COM+ Server Monitor

You use the COM+ Server Monitor to monitor the performance of software components registered and running on Microsoft COM+ servers. When you specify the host and port number of this probe instance, SiteScope will retrieve all the functions running on the COM+ server, for your monitoring selection. Error and warning thresholds for the monitor can be set on as many as ten function measurements.

Usage Guidelines

The following are several key requirements for using the COM+ Server Monitor:

A COM+ probe component from Mercury Interactive must be installed and running on the target COM+ server you want to monitor.
there must be HTTP connectivity between the SiteScope server and the server running the COM+ probe.
In order to enable this monitor type in SiteScope, an Option license for the COM+ Monitor must be obtained and input into SiteScope.

Note: You cannot have multiple SiteScope instances share one probe instance. You can have multiple COM+ monitors within a single SiteScope installation access the same probe instance (uniquely identified by the probe host and port). The probe cannot serve data to multiple SiteScope installations.

COM+ Probe Installation

The COM+ probe is available from the Mercury Interactive Customer Support download site, located here. You will need a login to this Mercury Interactive CSO site to access the Customer Support Downloads page. If you do not have one, go to the Mercury Interactive Support site and register. After logging in, click the "Customer support downloads" radio button found in the "Show Me Articles..." box on the lower left corner of the page. Select product "SiteScope", then click the "RETRIEVE" button. You should see a list of downloads and a link that identifies the COM Plus Server Monitor Add In component.

After downloading, follow the instructions for installing the probe on the COM+ server to be monitored.

Once the probe is successfully installed you must start it prior to running or defining a SiteScope COM+ monitor, by invoking the file mon_cplus_probe.exe found in the COM+ probe's bin directory. By default the installation creates this file at:

C:\Program Files\Mercury Interactive\COMPlus Monitor\bin\mon_cplus_probe.exe

Completing the COM+ Server Monitor Form

To display the COM+ Server Monitor Form, either click the Edit link for an existing COM+ Server Monitor in a monitor table, or click the add a Monitor link on a group's detail page and click the COM+ Server monitor type link from the list of available monitor types.

Complete the items on the COM+ Server Monitor Form as follows. First you need to click the Choose Server link to specify details of the COM+ Probe. Then click the Browse Counters button to display the entire list of metrics functions available for monitoring in the COM+ server that the COM+ Probe is associated with. When you have completed your counter selections, click the Add Monitor button.

Server

The probe instance associated with the COM+ server to be monitored. Click the choose server link on the same line to bring up the server selection screen. The server selection screen presents the following options:

COM+ Probe Host Name: Specify the host name of the COM+ Probe.
COM+ Probe Port Number: Specify the port number of the COM+ Probe. The installation default for the probe is at port 8008.
Authorization User Name: Optional user name for authorization to the probe.
Authorization Password: Optional password for authorization to the probe.
HTTP Proxy: Optionally, a proxy server can be used to access the probe. Enter the domain name and port of an HTTP Proxy Server.
Proxy Server User Name: If the proxy server requires a name and password to access the probe, enter the name here. Note: your proxy server must support Proxy-Authenticate for these options to function.
Proxy Server Password: If the proxy server requires a name and password to access the probe, enter the password here.

Click the Browse Counters button to retrieve the list of functions in the target COM+ server that are available for monitoring.

Counters

This text box is read-only and can only be specified by clicking on the choose counters link. This brings up the Browse counters page. Use the selection features on this page to expand or contract the counter tree and select the counters you want to monitor. When you have selected the counters you want to monitor, click the Choose Counters button to record your selection.

The default timeout period used when retrieving the list of counters from the server (for you to then choose from) is 120 seconds. If your server has an unusually large set of counters the retrieve process might exceed this timeout period. You can specify a different or longer timeout period in the master.config file by adding the following line:

_comPlusMonitorGetBrowseTreeTimeout=nnn

where nnn is the number of seconds to wait before timing out (must be greater than 0).

Update every

Select how often the monitor should access the URL entered above. The default interval is to run or update the monitor once every 10 minutes. Use the drop-down list to the right of the text box to specify another update interval in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. The update interval must be 15 seconds or longer.

Title

Enter a title text for this monitor. This text is displayed in the group detail page, in report titles, and other places in the SiteScope interface. If you do not enter a title text, SiteScope will create a title based on the host, server, or URL being monitored.

When you are done, click the Add Monitor button to create it.

