Startup sequence for DCI Controller and Agents

Products

• Dynamic Capacity Intelligence

Issue/Introduction

Is there any specific order to start-up Dynamic Capacity Intelligence (DCI) Controller and Agents regions? Must the Controller be already active when the Agents are started?

 

Environment

Release : 2.0

Resolution

There is not any specific start-up order for DCI Controller and Agents. In fact, as it can be read on the "Prepare and Start Agents" section of the DCI documentation:

If the TCP/IP connection to the controller is not available, the agent continues to gather and store the collected data in the local storage. When the connection is available, the data transmission to the controller resumes.

This means that the Agents can be started even if the Controller is not yet active. They start collecting the data for the LPARs where they are running and then will transfer them to the Controller as soon as it's available.

On the same page you can read this really important not:
Start the agent immediately after IPL to gather as much data as possible and stop the agent immediately after you shut down the LPAR.

Obviously, the Controller must be up to issue the HMC commands based on the active policy. If the Controller is not active, no HMC commands are issued to the Agents.