Author: paul.deluca

What does Epicor need to program and ship a support router?

Epicor Eclipse Systems needs

  • 2 static LAN ip’s on your network
  • Your default gateway of your network to get to the internet

Once we have this information we can build and ship the dedidcated support router.  One local ip is used for the local interface of the Cisco, one local ip is used for nating for our Austin Data Center.

The router will sit right on your local network like a computer or any other network device. Once it arrives all you’ll have to do is plug it into the LAN.  Essentially the device works much like a vpn client negotiating securely back to us.

The reason we sell the Cisco 881 for this solution is we use a proprietary VPN developed by Cisco called DMVPN and eigrp. This allows us to securely negotiate connections back to our offices using private local ip’s behind customer firewalls.  If a customer changes that firewall or their internet connection, changes are not required to this router.

For more information please see http://kb.eclipseinc.com/kb/esar-diagram/

Questions can be directed to support by calling 508-778-9151, select the WAN group.

What should I monitor on my Eclipse servers?

The basic elements that make up monitoring are:

  • Events: triggered when a set condition occurs
  • Threshold: the point on a scale that must be reached in order to trigger a response to an event. The response can be an alert, a notification, or a script being run.
  • Notification: how an administrator is informed that something (an event or a response) has occurred.
  • Health: a set of metrics that define the state of the functionality being monitored. The administrator defines the values that represent a “healthy” state for each of their components.

For your Eclipse environment, we recommend monitoring the following items where applicable and possible:

General Monitoring:

  • Availability (ping test)
  • CPU (high CPU threshold alerts, tracking historical trends)
  • Memory (high RAM threshold alerts, tracking historical trends)
  • Disk space (top utilization threshold alerts, tracking historical trends)
  • Hardware (failures, power loss, firmware events, etc.)

Database server:

  • UniVerse (process running, responsive, spooler status)
  • SYSTEM.ADMIN (process running)
  • SOCKET.PH.SERVER (process running, listening on port 22222)
  • VSIFAX (process running, responding, modems down)
  • JBoss (process running, listening on port 2080)
  • Samba shares (availability, read/write)
  • CUPS (print queue status)
  • Sendmail (service running, queue status)

Forms Server:

  • Windows share(s) (availability, read/write)
  • Formscape (availability of port or services running)
  • VSIFAX (services)

Imaging Server:

  • Windows share(s) (availability, read/write)

Internet Gateway Server:

  • IIS (service running, listening on ports 80 and/or 443)

How do I reboot my AIX server?

To reboot the AIX (UNIX) server, first make sure that people are not actively using the system. Reboots are usually done off-hours.

Procedure for rebooting the server:

  • Login as the “root” user. You must have password for the root user.
  • At the “#” prompt, type in the following command:
    shutdown -Fr

Procedure for shutting down the server:

  • Login as the “root” user. You must have password for the root user.
  • At the “#” prompt, type in the following command:
    shutdown -F

Procedure for powering on the server:

  • Verify that the server is plugged into an appropriate power source.
  • Wait 1 minute for the system to complete pre-boot diagnostics.
  • If the power light is blinking green every second or two, the system is in a standby state and ready to be powered on.
  • Press the white power button.
  • The green power light should stop blinking and remain lit.
  • Wait up to 5 minutes for the server to boot into AIX. During this process, you will see status messages scroll by on the console window and the front-panel display.
  • If the system does not boot correctly, or the server hangs for longer than 5 minutes on any single status code, please contact IBM for assistance.

Can I setup load balancing and failover on my Linux server’s network interfaces?

Yes, Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports a number of different load balancing and failover methods. For more details, see What network bonding modes are available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5?

For instructions on configuring bonding in the most common round-robin configuration: