Monitoring in a grid cluster

The monitoring of a grid cluster (or of any piece of reasonably scaled IT infrastructure) is a key element in the robust and consistent running of that site. There are several factors which are important to the selection of a useful monitoring framework, which include ease of use, reliability, data input and output. It is critical that data can be drawn from different instrumentation packages and collected in the framework to allow for a uniform view of the running of a site. It is also very useful to allow different views and transformations of this data to allow its manipulation for different purposes, perhaps unknown at the initial time of installation. In this context, we present the findings of an investigation of the Graphite monitoring framework and its use at the ScotGrid Glasgow site. In particular, we examine the messaging system used by the framework and means to extract data from different tools, including the existing framework Ganglia which is in use at many sites, in addition to adapting and parsing data streams from external monitoring frameworks and websites

Railway track condition assessment at network level by frequency domain analysis of GPR data

The railway track system is a crucial infrastructure for the transportation of people and goods in modern societies. With the increase in railway traffic, the availability of the track for monitoring and maintenance purposes is becoming significantly reduced. Therefore, continuous non-destructive monitoring tools for track diagnoses take on even greater importance. In this context, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technique results yield valuable information on track condition, mainly in the identification of the degradation of its physical and mechanical characteristics caused by subsurface malfunctions. Nevertheless, the application of GPR to assess the ballast condition is a challenging task because the material electromagnetic properties are sensitive to both the ballast grading and water content. This work presents a novel approach, fast and practical for surveying and analysing long sections of transport infrastructure, based mainly on expedite frequency domain analysis of the GPR signal. Examples are presented with the identification of track events, ballast interventions and potential locations of malfunctions. The approach, developed to identify changes in the track infrastructure, allows for a user-friendly visualisation of the track condition, even for GPR non-professionals such as railways engineers, and may further be used to correlate with track geometric parameters. It aims to automatically detect sudden variations in the GPR signals, obtained with successive surveys over long stretches of railway lines, thus providing valuable information in asset management activities of infrastructure managers

C2MS: Dynamic Monitoring and Management of Cloud Infrastructures

Server clustering is a common design principle employed by many organisations who require high availability, scalability and easier management of their infrastructure. Servers are typically clustered according to the service they provide whether it be the application(s) installed, the role of the server or server accessibility for example. In order to optimize performance, manage load and maintain availability, servers may migrate from one cluster group to another making it difficult for server monitoring tools to continuously monitor these dynamically changing groups. Server monitoring tools are usually statically configured and with any change of group membership requires manual reconfiguration; an unreasonable task to undertake on large-scale cloud infrastructures. In this paper we present the Cloudlet Control and Management System (C2MS); a system for monitoring and controlling dynamic groups of physical or virtual servers within cloud infrastructures. The C2MS extends Ganglia - an open source scalable system performance monitoring tool - by allowing system administrators to define, monitor and modify server groups without the need for server reconfiguration. In turn administrators can easily monitor group and individual server metrics on large-scale dynamic cloud infrastructures where roles of servers may change frequently. Furthermore, we complement group monitoring with a control element allowing administrator-specified actions to be performed over servers within service groups as well as introduce further customized monitoring metrics. This paper outlines the design, implementation and evaluation of the C2MS.Comment: Proceedings of the The 5th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom 2013), 8 page

Development of Grid e-Infrastructure in South-Eastern Europe

Over the period of 6 years and three phases, the SEE-GRID programme has established a strong regional human network in the area of distributed scientific computing and has set up a powerful regional Grid infrastructure. It attracted a number of user communities and applications from diverse fields from countries throughout the South-Eastern Europe. From the infrastructure point view, the first project phase has established a pilot Grid infrastructure with more than 20 resource centers in 11 countries. During the subsequent two phases of the project, the infrastructure has grown to currently 55 resource centers with more than 6600 CPUs and 750 TBs of disk storage, distributed in 16 participating countries. Inclusion of new resource centers to the existing infrastructure, as well as a support to new user communities, has demanded setup of regionally distributed core services, development of new monitoring and operational tools, and close collaboration of all partner institution in managing such a complex infrastructure. In this paper we give an overview of the development and current status of SEE-GRID regional infrastructure and describe its transition to the NGI-based Grid model in EGI, with the strong SEE regional collaboration.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, 4 table

Event monitoring in a small and business enterprise

This paper presents an overview of the role and responsibilities of the system administrator, focusing on the need to monitor its technological infrastructure. The informatics infrastructure monitoring is, nowadays without a doubt, one of the main key points in business support. Large enterprises are no longer the only ones to feel the need to use these monitoring tools, but small and medium-sized enterprises, which also have IT environments of an increasing complexity, feel such a need. This results directly from the operation of how the business is supported on IT platforms as support for people and processes. When a system, which is vital to the organization, fails either at the hardware or software level, compromises the operating capacity and consequently the business continuity. Having this always in mind, it is extremely important to adopt monitoring systems that proactively or reactively, reduce the overall time of breaks caused by failures. A monitoring system is the way to ensure confidence in all components and the operational readiness of IT infrastructure

