3
Device Monitoring with DME
Topics
DME Workflow
SNMP Communication Requirements
Configuring SNMP Communication
Selecting Devices for DME to Monitor
Viewing Device Status in the DME Console
Viewing Session Status in the DME Console
Creating Alert Rules
Assigning Alerts to Devices
Generating Device Status Reports
Routing Based on Device Status
Limiting PageCounter Auto-Release Behavior
Based on Device Status
The Device Monitoring Engine (DME) is an optional server component that gives an Administrator the power to identify potential device problems based on historical performance data.
DME monitors Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) messages generated by specified devices for status information. Each time a status change message is intercepted, DME logs the information in the database. If the new status matches a pre-set alert condition on that device, a notification message is forwarded to designated individuals or desktops. You can view the current device status at any time within the DME Console, or you can run reports to ascertain the overall device health, and plan maintenance based on historical performance.
This chapter provides information about:
• the workflow required to configure and use DME
• communication required between Equitrac Office and Express components and SNMP devices to capture status change information
• creating Alert Rules that specify the faults you want to be notified about per device
• assigning rules to specific devices
• viewing status information within the DME Console
• generating reports to analyze system status information over time
• allowing DME to prevent automatic print job release from Control Terminals based on device status
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DME Workflow
Setting up DME to monitor devices is a straightforward task. The DME console automatically contacts CAS to determine the list of devices to monitor. Without any further configuration, you can view the current device status within the Device Monitoring Console, or you can generate reports within the Reports Manager to view historical status detail.
However, if you implement more than one DME, you need to establish which devices are monitored by each DME respectively. In addition, if you want to be notified of faults as they occur, you can set up Alert Rules that send a notification message when a particular fault condition is met. After you establish the rules, you can apply them to one or more devices within the DME Console.
Follow the workflow below to configure full DME functionality. The remainder of this chapter provides detailed information about each step in this workflow.
1
2
Select devices to monitor in System Manager.
DME automatically contacts CAS to retrieve the list of devices to be monitored. Within System Manager, you can manually remove devices from DME monitoring, or assign devices to a particular DME.
Create alert rules in the DME Console.
Create custom rules that are applied only when certain fault conditions are met. Alert rules include configuration notification options that alert specific Administrators when the fault occurs.
NOTE: To use the DME Console, you must be a part of either the Administrator or Device Administrator group within
System Manager’s Access Permissions.
3
4
Assign alert rules to specific devices.
Apply the rules to one or more devices.
Run reports to monitor device health and historical performance.
Use Reports Manager to generate standard reports or custom reports that provide a historical performance analysis based on device status.
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SNMP Communication Requirements
DME reports on device status by polling for SNMP status changes. Therefore, only SNMP-enabled printers and devices can be monitored by DME. DME continually polls for these status change messages, and for any status faults that match the Alert Rules you applied to one or more devices.
When DME intercepts a status change message, it performs the following tasks in order:
1
2
3
4
5
Logs the start time of the fault and updates the device status in its database.
References the list of Alert Rules.
Applies all rules whose criteria matches the device and fault condition.
When the status changes again, DME logs the end time of the fault and once again updates the device status.
Sends device status information to CAS to use for reporting purposes.
DME maintains the list of status changes in its database, including the start and end time of each fault. The end time remains NULL until the status of the device changes. When the end time is set, the fault is considered "closed". Only closed faults are forwarded to CAS, so reports reflect device faults that have been resolved only. DME also holds faults that were closed within the last 7 days in its local database.
The diagram below depicts the communication workflow between the DME component, SNMP-enabled devices, and
CAS when the DME Console service first launches or is refreshed.
CAS
DB
1
2
Request Monitored Device List
Load Monitored Device List
DME
Console
3
Update Device Status
DME
SNMP status changes
DME listens for SNMP status changes on monitored devices
SNMP-enabled
Devices
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Configuring SNMP Communication
SNMP communication is essential to managing network activity. Your network can use either SNMPv2 or SNMPv3 to manage DME monitored devices. SNMPv2 uses community names to authenticate requests, and SNMPv3 uses a combination of authentication and privacy keys and protocols to send and receive information from devices on the network. SNMPv3 provides a higher level of security, and is recommended to use where supported.
To configure SNMP communication, do the following:
1
In System Manager, go to Configuration > Network environment > SNMP configuration. The SNMP configuration dialog box opens.
2
3
Enter a Polling interval value for SNMP status changes (in minutes). Choose a polling interval value that is not too low so that network traffic is properly accounted for.
Click <Default> to open the default SNMP configuration dialog box.
4
Enable SNMP version v1/2c or SNMP version 3.
