Version

Argent XT — All Versions

Date

24 Aug 2010

Summary

This KBI discusses the key differences between a Backup Console and an Alert Executor.

Technical Background

At a glance, these two components appear to be doing the same thing.

However, there are marked differences between the functionality and purpose of a Backup Console and an Alert Executor.

Backup Console

A Backup Console’s primary purpose is to handle failover when a Daughter Engine fails to contact the Mother Engine or Motors.

Daughter Engines are designed to be self-sufficient, having a Scheduling Engine and Monitoring Engine built-in — it can continue its monitoring duties even when the link between the Daughter and Mother is down.

However, this means that all Alerts in that network segment are going to be delayed until the link is restored.

This is where the Backup Console comes in handy — the Daughter will detect that the link is down, and that it cannot access the Argent Console on the Mother side.

When this happens, the Daughter routes the Alerts to the Backup Console, where Alerts can be fired and information is cached until the link between the Daughter and Mother is resumed.

Alert Executor

An Alert Executor’s primary purpose is to fire special Alerts that the Main Engine cannot fire.

An example of this is a Service Alert.

The Main Engine cannot restart a service on a server behind a firewall. In this situation, an Alert Executor needs to be installed on a server behind the firewall — 90% of the time this is the Daughter Engine.

You can think of the Alert Executor as a “regional Alerting engine” to handle special Alerts in that network segment.

So while both components fire Alerts, one lies passively dormant while the other is always active, and is designed to serve a particular role.

Resolution

N/A