C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals

The C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals is an entry-level exam that examines the skill sets of the candidates regarding the ability to explain the functionality and infrastructure of IBM Tivoli Monitoring, ability comprehends and manipulates the Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 data, customizing Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 data, understanding of Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Navigation and describing the ITM Event Management. This entry-level exam is key to the associate level exam of the same field of knowledge. Individuals must have the capability to showcase these skills with hands-on experience and formal/informal education of the subject.

Target Audience

Anyone who sells or promotes the services and products of IBM are eligible for this exam. Every credential of IBM is designed for individuals involved with IBM’s products and services, and similar is the case with the C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals credential.

Recommended skills/ Prerequisite

The following are the skills that every candidate must have to opt for the C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals exam.

Foundational knowledge of IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 infrastructure components.
Foundational knowledge of OS, networking, and firewall concepts.
Good insights and knowledge of Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agents (TEMA).
Understanding of IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus
Basic-level knowledge of security (SSL, data encryption, GS Kit, system user accounts)
Root-level knowledge of supported databases.
The familiarity of enterprise-wide monitoring capabilities of IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3
Understanding of protocols including HTTP, LDAP
Ability to comprehended problem determination

Exam C9560-503 Details

Exam Name IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals	Exam Code C9560-503
Exam Duration 90 mins	Exam Fee $245 USD
Exam Type Entry-Level	Number of Questions 65 Questions
Exam Language English, Japanese	Pass Score 47/65

For More Details See – IBM: C9560-503 FAQ

C9560-503 IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals Course Outline

The C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals Exam covers the following domains.

Updated C9560-503 IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals Course Outline.

Section 1: IBM Tivoli Monitoring Infrastructure 20%

Given a basic understanding of IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM), describe ITM and the various components such as IBM Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server (TEPS), Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server (TEMS), agents, the data warehouse and event synchronization so that the ITM infrastructure and its functions have been explained.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the most common Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agents and their functions so that the functions of the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agent have been explained.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the TEMS component and its function so that the purpose of the TEMS has been defined.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the TEPS component and its function so that the purpose of the TEPS has been defined.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the TEPS component and its function so that the purpose of the TEPS database has been defined.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the TEP clients so that the TEP client has been defined.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the usage of the data warehouse so that the data warehouse has been defined.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe what the Warehouse Proxy agent (WPA) does, what it monitors and where it can be installed so that the functions of the WPA have been defined.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe what the SPA does, what it monitors and where it can be installed so that the SPA has been defined.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe what the Manage Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Services is, what platforms it runs on and what basic functions it provides so that the functions of the Manage Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Services have been explained.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe how ITM is able to forward situation events from ITM to Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus, as well as sync updates in Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus back into ITM so that the integration between these products has been defined.
Given the requirement that operations staff get a console view of all incoming and open alerts from ITM and that the ITM Situation Event Console can handle only a limited number of events in any given period successfully, describe why and when would you choose to implement an external event console so that the purpose of when and why to use an external event console has been defined.
Given basic operator experience with ITM, explain how application support is the collection of configuration data (workspaces, situations, queries, help, Take Actions, etc.) needed by TEMS, TEPS, and the TEP clients that allows ITM data to be viewed by a user so that application support has been defined.

Section 2: Using Monitoring Data 10%

Given the need to perform useful event monitoring, and using the workspaces found within the Tivoli Enterprise Portal (TEP), review the various data elements by which a monitoring agent keeps track of the state of a managed system. Determine the current properties and status of these managed systems, using these data elements (attributes), to determine meaningful criteria for analysis so that appropriate thresholds can be determined and defined in situations.
Given the need to perform useful event monitoring, state how related attributes are packaged together for ease of use in the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server (TEMS) so that attribute groups and their purpose have been defined.
Given the need of the ITM user to fully understand the data streams within ITM to be able to correctly plan and implement a well performing Monitoring environment, list the data available from ITM and match these with the requirements from the users so that a document with full description of all required monitoring data with their properties is available.
Given the requirement from the TEP user to have the monitoring data available in a specific format, describe how a TEP view should be adapted to display these data so that the TEP view has been modified and saved.
Given the requirement to visualize monitoring data on the TEP client according to user requirements, new queries have to be created and used within a View/Workspace so that a new query is now available from the Query selection list.
Given the requirement of the TEP user to export monitoring data from a TEP view to an external file, describe the actions needed to achieve this so that a new file with monitored data is available from the TEP view.
Given the requirement from TEP users to visualize monitoring data on the TEP Client in different formats, list the types of views that can be created in a TEP Workspace so that the types of views have been defined.

