Frequently Asked Questions

Our products for BMC Software’s platforms follow BMC Software’s policy about product trials. You will need to contact BMC Sales to try our products for free and access technical support during the trial period (typically 30 days).

You can connect to the following demo platforms to evaluate our products:

• Monitoring Studio X demo platform
• Storage Analyzer KM demo platform
• Hardware Sentry KM (standalone with Monitoring Studio)

If you need a demo tailored to your needs, please contact our Sales team.

The pricing model depends on the products you wish to purchase and the size of your environment. For example, the license cost is calculated:

• Per managed asset-server endpoint for:
  • Hardware Sentry KM
  • High-Availability Monitoring KMs
  • Backup Monitoring KMs
  • Monitoring Studio X. Please note that the Web Interface and REST API of Monitoring Studio X are free to use if you only interact with the PATROL Agent. A license is only required to configure local and remote hosts and create templates.
• Per active front-end ports for:
  • The Storage Monitoring KMs
  • The Storage Capacity Optimization ETLs
  • Hardware Sentry KM when used to monitor storage systems
  • Monitoring Studio X when used to monitor storage systems.

Different levels of maintenance are also available. To get a quote for your specific needs and environment, please contact BMC Sales .

The number of active front-end ports can be obtained either from the debug logs or through the Port Count parameter. All active ports are subject to license, not only the connected ports. SAN switches ports are not licensed if the active front-end ports on the storage devices are licensed. Please refer to Collecting Port Count Details for Storage Devices to get the detailed procedure or contact our Sales team for assistance.

If you wish to purchase our integrated solutions for Helix Operations Management, Helix Continuous Optimization, or TrueSight, please contact BMC Sales .

Sentry Software develops solutions that complement BMC Helix Operations Management , BMC Helix Continuous Optimization BMC TrueSight Operations Management and TrueSight Capacity Optimization . A license for these BMC products is therefore required to use Sentry Software’s KMs and ETLs. If you are not a BMC customer, please contact BMC Sales first.

Training and Professional Services are not included in the license price; they are available as services. A pre-paid number of days of Professional Services and training is however offered if you subscribe to a separate Premier Support contract. Please note that training is strongly recommended for all new users. For more information, please contact our Sales team.

A KM, a.k.a. Knowledge Module, is a monitoring solution that integrates into BMC Helix Operations Management and BMC TrueSight Operations Management . It consists in a set of files from which a PATROL Agent receives information about resources running on a monitored computer.

Our monitoring solutions are usually set up in large Helix/TrueSight Operations Management environments. However, Hardware Sentry KM, Storage Analyzer KM, and Monitoring Studio X can work as standalone monitoring solutions for small environments, requiring only a PATROL Agent and Monitoring Studio X. For more information, please contact our Sales team.

To verify that your servers and storage systems are supported by:

• Our monitoring solutions, refer to Coverage of Manufacturers and Models for TrueSight/Helix Operations Management
• Our capacity optimization solution, refer to Coverage of Manufacturers and Models for TrueSight/Helix Continuous Optimization

If your model is not listed in the pages above, you can run the relevant Troubleshooting tool against your system. If the connection test is successful and all the required data is correctly returned, your model is likely to be supported. Otherwise, ask for this platform to be supported.  

The maximum number of storage devices monitored depends on the number of volumes and parameters monitored. Based on our customers' experience, we estimate that 30,000 volumes can be monitored per PATROL Agent instance.