• If Enable SNMP v1/2c is selected, enter your Community names in the Get and Set fields. By default, Get is
"public" and Set is "private".
—Or—
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• If Enable SNMP v3 is selected, provide the following information:
• Security Name: User name or Account name (depending on MFP manufacturer)
• Context Name: Not required by all MFP manufactures. Refer to the manufacturer’s documentation for
Context name details.
• Authentication Key: Pass-phrase (at least 8 characters in length)
• Authentication Protocol: Either MD5 or SHA1 security algorithm
• Privacy Key: Pass-phrase (at least 8 characters in length)
• Privacy Protocol: Either DES or AES encryption algorithm
Authentication Keys and Privacy Keys are generated from user-configurable pass phrases. An Authentication key value is required in order to enter a Privacy key value.
User-based authentication protocol uses the MD5 or SHA1 security algorithms to authenticate users. The privacy protocol uses the DES or AES encryption algorithm to encrypt and decrypt SNMP messages.
Click OK to save the settings.
If desired, click <Add> and follow the previous steps to create additional SNMP configurations.
NOTE: If you change the default names in System Manager, you must also change them on all of your physical devices
to match, in order for SNMP communication to work. Consult your MFP manufacturer’s documentation for information on changing these settings.
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Selecting Devices for DME to Monitor
When you install DME, Equitrac Office and Express automatically assign all physical devices to DME for monitoring.
If you installed only a single DME component, you do not need to perform any additional configuration to ensure that devices appear in the DME Console.
If, on the other hand, you deployed multiple DME components, you must decide which devices each DME monitors.
1
2
3
In System Manager, click Devices.
Select any physical device to view its properties.
Select a DME server from the list located in the bottom right corner of the Physical device summary dialog box.
If you prefer not to monitor a particular physical device with DME, you can set the DME server field to None. The
DME Console does not monitor the status of the device nor does the device appear in the Console.
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Viewing Device Status in the DME Console
The Device view within the Console provides a complete set of device properties and device status information at a glance. DME listens for SNMP status changes on each device, then updates CAS if the status changes. The Message view displays all DME generated messages, event log message, and DME service start and stop events.
Status information is shown in the Device view and in the Devices properties dialog box. To view the device properties, you can select the device from the Hostname column, or right-click the device and select View properties.
NOTE: Within the DME Console, the status column is updated only when you press the Refresh button. If you are
checking the current status of a device within the Console, make sure you refresh the window to force the Console to retrieve the current status information from the DME component.
If DME cannot populate the device type information (i.e. it was not provided when the device was added to Equitrac
Office and Express), the DME Console retrieves the information from SNMP data. DME then populates the
Manufacturer and Model fields with the retrieved data, followed by an asterisk *.
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Use the following table to map the status code to the SNMP fault condition that has occurred on the device.
Status
Down
Empty input tray
Full output tray
Missing input tray
Missing marker supply
Missing output tray
Near full output tray
Not available
Offline
Overdue Maintenance
Paper jam
Paper low
Paper out
Toner low
Toner out
Unreachable
Warning
Description
The printer is reporting its status as DOWN, but DME cannot determine the cause. DME has received an unrecognized error status.
A job cannot continue because there is no medium in the specified input tray.
The output tray is full and jobs cannot be printed.
An input tray has been removed from the device.
The marker supply has been removed from the device. Marker supply refers to the toner, ink, dye, etc. that is specifically used on this device.
The output tray has been removed from the device.
The output tray has almost reached capacity. Jobs are not printed when the tray reaches capacity.
The device is not online, or is shut down.
The device has been set to offline mode.
The maintenance date has passed, as per the date set on the device by a service person or
Administrator.
Paper Jam
Paper is low
Paper is out
Toner is low
Toner is out
DME did not receive a reply when asking the device for its status.
The device is reporting a general status warning, but DME is unable to specify the cause.
For example, some printers report a warning when a paper tray is empty, even though that tray is not requested as the paper source for a print job.
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Viewing Session Status in the DME Console
The Device view within the console provides session status information at a glance. The session column indicates the current session status on an associated PageCounter or embedded device, when available.
A session can be in one of three states:
• Active – a session is active on the device
• Inactive – no session is active on the device
• Offline – the device is not connected (this only applies to PageCounter devices)
If the session state cannot be determined (such is the case with Xerox JBA), or if there is no embedded device or
PageCounter attached to the physical device, nothing is displayed in the session column.
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Creating Alert Rules
If you want to be notified when a specific fault occurs on a device, you can create an alert rule that DME applies when the fault criteria is met. You can apply one alert rule to multiple devices, or multiple rules to a single device. For example, you may want to monitor one high-traffic device for both toner low and paper low messages, but another less-used device for toner out and paper out only.
