SiteScope User's Guide

SiteScope Monitors

SiteScope has many different types of monitors available to help you manage your Web server environment and other systems. These provide you with various monitoring capabilities. When you "create" a monitor, you select which type of monitoring function you want and then define the specific parameters for the monitor instance you are creating. You can create one or more other instances of that same monitor type and enter different monitoring parameters to check the availability of other systems.

This section describes:

• Key Monitoring Concepts
• The SiteScope Monitor Types
• Solution Template Monitors
• Standard Monitors
• Optional Monitors
• Integration Monitors
• Self-Alert Monitors
• Overview of Ports Used for Monitoring
• Monitoring Remote Servers
• Adding a Monitor to a Group
• Editing a Monitor

Key Monitoring Concepts

As an agentless application, SiteScope is designed for rapid deployment. Once you have installed SiteScope, you are ready to set up monitors to test your Web systems and services. While the steps for configuring a particular monitor type will vary, the steps for setting up SiteScope monitors can be summarized as follows:

1. Find it

The first step is to tell SiteScope where to find what you want to monitor. Finding the things you want to monitor will depend on a number of factors including:

• network connectivity between the SiteScope server and the systems you want to monitor (this may be effected by firewalls, routers, or proxy servers)
• the communication protocol or connection method used (for example: HTTP, HTTPS, NetBios, Telnet, and so forth)
• the level of security required for SiteScope to access the information (for example: administrator privileges, proxies, SSL, SSH)
• the installation of application specific drivers or clients (for example: database drivers, application clients, or SNMP agents)

See the section Overview of Ports Used for Monitoring below for a list of the network ports and protocols used by specific monitor types.

You will often need to create a remote server profile that contains information about how SiteScope should access each remote server. Certain administrative permissions usually need to be shared between the SiteScope server and the remote servers you want to monitor.

2. Measure it

The next step is to instruct SiteScope what to measure. In some cases simply knowing if a system or web page is available will be enough. In other cases, you will want to be sure that particular content be present, that specific services are operational, or key actions can be completed. Several monitor types allow you to select specific services or performance metrics to monitor. Most monitors allow you to do content matching on the test results using regular expressions.

3. Report it

The third step is to instruct SiteScope how report the results. The status of the measurements you have selected are reported to the SiteScope interface in the status string associated with the monitor. You select the category (for example: error or good) that SiteScope reports using the Error if, Warning if, and Good if threshold settings in the Advanced Options section for each monitor. The category is used to trigger alerts and also effects how the monitor data is displayed in reports.

Any single installation of SiteScope is capable of running a large number of monitor instances. However, the type of monitors run and their run frequency may make it advisable to divide monitoring between multiple SiteScope installations or reduce how often individual monitors are run. The calculation to keep in mind is how many monitors are scheduled to run per minute per SiteScope installation . For example, if you define 120 monitors each to run every 2 minutes, this equates to 60 monitors per minute. Generally, monitoring load will not be a concern if the average number of monitors run is less than 60 monitors per minute. Monitor runs at 300 monitors per minute or more can be cause for concern, depending on the resources available to the SiteScope server. At this level the load on the monitoring system may affect your measurements. You can view the monitoring load on the server by clicking on the Progress Page link. The Progress page shows the statistics for the current and maximum monitors per minute.

SiteScope is sold on the basis of monitoring capacity rather than copies of the SiteScope application. License credits or points are used to enable one or more instances of the many different monitor types available in SiteScope. This means you can purchase licensing that allows you to create as many monitors as you need while also being able to install multiple copies of the SiteScope application software in your network environment. As your network grows or your monitoring needs increase, you can purchase a license for additional monitoring capacity for use on existing SiteScope installations or to expand your SiteScope deployment further with additional installations.

Index

Monitor Types

SiteScope monitor types are grouped according to categories that reflect their availability or function. Refer to the applicable sections to see more detailed information monitor.

Solution Template Monitors

Solution Template monitor types are a special class of monitors that enable new monitoring capabilities for specific applications and environments. As part of a Solution, these monitor types are coupled with Standard or Advanced monitor types to provide a rapidly deployable monitoring solution that incorporates best pratice configurations. These monitor types are controlled by option licensing and can only be added as part of a Solution. See the section Introducing Solution Templates for more information.

Standard Monitors

Standard monitor types represent the monitor types available with a general SiteScope license. These monitor types include many of the general purpose monitor types. These types are divided into subcategories as follows:

Network Services Monitors

Monitors that test commonly used network applications and services by simulating end user actions. These include accessing Web content, e-mail, file downloads, and performing database queries. This subcategory also includes monitors for checking lower level network function and connectivity.

Server Monitors

Monitors that measure server availability, resource usage, and other operating system attributes. These can be used to monitor remote servers running Windows or UNIX-based operating systems.

Application Monitors

Monitors designed to check the availability and report on performance statistics of specific network applications and servers. Several of these monitors are specific to Microsoft Windows environments. Many require special setup procedures.

Advanced Monitors

Monitors that provide specific functionality for less commonly used protocols, services, or special adaptations.

