# User Guide

# Getting Started

## Welcome to BEA Guardian: An Overview

### Overview

#### What is Guardian ?

Guardian is a diagnostic tool that finds potential problems in your environment before they occur.

#### How does it work ?

Guardian is like having all of BEA's customer support engineers scrutinize your domain and present their findings and recommendations to you.

#### How do you run it ?

Select a domain, select a signature bundle, and launch an evaluation. Then review our recommendations and decide how to proceed. You can also download new signatures from BEA.

#### Where can I run it ?

Guardian can run on Windows or Linux systems that have Version 5 of Java installed.

Guardian can evaluate any platform based on WebLogic Server Versions 8.1 and 9.x, regardless of operating system. As long as Guardian can install and interact with the Guardian Agents, Guardian can evaluate it.

### Key Concepts

- Evaluation is the primary function of Guardian. Evaluations detect the signatures of potential problems in your domain and recommend solutions to fix them.
- The signature is the crucial component of Guardian. It contains the distilled knowledge of BEA Support to both detect potential problems in your domain and recommend solutions. The latest signatures can be downloaded from BEA.
- A domain is a logically related group of WebLogic Server resources that you manage as a unit. The central point of contact is the Administration Server. A Domain Inventory is an XML document that describes a domain's servers, JVMs, operating systems, and databases. Guardian uses the Domain Inventory to determine which signatures are applicable to your domain.
- The Guardian Agent is Guardian's data collector. It is a lightweight web application that Guardian installs on your domain to gather data needed for evaluations. The Guardian Agent for WebLogic can collect JMX data, Java system properties and database metadata for your JDBC connection pools.
- To safeguard your domains, Guardian requires valid login credentials for all communications. Any passwords, usernames, or server names persisted on disk are encrypted. SSL encryption is available for communication between Guardian and your domains and between Guardian and BEA. Please note that Guardian uses 128 bit open source encryption for SSL.

### Key Tasks

- Activate

Activate a domain to prepare it for evaluation. For a WebLogic domain, you provide the URL of the Administration Server and an administrator account username and password. Guardian installs and deploys the Guardian Agent web application and collects some domain data to create a Domain Inventory.

- Evaluate

Select a domain to target, select a bundle of signatures to evaluate, and launch an evaluation. Guardian collects the data that indicates the presence of the signatures and creates an Evaluation Summary.

- Analyze

Review the Evaluation Summary to determine your response to any signatures that are detected. If you need more help resolving the potential problem the signature identified, you can have Guardian create a BEA support case.

- Update

Connect to the Guardian update site to download and install new signatures and Guardian application enhancements. BEA support engineers are creating new signatures based on knowledge gained from support cases every day.

#### Related Concepts

- Evaluation
- Signature
- Domain
- Domain Inventory
- Guardian Agent
- Security & Privacy
- Support Case

#### Related Tasks

- Activate Domain
- Evaluate Domain
- Update Guardian

#### Related Reference

- Evaluation Summary

#### Related Getting Started

- Supported Configurations
- Supported Targets