as in Solaris (available as downloadable
top
Freeware) to determine how much memory and processor the EPICenter server is consuming. The
larger the set of devices EPICenter tries to manage, the more resources it will require. If you also run the
EPICenter client on the same system as the EPICenter server, that will increase the load. You should
ensure that you have adequate processing power and enough memory to allow EPICenter to run
without extensive swapping.
The EPICenter Release Note provides information on the system requirements for the EPICenter server.
If EPICenter server performance is slow, you can look at the Thread Pool Statistics using the EPICenter
Server State Summary Report. Specifically, if the Percentage Wait per Request statistic is high (greater
than 20%) you can consider increasing the maximum thread pool size.
To do this, go the Admin applet, and select Scalability under the Server Properties tab. Then increase
the Thread Pool Size by between 25% to 50%. It should not be increased beyond 100 as an upper llimit.
Tuning the Alarm System
Alarm activity (processing traps and executing alarm actions) can consume a fairly significant amount
of system resources if you have a large number of devices in your network, with many alarms enabled
and scoped on all devices. Therefore, tuning the alarm system can have a significant impact on the
overall performance of the EPICenter server.
The steps you can take to help tune your EPICenter server's alarm system involve the following types
of actions:
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EPICenter Concepts and Solutions Guide