Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V20z - Manual (Page 42)

3-2 Sun Fire V20z Server User Guide • March 2004
3.1 Preventative Troubleshooting
Creating and following procedures can help prevent problems and make
troubleshooting easier.
Follow these guidelines for preventative troubleshooting:
■ Use uniform naming conventions for your servers, such as names that denote server
location. Uniform naming conventions help when you try to remember often
overlooked details that can hold the key to resolving a crisis.
■ Use unique IDs or names for your devices. You can reduce the risk of components
competing for the same resource if you have a list. Use the server setup utility to
check for conflicts.
■ Create a backup plan. Schedule backups based on the needs of your server. If data is
changed frequently, frequent backups are required. Maintain a library of backups
based on your information restoring needs. Test your backups periodically to be
sure that your data is correctly stored.
■ Use enterprise systems management tools to automate the following processes, or
manually track this information:
■ Check hard disk space periodically. It is recommended that hard drives have a
minimum of 15 percent of free space.
■
Keep historical data. You will not know that the CPU utilization has increased
50 percent if you do not know what it was initially. If you have problems, you
can use the data to compare before and after scenarios. For example, you might
want to know about the user, bus, and power utilization rates.
■
Keep a trend analysis so that you will know what to expect during certain
points in time. For example, if the CPU utilization rate always increases by 50
percent during certain hours, you will know that increase is normal for the
server you are tracking.
■ Create a problem resolution notebook. When problems do occur, keep a log of the
actions you took to resolve them. This could help you solve the same problem
more quickly in the future. This information can save a great deal of time in the
future and ensure accuracy, especially when dealing with future part replacement.
■ Keep an updated network topology map in an accessible location. This will help
in troubleshooting networking problems.