To create alert rules within the DME Console, select Alert rules, then click <Add...> in the right pane.
There are three facets to each alert rule: Name, Action, and Criteria.
Name
Each rule must have a unique name. The rule is stored within the CAS database. Use the name to identify the rule within the DME Console. You can optionally include a description of the rule which allows other Administrators to understand the rule criteria at a glance from within the DME Console.
Action
Select one or more notification methods that DME uses when the Rule’s criteria is met. By default, Email and Event
Viewer are selected. The table below describes what happens if you choose each option.
Notification Method Description
Event viewer
Email
• Logs an event in the Windows Event viewer.
• Sends a standard or custom email message to designated email addresses.
• If you select this method, you must also select email recipients. Enter one or more recipients in the space provided, separated by semi-colons.
• You can optionally create a custom notification message that is used in the body of the email.
Note: You must configure the Mail Server if you the system to send email messages. See
Configuring the Mail Server for Email Notifications
on page 257.
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Notification Method Description
Network pop-up • Sends a network pop-up message to specified users.
• If you select this method, you must enter the network computer names or IP Addresses in the
Computers field. To send the notification to more than one user, separate the computer names with a semi-colon.
Console • Sends a pop-up message to the machine where the DME Console is installed.
Criteria
Criteria refers to the type of fault that initiates the notification. Criteria optionally refers to the duration and frequency of occurrence.
DME can monitor SNMP-enabled devices for the following fault types:
• Down
• Empty input tray
• Full output tray
• Missing input tray
• Missing marker supply
• Missing output tray
• Near full output tray
• Not available
• Offline
• Overdue maintenance
• Paper jam
• Paper low
• Paper out
• Toner low
• Toner out
• Unreachable
• Warning
You can select one or more fault types in the Alert Rule criteria. If a selected fault occurs on a device to which you assigned the Alert Rule, the Action options are applied. If you want to receive separate alerts for more than one type of fault per device, you must create a separate rule for each fault type, then apply the rules to each device as needed.
NOTE: Although you can select multiple fault types, as a best practice limit each rule to a single fault only. An alert is
triggered only when a status change is detected while the device is in its “ready” state. If one fault triggers an alert, and another fault is triggered before the device resets to “ready” a second alert message is not generated. Instead, ensure that you select a single fault type per alert rule.
If you want to receive notification of a fault only if the fault continues to occur for a period of time, you can set the
Fault active for
field. For example, if you want to receive notification when devices are Unreachable for five minutes or more, set the Fault active to 5 minutes. If the device was unreachable only for a reboot, it is likely that the device comes back online before 5 minutes is exceeded. The notification message is sent only when the Unreachable status persists for the period of time you indicate. Use this setting to minimize the possibility of a false alarm, and eliminate the need for an Administrator to follow up on false alarms.
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Alternatively, you can hold the notification message until the same fault has occurred a set number of times. For example, if you want to monitor a device for recurring paper jams, you can set the number of occurrences to 5 jams over the course of 2 days. The notification is sent only when these conditions are met, rather than each time there is a paper jam on the device.
Note that an alert is a one-time event. Once DME performs the Action dictated by the alert rule, the notification is sent just once. If you want to be notified more than once of a particular status change, you can use the Fault active for or At least options. For example, if users within your organization are expected to fix paper jams themselves, you might want to be notified when the paper jam first occurs, then every 5 minutes. After 20 minutes, you fix the jam yourself, or call someone to do it. To accomplish this, create the following alert rules, and apply them all to the device:
Rule Name
Paper Jam
Paper Jam - 5 minutes
Paper Jam - 10 minutes
Paper Jam - 15 minutes
Paper Jam - 20 minutes
Fault
Paper Jam
Paper Jam
Paper Jam
Paper Jam
Paper Jam
Fault Active for
0 minutes
5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
20 minutes
Creating Custom Alert Messages
Alert Messages use standard default message text unless you specify a custom message. Within the custom message window, enter the text and substitution values you want the notifications to contain.
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DME replaces the substitutions used with the actual fault type, occurrence, duration, or device type values that are logged for the fault condition that cause the notification. For example, the notification message sent to the user might state:
"Warning: A paper jam has occurred 5 times on the HPLaserJet."
Custom messages can contain any desirable text, plus the variable substitutions described in the table below.
Substitution Description
%1 or %f Inserts the fault type that triggered the alert. Fault types may be: Down, Offline, Paper Jam, Paper Low,
Paper Out, Toner Low, Toner Out, Unreachable or Warning.
%2 or %o
%3 or %t
The number of times the fault has occurred. If your Alert Criteria uses the At least field, include the number of occurrences within the message.
The length of time the fault has been active. Duration is calculated using the start time field logged in the
DME database when the fault first occurred. If your Alert Criteria uses the Fault active for criteria, include this information in the message.
%4 or %n
%i
%l
%d
The name of the device on which the fault occurred.
The IP Address of the device on which the fault occurred.
The physical location of the device on which the fault occurred.
The description of the device, as created in System Manager, on which the fault occurred.
Assigning Alerts to Devices
Alert Rules are effective only after you apply them to one or more devices within the DME Console.
1
To assign a rule, right-click on a device in the Devices view and select Assign alert rules from the menu.
2
From the list of available alert rules, select as many rules as you want to apply to the device, and click OK.
To view the Alert rules applied to a device, click on a device Hostname to open the Device Properties dialog box. In the properties dialog box, click the Alert rules link, open the Alert rules dialog box.
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Generating Device Status Reports
Reports Manager provides device status reports that you can use to analyze device health over time.
1
To view these reports, open Reports Manager and expand the Analysis list.
Use the following table to determine what report to run.
Report name
Device availability
Device configuration
Device faults
Device faults vs usage
Report contents
% offline
% online
% unreachable
Device name
Device type
IP Address
Manufacturer
Model
Total
Down
Unreachable
Warning
Total Faults
Total Pages
Faults per 1000 pages
When to run the report
Determine the percentage of time a device is offline or unreachable.
Determine the full suite of devices controlled and tracked by
Equitrac.
Determine if a service call may be required for particular devices based on how often the device is down, unreachable, or in a warning state.
Determine how often a device is down in direct relation to the amount of usage on the device.
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Click on the report you want to view. The Select report criteria dialog box opens.
3 a
Select a time frame to run the report from the Date drop-down list.
b
Select the number of events to view from the Limit drop-down list.
Click OK to open the report.
You can change the default contents displayed in a report to suit your tracking needs
1
To change the report contents, select View > Configure Report Layout.
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3
4
From the Columns to display list, select the categories you want in the report. The defaults are pre-selected from the list.
The Label field displays the default name that corresponds to the selection. You can use the default or enter a custom label for the column.
The Width field represents the percentage of how wide the column appears in the overall width of the report. You can set the column width as you desire, but if the selection exceeds 100% of the report’s total columns width, a
Configure report layout
warning pops up.
If the warning appears, you have three options:
Option
Yes
No
Cancel
Result
Automatically adjusts the new and existing columns to add up to 100% of the overall report width.
Exits without adjusting the column widths to equal 100%. The column is added to the report, but since it exceeds the total columns width, it does not display
Return to layout dialog box and enter a different value.
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Routing Based on Device Status
In a typical environment, the print queue backs up when a device is down. Unaware of the device status, users continue to send jobs to the printer and become frustrated when they cannot get their print jobs.
In combination with the Rules & Routing feature, DME solves this problem. You can create rules that logically re-route print jobs sent to a device that is in a specified fault status for a designated period of time.
Within System Manager > Rules & routing, select Add rule set from the list of Current tasks. Check Device status, then choose a particular fault condition that causes jobs to be re-routed. When the DME intercepts a device status condition that matches the routing rule, it notifies DRE. DRE then directs any jobs waiting in the device’s print queue as per the redirect criteria are met. If a print job is already started on the device, it is not rerouted.
You can also specify a fault duration for the rule. In the case of a Paper Jam, a user often comes along and fixes the jam immediately. If you set the duration, the device must be in the fault state for at least that period of time before the routing rule is applied. Most likely, a user fixes a paper jam within 5 to 10 minutes, so you might want to set the routing rule to re-route jobs only after the status has not changed in 10 minutes.
CAUTION: Do not enable status-based routing if you are using Follow-You Printing. The settings for these options
conflict and produce unexpected behavior. Choose one option only.
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Limiting PageCounter Auto-Release Behavior Based on Device Status
You can prevent a PageCounter from releasing print jobs automatically when the device status is not online. In System
Manager > Configuration > Devices > Control terminals
, enable the Only release when device is ready option located in the Release Options section.
NOTE: The device controlled by the control terminal must be monitored by DME.
If the release behavior in the control terminal’s Device interface summary dialog box is set to First is Released or
Release all at login
, then DCE contacts DME to determine the status of the device controlled by the terminal. If the device status is anything other than ‘Online’, the jobs do not release automatically.
For more information on setting the control terminal release behavior, see
Release Behavior
on page 123.
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