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options section presents a number of ways to customize monitor behavior and display. Use this section to customize error and warning thresholds, disable the monitor, set monitor-to-monitor dependencies, customize display options, and enter other monitor specific settings required for special infrastructure environments. The options for this monitor type are described below. Complete the entries as needed and click the Add or Update button to save the settings.

Disable

Check this box to temporarily disable this monitor and any associated alerts. To enable the monitor again, clear the box.

Timeout

The number of seconds that the monitor should wait for a response from the server before timing-out. Once this time period passes, the monitor will log an error and report an error status.

Note: Depending on the activity on the server, the time to build the server monitor statistics Web page may take more than 15 seconds. You should test the monitor with an Timeout value of more than 60 seconds to ensure that the server can build and serve the server monitor statistics Web page before the SiteScope monitor is scheduled to run again.

Verify Error

Check this box if you want SiteScope to automatically run this monitor again if it detects an error. When an error is detected, the monitor will immediately be scheduled to run again once.

Note: In order to change the run frequency of this monitor when an error is detected, use the Update every (on errors) option below.

Note: The status returned by the Verify Error run of the monitor will replace the status of the originally scheduled run that detected an error. This may cause the loss of important performance data if the data from the verify run is different than the initial error status.

Warning: Use of this option across many monitor instances may result in significant monitoring delays in the case that multiple monitors are rescheduled to verify errors at the same time.

Update Every (on error)

You use this option to set a new monitoring interval for monitors that have registered an error condition. For example, you may want SiteScope to monitor this item every 10 minutes normally, but as often as every 2 minutes if an error has been detected. Note that this increased scheduling will also affect the number of alerts generated by this monitor.

Schedule

By default, SiteScope monitors are enabled every day of the week. You may, however, schedule your monitors to run only on certain days or on a fixed schedule. Click the Edit schedule link to create or edit a monitor schedule. For more information about working with monitor schedules, see the section on Schedule Preferences for Monitoring.

Monitor Description

Enter additional information about this monitor. The Monitor Description can include HTML tags such as the >BR< and >B<>/BR< tags to control display format and style. The description will appear on the Monitor Detail page.

Report Description

Enter an optional description for this monitor that will make it easier to understand what the monitor does. For example, network traffic or main server response time. This description will be displayed on with each bar chart and graph in Management Reports and appended to the tool-tip displayed when you pass the mouse cursor over the status icon for this monitor on the monitor detail page.

Depends On

To make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor or monitor group, use the drop-down list to select the monitor on which this monitor is dependent. Select None to remove any dependency.

Depends Condition

If you choose to make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor, select the status condition that the other monitor or monitor group should have in order for the current monitor to run normally. The current monitor will be run normally as long as the monitor on which it depends reports the condition selected in this option.

List Order

By default, new monitors are listed last on the Monitor Detail page. You can use this drop-down list to choose a different placement for this monitor.

Setting Monitor Status Thresholds

SiteScope Application Monitors allow you to set multiple threshold conditions to determine the status reported by each monitor. The individual conditions are combined as logical OR relationships so that when one or more of the conditions (for example any of the conditions for Error if) are met the monitor status is set to the applicable condition. If multiple conditions are met for more than one status condition (such as conditions for both error and for warning), the status for the monitor is set to the highest valued condition. Thus a match of an error condition and a warning condition would be reported as an error status, error being the highest value, warning the next highest and good the lowest value.

Error if: Use one or more of the selection boxes in this item to define one or more error conditions for this monitor. Use the drop-down lists in these items to change error threshold(s) relative to the counters you have selected to check with this monitor. After choosing a counter or parameter, use the comparison operator drop-down list to specify an error threshold such as: >= (greater than or equal to), != (not equal to), or < (less than) and enter a comparison value in the box provided. Comparison values should be entered as whole numbers.
Warning if: Use one or more of the selection boxes in this item to define one or more warning conditions for this monitor. Use the drop-down lists in these items to change warning threshold(s) relative to the counters you have selected to check with this monitor. Set these values relative to those you set for the error threshold in the Error if item.
Good if: You can set this monitor to return a good status for certain conditions. You may define those conditions here. Complete this item as you would for the Error if and Warning if items.

COM+ Functions

After you have specified the COM+ Probe for the target COM+ Server, click the Browse Counters button. The COM+ probe will be queried for a list of available functions to monitor, and a browse tree will be displayed. See the Browsable Counters Utility help page for instructions on how to navigate this hierarchy tree and select your functions or counters of interest.