January 6, 2012 Volume 7, Number 1   In This Issue...   ELM Resources December Curiosity Poll Results - Time Off Survey Drawing Winners January Curiosity Poll - Don't Tell Me, Show Me ELM 411 - Event View Consolidation   100% Developed & Supported in the state of Washington, U.S.A.

ELM Resources "With great power comes great responsibility" as Uncle Ben said in the movie Spider-man. In the case of ELM, with great power comes great flexibility, and sometimes a learning curve. To help get you up to speed faster on utilizing and realizing the full benefits of ELM's powerful monitoring and alerting capabilities we wanted to point out some of the great resources available on-line. Knowledge Base Articles, commonly referred to as KBAs, have been written by our technical support engineers to explain some of the more technical aspects of working with ELM and to answer questions that regularly come up such as upgrading, configuration changes, and hot fixes.

The list below highlights the topics available or you can see the entire KBA list in more detail here.

	Dynamic refresh is disabled because the security context is different between your session and the ELM server		ELM Reports error from Web Viewer in remote browser after 4.0 to 5.0 upgrade.
	Logon failed message reported when running ELM Reports Manager reports.		How to Monitor Syslog Server Messages.
	How do I customize an existing ELM Publisher report?		Creating ELM Editor Reports based on Event Views or Performance Data Objects.
	How to Exclude services from the Service Monitor.		How to Setup ELM to Use an Alternate SMTP Relay.
	How to monitor specific services with the Service Monitor.		Install ELM without IIS.
	Troubleshooting Service Agent Installation.		Installing ELM Components with UAC Enabled.
	How to Programmatically Enable or Disable Items.		Service Agent Will Not Start.
	Installing Service Agents Using Setup.		Cross Product Upgrade.
	ELM Hotfix Files.		Microsoft Hotfix: Extra Random Character.
	DCOM Permissions for At-a-Glance Views in ELM Console.		Monitoring Windows 2008/Windows 7/Vista with Virtual Agents.
	Repeated prompts for Authentication in ELM Publisher reports or ELM Web Viewer.		SQLDMO Required for ELM SQL Maintenance Job.
	How to Configure Security in order to Allow Domain Users to Run Reports.		Upgrading from ELM 5.x to ELM 6.0.
	Installer was interrupted with UAC requirement on Vista.		ELM 5.5 Hotfix: Service Agents Don't Apply Event Filter Changes.
	How to Create a Monitor for a Locked/Unlocked User Account.		Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 2008(R2) Firewall Exceptions.
	How to Setup a File Monitor to Alert Based on current SQL Log File.		Setup ELM to Collect SYSLOG Messages.
	ELM Server Migration - Best Practices.		The ELM Enterprise Manager Server Service Will Not Start.
	Exclude Event Filters.		The ELM Console Was Unable to Connect to the ELM Server.
	Large SQL Database.		How to Move an ELM SQL Database.
	Windows XP/2003(R2) Firewall Exceptions.		Upgrade from ELM 5.5/6.0, to ELM 6.5 Best Practices.
	Upgrading from ELM 3.1\4.0 to ELM 5.x.

Technical Articles / Video Tutorials

In addition to the monthly tech articles in the TNT Software newsletters we've compiled a list of all of the previous tech article tips and tricks for easy access. Video tutorials for previous versions of ELM are also still available.

Click here to view all of the ELM legacy tutorials and technical articles.

User Guide & Help Files On-Line

Sometimes it is more convenient to access the help files or user guide for ELM outside of the server, for example on a second monitor so you can walk through steps without toggling between windows. We provide the user guides and help files for ELM on-line and in multiple formats for quick access.

Click here to view the latest version of the ELM Help Files.

 December Curiosity Poll Results - Time Off

Last month we touched on how things at the office slow down and we all look forward to taking some time off. So how much time off?

As of the publishing of this newsletter here's what respondents had to say:

Whether you are dealing with a "use it or lose it" policy or perhaps just shutdown completely for year end, we hope you enjoyed your time off and look forward to a prosperous 2012!