Interoperability in monitoring and reporting systems

Monitoring and Reporting are an integral part of IT infrastructure. Lack of single tool that covers all the need for monitoring in an organization has led to uses of different kinds of monitoring tools within an organization. Existence of diverse monitoring tools has led to significant heterogeneity in an infrastructure between the tools and the data they measure.The monitoring tools generally differs in the data structures and interaction interfaces that they implement. One of the key issue in todays monitoring scenario is the interoperability between several monitoring system and the heterogeneous data they produce. In this thesis some of the current monitoring problems that arises due to diversity in monitoring tools are briefly discussed. It also discusses how a standard common data model can benefit the interoperability between the tools. The implementation of simple proof of concept integration between selected monitoring tools is also explored. The results of implementation indicates the benefits of information interchange between the tools for solving many problems or difficulties that are discussed. The thesis also addresses some challenges in data integration between different tools

Infrastructure as Code for Security Automation and Network Infrastructure Monitoring

The Corona Virus (COVID-19) pandemic that has spread throughout the world has created a new work culture, namely working remotely by utilizing existing technology. This has the effect of increasing crime and cyber attacks as more and more devices are connected to the internet for work. Therefore, the priority on security and monitoring of network infrastructure should be increased. The security and monitoring of this infrastructure requires an administrator in its management and configuration. One administrator can manage multiple infrastructures, making the task more difficult and time-consuming. This research implements infrastructure as code for security automation and network infrastructure monitoring including IDS, honeypot, and SIEM. Automation is done using ansible tools to create virtual machines to security configuration and monitoring of network infrastructure automatically. The results obtained are automation processes and blackbox testing is carried out and validation is carried out using a User Acceptance Test to the computer apparatus of the IT Poltek SSN Unit to prove the ease of the automation carried out. Based on the results of the UAT, a score of 154 was obtained in the Agree area with an acceptance rate of 81.05% for the implementation of infrastructure as code for the automation carried ou

Управление надёжностью и безопасностью перевозочного процесса с применением систем непрерывного мониторинга объектов железнодорожной инфраструктуры

While analysing the problem of increasing reliability and safety of the rail transportation process, it is shown that modern train traffic control systems do not automatically consider the events of decrease in reliability of railway infrastructure facilities; however, such a linkage is quite possible. The proposed architecture of a promising train traffic control system can be based on railway automation and remote-control (telemechanics) systems, which have a safe information interface with the means of continuous monitoring of railway infrastructure facilities.The objective of the article is to present theoretical principles of managing reliability and safety of the transportation process using «new generation» automation systems, closely integrated with technical monitoring tools. A demonstrated simplified structure of the train traffic control system has an information interface with the means of continuous monitoring of railway infrastructure facilities. The developed reliability models of the train traffic control system consider the state of railway infrastructure facilities. It is shown that it is necessary to consider the safe state of the infrastructure system in the train traffic control system. Possibilities of managing the risks of reduced reliability and safety of the transportation process are shown using stationary monitoring tools for railway infrastructure facilities. The improvement of monitoring technology and the effective use of stationary monitoring systems makes it practically possible to implement the function of managing reliability and safety of the transportation process and the entire railway complex.Анализируется проблема повышения надёжности и безопасности перевозочного процесса на железных дорогах. Показано, что современные системы управления движением поездов автоматически не учитывают события снижения надёжности объектов железнодорожной инфраструктуры, однако такая увязка вполне возможна. Приводится архитектура перспективной системы управления движением поездов, в которой основами выступают системы железнодорожной автоматики и телемеханики, имеющие безопасное информационное сопряжение со средствами непрерывного мониторинга объектов железнодорожной инфраструктуры.Целью статьи является изложение теоретических принципов управления надёжностью и безопасностью перевозочного процесса с применением систем автоматизации «нового поколения» – тесно интегрированных с техническими средствами мониторинга. Представлена упрощённая структура системы управления движением поездов, имеющей информационное сопряжение со средствами непрерывного мониторинга объектов железнодорожной инфраструктуры. Разработаны модели надёжности системы управления движением поездов, учитывающей состояния объектов железнодорожной инфраструктуры.Показано, что в системе управления движением поездов необходимо учитывать наличие безопасного состояния инфраструктурного комплекса. Представлены возможности управления рисками снижения надёжности и безопасности перевозочного процесса за счёт использования средств стационарного мониторинга объектов железнодорожной инфраструктуры.Совершенствование технологий мониторинга и эффективное использование систем стационарного мониторинга на практике позволяют реализовать функцию управления надёжностью и безопасностью перевозочного процесса и железнодорожного комплекса в целом