HP ProLiant 1500 Compaq Survey Utility - Page 5

ECG075/0798 WHITE PAPER (cont.) ... Utility, or it can be sent to another location such as a help center, or to Compaq where the Survey Utility can generate custom reports on the information. The sessions are organized as three distinct types: Active The Active session (referenced as session number 1) is the most recent information captured. The utility overwrites this session each time a sample is taken. When using Compaq Survey Utility from a browser, sessions will be listed by the date and time of the session rather than by the number of the session. Original The Original session (referenced as session number 2) is the first session sampled. The Compaq Survey Utility will treat this session as a "master configuration" and the utility will never overwrite this session. Checkpoint The Checkpoint sessions (referenced as session numbers 3 to 10) are the next 8 samples that "differ significantly" from the previous session. These sessions are maintained in a "first in, first out" (FIFO) fashion and may be deleted as newer Checkpoint sessions are added. The "significance" of a Checkpoint is determined programmatically based on the type of information captured. The utility makes an attempt to only generate a Checkpoint when something that would not change under normal operation of the server is changed. So, not all items that change will generate Checkpoints. KEY FEATURES In developing the Survey Utility, Compaq addressed the primary requirements customers have for service tools. These requirements were designed in as key features of the product: On-line Serviceability A key benefit of Compaq Survey Utility is that it delivers configuration capture and reporting in an on-line format. Not only can Compaq Survey Utility collect information while the server is on-line, but can also be initially installed without having to reboot the server. On-line configuration capture is critical, because when the need for a service call does arise, one of the first requests made of the customer is to provide detailed configuration information. Service personnel use this information to determine possible component interactions and pinpoint problem sources. Without having a clear understanding of the system configuration, the problem resolution process cannot move forward effectively. Compaq Survey Utility represents an enhancement to currently available service tools such as Inspect. Inspect has long been used as an off-line utility to capture detailed hardware configuration information such as identification of hardware devices installed and critical error log information. Survey Utility adds to this capability by capturing software information in addition to the hardware elements. The on-line format of Survey Utility allows administrators to run the tool on demand, without any interruption to applications or users. 5