> I'm using MSSQL database and connectivity to the database is working
> the events come from the database and snmpcollect also write info
into
> the database, then why do I still need ovwdb?
>>Using a relational database does not replace the one maintained by ovwdb.
>>There are three databases (object, topology, and map) and unless they
>>have really changed the NT product in ways I don't understand (which is
>>possible, I'll admit, since I don't work on it), only topology would get
>>loaded into the relational db. This is how it works on UNIX.
The NetView/NT product uses a relational DB in the following areas:
Native Store for Events
Native Store for SNMP Historical data
Native Store for Availability history (e.g. that node was down
7 times yesterday)
Exported Topology Data
Exported OVWDB Data
(Via the NVDBEXPORT command which allows you to specify
which objects to export and which fields should go into
which tables. This is pretty outrageously wonderful, so
give it a whirl and hook up a report writer like Crystal
Reports or Access to the exported tables and you'll be
rocking.
If you are new to NVDBEXPORT that probably means you
haven't checked out NVDBIMPORT or NVDBFORMAT. NVDBIMPORT
allows you to do a bulk load into the database along the
lines of a mail merge paradigm:
hostname,field-to-load1,field-to-load2
foo.dev.com,TRUE,\\foo
bar.dev.com,TRUE,\\bar
NVDBFORMAT is sortof a OVWDB-oriented printf() that
overdosed on steriods. [It is wonderful - really!] You
tell it which objects you want to operate on, what fields
you want and then a series of printf-like statements you
want generated (you can also specify headers and footers
and in V5.1 you get sorting, grouping, group-headers,
and group-footers). Try this out - you'll love it.
UNIX users will get NVDBIMPORT and NVDBFORMAT in the
5.1 release.
)
Without going into tons of detail, the reason why you still have
a non-relational topology and object database is just pure
pragmatics. The data usage model is such that we get GREAT
performance on Events, Collected data, and Availability but not
on the others.
Jeffrey Snover
Tivoli
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