availability database

Help, does anyone have a database I could use to record downtime on multiple
systems, that will also show me availability percentages on a day to day
basis worked against actual service hours. If that wasn't enough I need to
be able to split between planned and unplanned downtime. Help!

re: availability database

Got one right here in my pocket.... wait, wrong pants.

umm... so you have something like
startdown DATE
endDown DATE
SystemID LONG

the rest are queries. Actual service hours. Do you have tables for
that is that fixed?
Planned and unplanned downtime. So you throw in a flag (boolean). And
group accordingly.

SQL 101 time, I think.

re: availability database

John,
Dell calls it Open Management. Microsoft calls it Systems Management
Server. There are hooks all the way through Windows NT and its siblings for
SMS. You can pay Microsoft for their software and save yourself the trouble
of reverse engineering the event system in SMS or you can throw caution to
the wind and dig in knowing that Windows has the API calls in it somewhere
for SMS. If you have a Dell Optiplex or Dell server box Open Management
came with it on the OEM CD's that came with the box. You can install that
for your Dell and go from there. HP and Compaq have thier own software that
ships with business PC's & servers but I forget the name. In the Open
Source world, SNMP is supposed to provide a framework for this sort of
stuff. Me? I am too lazy. I "borrowed" a copy of SMS from my old job.
Now, I and others here build databases for money and if you meet our price
we can be very helpful.

"John Coen" <couldbejohn.coen@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:eWG1e.528$Ia6.508@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...[color=blue]
> Help, does anyone have a database I could use to record downtime on
> multiple systems, that will also show me availability percentages on a day
> to day basis worked against actual service hours. If that wasn't enough I
> need to be able to split between planned and unplanned downtime. Help!
>[/color]

re: availability database

I have no problem actually recording the downtime, we have SMS, SNMP
programmes like Insight Manager, MOM 2005. I take the data from these
monitoring tools and want to put them in a spreadsheet/database that can
check if the downtime was within the service hours for a particular device
and then give me availability percentages. Any ideas my knowledge of Excel
and Access isn't good enough to produce something


"Alan Webb" <knogeek@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:O6WdnT6BTa3byNrfRVn-sA@comcast.com...[color=blue]
> John,
> Dell calls it Open Management. Microsoft calls it Systems Management
> Server. There are hooks all the way through Windows NT and its siblings
> for SMS. You can pay Microsoft for their software and save yourself the
> trouble of reverse engineering the event system in SMS or you can throw
> caution to the wind and dig in knowing that Windows has the API calls in
> it somewhere for SMS. If you have a Dell Optiplex or Dell server box Open
> Management came with it on the OEM CD's that came with the box. You can
> install that for your Dell and go from there. HP and Compaq have thier
> own software that ships with business PC's & servers but I forget the
> name. In the Open Source world, SNMP is supposed to provide a framework
> for this sort of stuff. Me? I am too lazy. I "borrowed" a copy of SMS
> from my old job. Now, I and others here build databases for money and if
> you meet our price we can be very helpful.
>
> "John Coen" <couldbejohn.coen@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:eWG1e.528$Ia6.508@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...[color=green]
>> Help, does anyone have a database I could use to record downtime on
>> multiple systems, that will also show me availability percentages on a
>> day to day basis worked against actual service hours. If that wasn't
>> enough I need to be able to split between planned and unplanned downtime.
>> Help!
>>[/color]
>
>[/color]

re: availability database

John,
SMS, in particular, uses SQL Server to store its data. Given that, the SQL
you need to do this can be either Access/Jet (easier to use for some but can
be a resource pig) or TransactSQL. I don't like Jet SQL so I'd tend to
attack this as something I'd build in SQL Server/TransactSQL. Schema wise,
I favor dimensional modeling over relational modeling. So, dimensions would
include things like time, machine, and in-service schedule. The measured
facts would include downtime, in-service downtime, and availability. Both
dimensions and facts are names for database tables that store portions of
the information needed for your reports. Dimensions store the attributes of
the entities being measured. Facts store the numeric measures.
These days my server sits idled while I decide what to do with it. So my
SMS instance is down. I'd need help remembering the schema of the database
SMS uses to record its data. But the task would be to write some code that
took the data out of SMS or whatever and reformed it into a datawarehouse
which stored the data in a form that best supports your reports. The other
task would be to construct views or Data Cubes that presented the data for
analysis (10 seconds to teach data warehouses). As always, the devil is in
the details and this is why I am not being more specific.

"John Coen" <couldbejohn.coen@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:FuT1e.573$df7.1@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...[color=blue]
>I have no problem actually recording the downtime, we have SMS, SNMP
>programmes like Insight Manager, MOM 2005. I take the data from these
>monitoring tools and want to put them in a spreadsheet/database that can
>check if the downtime was within the service hours for a particular device
>and then give me availability percentages. Any ideas my knowledge of Excel
>and Access isn't good enough to produce something
>
>
> "Alan Webb" <knogeek@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:O6WdnT6BTa3byNrfRVn-sA@comcast.com...[color=green]
>> John,
>> Dell calls it Open Management. Microsoft calls it Systems Management
>> Server. There are hooks all the way through Windows NT and its siblings
>> for SMS. You can pay Microsoft for their software and save yourself the
>> trouble of reverse engineering the event system in SMS or you can throw
>> caution to the wind and dig in knowing that Windows has the API calls in
>> it somewhere for SMS. If you have a Dell Optiplex or Dell server box
>> Open Management came with it on the OEM CD's that came with the box. You
>> can install that for your Dell and go from there. HP and Compaq have
>> thier own software that ships with business PC's & servers but I forget
>> the name. In the Open Source world, SNMP is supposed to provide a
>> framework for this sort of stuff. Me? I am too lazy. I "borrowed" a
>> copy of SMS from my old job. Now, I and others here build databases for
>> money and if you meet our price we can be very helpful.
>>
>> "John Coen" <couldbejohn.coen@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>> news:eWG1e.528$Ia6.508@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...[color=darkred]
>>> Help, does anyone have a database I could use to record downtime on
>>> multiple systems, that will also show me availability percentages on a
>>> day to day basis worked against actual service hours. If that wasn't
>>> enough I need to be able to split between planned and unplanned
>>> downtime. Help!
>>>[/color]
>>
>>[/color]
>
>[/color]