 

Congratulations to our December 2011 ELM Customer Survey Drawing Winners! During the month of December, TNT Software conducted a client survey on several aspects of ELM product features and technologies in use. Listed below are the lucky winners of American Express gift cards from the prize drawing held in conjunction with the survey.

R. Gilletti R. Connelly J. Toshack J. Hoskins T. Actkinson J. Steele D. Pasqualini S. McFadden M. Varley J. Young J. Schmidt E. Colwell

Thank you to all who participated for your valuable feedback.

 January Curiosity Poll - Don't Tell Me, Show Me

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? In our world of limitless diskspace and high-speed bandwidth companies can do more than just write up descriptions about their products or display pictures and graphics to convey concepts. We can show videos of these products or services at work. But are you willing to invest the time to view them?

 The "ELM 411" - Event View Consolidation

With an upgrade to ELM 6.5 there are some significant changes that take place in regards to Notification Method assignment. As you've probably heard by now, the Notification Rules found in previous versions of ELM have been discontinued and Notification Methods are now assigned to Event Views. With this transition it is important to point out some of the behavior "logic" built in which takes place during an upgrade that can possibly result in duplicate Event Views. Duplicates that you will most likely want to consolidate.

During the upgrade process to ELM 6.5:

• Notification Rules with at least one (or more) Notification Methods assigned are converted to an Event View with the same notification(s) assigned.
• If Notification Rules have no Notification Method assigned they are dropped.
• If a Notification Rule matches both the Include and Exclude filters of an Event View, then the Notification Method that was assigned to the Rule is carried forward to the Event View, and the old Notification Rule is dropped.
• If a Notification Rule matches the name of an Event View, but the Event Filters (Include or Exclude) are different, then ELM converts the old Notification Rule into an Event View, thereby producing what appears to be a duplicate.

Take a look at the sample here.

Three Notification Rules, highlighted in blue, were converted to Event Views during the upgrade process that matched an existing Event View name, but not the Include or Exclude filters. This resulted in duplicate Event Views in our configuration as seen to the left. One of each duplicate Event View has a Notification Method assigned (the old Notification Rule).    This icon represents an Event View with a Notification Method assigned. The other is a standard Event View.   Event Views are organized in alpha-sort in the ELM Console. However when there are duplicate Event Views, the newest ones will appear on top. Now lets take a look at how to determine which Event View to keep and which one to delete or consolidate down.   The easiest way to compare duplicate Event Views is to take a look at the Event Filters of each - we'll start with Include Filters.

Looking at the 'All Messages - Errors View' Event View Include Filters we can see that there is very little difference between them. At one point the filter in Event View #2 was modified to look at only the Windows Servers category. This could most likely be combined in one Event View and then use Exclude Filters as needed. If more than one Include Filter was used in either one of these Event Views we would want to review and compare each of them carefully to determine what could be removed and/or consolidated.

Next we'll take a look at Exclude Filters, if there are any. Exclude Filters are often unique to specific events so we may be able to simply look and see if there are any Exclude Filters present in either Event View.

In this example we can see two of them in place for the All Messages -- Errors View. After reviewing the details of these events, and deciding we don't want to be notified if they occur, we can move them into a single Event View and finish our consolidation. Typically we will want to consolidate to the Event View that does have a Notification Method assigned, and delete the standard Event View.

Cleaning up and consolidating Event Views right after the upgrade process is highly recommended. Think of it as one of those New Year's resolutions that you want to do right away to avoid any confusion down the line.

We hope that you found this new article on consolidating Event Views in ELM Enterprise Manager 6.5 informative and wish you continued success with your ELM deployment!

NOTE: All ELM 411 articles are written based on ELM Enterprise Manager Version 6.5 and instructions may not be accurate for previous ELM Versions. If you would like assistance upgrading to ELM 6.5 so you can use these tips - please contact support@tntsoftware.com.

Share your own ELM tips!
Have a tip or trick with our ELM products you'd like to share with our newsletter subscribers? Send your ideas and any applicable screen shots to info@tntsoftware.com with "ELM 411" in the subject line. We'll take a look and if usable you'll see it published here in the ELM 411 section of upcoming newsletters!

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