Section 3: IBM Tivoli Monitoring Usage 10%

Given basic familiarity with IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 (ITM), describe how individual components are stopped and started on different platforms, using ITM functionality so that the process to stop/start ITM components has been explained.
Given a basic understanding of ITM, describe the different types of users, including Administrators, Operations, Support teams, and Management so that the users and their roles have been defined.
Given the need to create a new user, log on to the TEP, create the user and assign the appropriate permissions so that the user ID has been created and is ready for use.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe what a workspace is, what it can display, its properties, what is delivered as default and what can be changed so that workspaces within ITM have been defined.
Given the need to enable workspace admin mode, log on to the TEP, grant the required permissions to the selected user ID, log on with the changed user ID and enable workspace admin mode so that the workspace admin mode is enabled.
Given basic ITM knowledge, describe what level of data can be collected, what the options are to limit or increase the amount of data collected so that ITM data collecting options have been defined.
Given an existing View on the TEP, describe how you can limit the scope of the rows returned from the Query so that a new view has been modified to the requirements of the TEP user.
Given the user requirement to visualize a specific time frame of monitoring data for a specific server or servers for a specific set of attributes, explain how this time span should be set on the view so that the modified view reflect the new time selection criteria.
Given the end user requirements for which monitoring data are to be collected, define an attribute group to be collected with its specific settings so that the historical data files will be created at the TEMA or TEMS and data will be sent to the warehouse.
Given the requirement of TEP administrators to distribute groups of objects (historical configurations and situations) to the same list(s) of systems, use the Object Group Editor to assign these objects in group to managed systems or lists of managed systems so that historical configurations and situations are grouped to the appropriate servers.
Given the requirement to launch external applications from the TEP client, describe the main features of this function so that the launch feature has been described.
Given basic operator experience with ITM, describe how a user can navigate to Take Action on a local or remote managed system and then run an Action (either a pre-defined Action or a custom command) so that the use of Take Action has been defined.

Section 4: IBM Tivoli Monitoring Navigation 20%

Given basic experience with IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 (ITM), explain how the Navigator view provides access to the data that ITM collects via a hierarchical structure (Physical by default, Custom/Logical when defined as needed) so that the functions of the navigator tree have been explained.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe how one can use the Edit Navigator View button from the Tivoli Enterprise Portal (TEP) client to create a new Navigator View so that the process to create a new Navigator view is defined.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe what a Logical Navigator View is and why it might be used (as opposed to the default Physical Navigator View) so that the use of a Logical Navigator View is understood.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe how a user can navigate from the default workspace to another workspace for the same Navigator item so that the capability to attach multiple workspaces to a single Navigator item is demonstrated.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe how to link workspaces in the TEP client so that navigating to one particular workspace directly from another workspace is illustrated.

