I got handed a fun one that I am thinking on best way to handle. Management is wanting either a list or more ideally a dashboard we can go to that will show what all apps are impacted if a server is rebooted. Example we have many shared SQL servers that host databases for multiple apps so management would like a way to look and see if we take server sql1 down for maintenance what all apps will be impacted. My first thought would be using VADA somehow but management does not now server names.
Squared Up can easily do a look-up to the affected applications for any given server (or component) but that relies on you having modelled your apps as DAs in SCOM (otherwise SQUP has no way of knowing what apps a given server or component is part of). Alternately, you can run VADA on demand before, say, rebooting a given server but, without having performed detailed app mapping (which you can of course so) that will only show you immediate, active server dependencies (ie. what it’s currently connected to) rather than all application dependancies,
Let me clarify what I am looking to do. I am working on mapping every app with VADA which will show me that App A relies on SQL1 being up. Which is great and I know I can display status of that. What I am looking to do is get a dash board or report some how that would show if SQL1 gets rebooted it will impact App A, App C etc. How would I design that report or dashboard. VADA amazing for mapping apps out I have used it and ended up knowing more about traffic flow for an app than the app owner did when we were done. With most of my apps having multiple servers a DA will be required but since management does not know that server x is used for app A I need a way to show all the DA’s that a SQL box is included in.
VADA is almost perfect for this - You don’t need to know server names to discover apps, or at least, you don’t need to know all of the servers. In an upcoming release, they have talked about component level discovery - being able to see what SQL instances/databases are connected to which IIS application pools (rather than servers to servers). Perhaps this will solve your needs?