Section 5: IBM Tivoli Monitoring Event Management 35%

Given the need to perform useful event monitoring, and using the Tivoli Enterprise Portal (TEP) features found in the situation editor, determine how related managed systems are grouped together for ease of replication of common analysis criteria so that when a situation is added or changed, the change is proliferated across all related managed systems, reducing error and providing consistency.
Given the need to perform proactive event management at times, and using the features provided in the TEP, state reasons why event analysis with alerts is enough (based on a situation), and when there are times that more automated actions are required (based on a policy).
Given the need to perform proactive event management at times, and using the features provided in the TEP, state reasons why the ITM framework event analysis would be conducted by sampling of data, as opposed to the determination of a pure event so that the difference between pure and sampled events has been defined.
Given the need to perform event management and analysis to reduce business outages, and using the features provided in the TEP, describe the steps at a high level of setting up a situation and assigning it to a managed system so that a situation has been set-up and assigned.
Given the need to perform event management and analysis to reduce business outages, and using the features provided in the TEP, describe how and why one would use the feature ‘Situation Persistence’ when defining a situation.
Given the need to perform event management and analysis to reduce business outages and to find quick resolutions, using the features provided in the TEP, describe the difference between creating a situation from the situation editor (start from icon), or creating a situation from the navigator tree so that the various ways to create a situation have been described.
Given the need to perform event management and analysis to reduce business outages and to find quick resolutions, using the features provided in the TEP, describe how and why one would use the feature ‘Event Acknowledgement’, to take ownership of a situation event when it occurs so that the Event Acknowledge feature has been explained.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe how pure and sampled situation events are closed so that the difference between pure events and sampled events is defined.
Given the need to perform event management and analysis, to reduce business outages and to find quick resolutions, using the features provided in the TEP, describe how and why one would need to associate a situation with a navigator item so that how to associate a situation with a navigator item has been defined.
Given the need to perform event management and analysis to reduce business outages and to find quick resolutions, using the features provided in the TEP, describe how and why one would use the feature ‘Expert Advice’ when defining a situation so that the Expert Advice feature has been described.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe the differences between reflex automation and workflow automation so that users can distinguish between the two.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe the kind of data that can be used in a situation and displayed in a situation event so that the use of Display Item in situations is defined.
Given basic familiarity with ITM, describe the function of monitored, statistical, and historical baselines in a data view so that the value of using monitored baselines in a view is understood.

Section 6: Fundamentals of IBM Tivoli Monitoring Problem Determination 5%

Given basic knowledge of IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 (ITM), describe how a user can determine if a component of the ITM is failing so that a user can determine what may be failing within the ITM architecture.

Preparation Guide for the C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals Exam

Candidates are advised to choose the most suitable preparation resource to pass the C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals exam. This will not only boost their performance but also make the study session relaxed and fun to follow each day. Choosing the right study resource will stimulate the brain enthusiastically and help you concentrate better.

Learning Resource 1: Official Website

The above link will help you access the official website’s provided resources. The official website recommends and provides 2 documents for the Exam C9560-503 aspirants.

Official Training Course – Course: TM023G: IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.3 Fundamentals
Classroom Course – IBM Tivoli Monitoring Fundamentals
Study Guide – A study guide works like a wonder and we all know how they assist us during the exam voyage. Thus, this document is a “must-have” one.
Sample questions – These will help you understand the format and depth of answers you will be expected to write. It will also give you a hint of how questions will be asked; for eg. Scenario-based, simple Multiple choice (MCQs) or image/graph/diagram based, etc.

Learning Resource 3 – IBM Redbooks

The IBM Redbooks is a Kindle for the IBM learners. This Redbook features all the important and suggested books for the exams and saves tons of rupees and time. The books are suggested by IBM and the site also belongs to them, making it a reliable and recommended site for studying.

Learning Resource 4 – IBM Developers

The IBM Developers resource is a platform that acts as a blog. It consisted of overviews and explanations over various topics revolving around the interest of exams and students. It has documents, guides, illustrations, and qualitative content for the learners. Though, currently, it has stopped updating itself. Candidates must read all the details of the guides/articles and keep up with the current updates on their own. It acts as a library just like the IBM Publications center; a resourceful platform, for the candidates preparing for the C9560-503: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals Exam.

Learning Resource 2: Online Community

Online communities facilitate the flow of content that will aid the candidates that are preparing for the exam. The content flow will help them access the content that meets their requirements and needs during the preparation of the exam. This will help them create their personalized library of content where they have their customized or subject-wise collection.

Practice Tests

C9560-503 IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 Fundamentals practice tests will help allow you to be better at correcting and improving the errors that you make. Practicing can be more efficacious if you make personalized tests. This method will not require you to be familiar and creative with your syllabus but also it will create a better sense of what to learn and what to focus on.