Beta Monitors

Monitors that are still in a stage of development but may offer useful functionality in their current state. The status of these monitors is subject to change. Any beta monitor types are generally displayed at the bottom of the Add Monitor to Group page.

See the section Standard Monitor Types for a listing of monitors and more information about their usage.

Optional Monitors

New monitoring capabilities are regularly added in SiteScope to support the changing customer needs. There are a number of optional monitor types that add specialized capabilities for monitoring specific applications and servers.

Optional Monitors include include the following:

• ALT Script Monitor
• COM+ Server Monitor
• J2EE Real-Time Monitor
• J2EE Report Monitor
• SAP CCMS Monitor
• Siebel Log File Monitor
• Siebel Server Manager Monitor
• Siebel Web Server Monitor
• WebSphere MQ Status Monitor

These optional monitor types require additional licensing and setup. For more information about optional monitor capabilities, see the section on Optional Monitor Types.

Integration Monitors

This group of optional monitor types are used to integrate Mercury Interactive products with other commonly used Enterprise Management systems and applications.

Example Integration Monitors include:

• Avalon Alert Monitor
• BMC Patrol Alert Monitor
• BMC Patrol Metrics Monitor
• CIM Monitor
• Clarify Monitor
• EMS Database Monitor
• EMS Log File Monitor
• EMS SNMP Trap Monitor
• HP OVO Alert Monitor
• Netcool Alert Monitor
• Prism Page Monitor
• Remedy AR System Monitor
• Tivoli TEC Alert Monitor
• Tivoli DM Monitor
• WhatsUp Monitor

These optional monitor types require additional licensing and may only be available as part of another Mercury product. For more information about integration monitor capabilities, see the section on Integration Monitor Types.

Self-Alert Monitors

The need to monitor application availability, performance, and health applies to those that are performing the system and service monitoring. SiteScope includes features for monitoring itself and other Mercury products. This includes the following:

SiteScope Health Monitors

The self-alert monitoring of the SiteScope application is provided by a set of built-in system monitors. These monitors are hardcoded into the product and report their status on the SiteScope Health page. You click the Health in the main SiteScope navigation menu to view the SiteScope Health status. You configure the thresholds for these monitors using the Configure SiteScope Health Indicators page. See the section Configuring SiteScope Health Monitoring for more information.

Mercury Self-Alert Monitors

You can use SiteScope Self-Alert monitoring (also known as Topaz Watchdog) to monitor connectivity with and performance of Topaz servers. This feature makes use of several Standard monitor types as well as two Self-Alert monitor types designed for this purpose. These are:

• Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor
• Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor

See the section Monitoring the Topaz System Using the Topaz Watchdog Group for more information about this feature.

Index

Overview of Ports Used for Monitoring

The following table lists the network ports that are generally used for SiteScope monitoring. In many cases, alternate ports may be configured depending on the security requirements of your environment.

Index

Monitoring Remote Servers

Some SiteScope monitors use Internet protocols to test Web systems and applications. Other SiteScope monitors (CPU, Disk Space, Memory, Service and Web Server) use the network file system services and commands to monitor information on remote servers. This includes servers running the following operating systems:

• Windows NT/2000
• Sun Solaris
• SGI Irix
• HP/UX
• Linux

Notes

1. Monitors that can be used to monitor remote servers directly are limited to the CPU, Disk Space, Memory, Service, Script (UNIX Only), NT Performance Counter, NT Event Log, or Web Server (NT Only) monitors.
2. Monitoring remote NT servers requires SiteScope for Windows NT/2000 and that the SiteScope service runs in a user or administrative account that has permission to access the NT performance registry on the remote server to be monitored. For the Windows NT/2000 installation, use the Services control panel to make changes to the user account used by the SiteScope service. Select the SiteScope service from the list of services, click the Startup button, and fill in the Log On As fields with an account that can access the remote servers. Stop and start the SiteScope service to start using the new account.

To monitor certain server level parameters on a remote server using the network files system services, you need to create a remote server profile. A table of server profiles is listed on the UNIX Remotes or NT Remotes pages. You access these pages via the Preferences menu. The remote server profiles contain the address and connection information that SiteScope needs to make a remote connection.

After creating remote server profiles, set up monitors to use the remote connection profile. For more information about remotely monitoring either UNIX or NT servers, read the UNIX Remote or NT Remote help page in this document.

You can also check the on-line Knowledge Base available via the Customer Support site for other information relating to monitoring remote servers.

Adding a Monitor to a Group

Monitors must be added to an existing group. The section Working with Monitor Groups for information on creating and working with monitor groups.

To add a monitor to a group:

1. From the SiteScope Panel, open the group to which you want to add the new monitor by clicking on the hyperlink for that group.
2. Click Add a new monitor to this group link. The Add Monitor form appears.
3. Choose the type of monitor that you want to add from the monitor list. this brings up the applicable monitor set up form.
4. Complete the monitor setup information. For information about completing that monitor's information, choose the help button at the upper right hand corner of the Add Monitor form.
5. Click the Add Monitor button after you complete the setup information. The monitor creation sequence is displayed. The group's detail page is refreshed and is displayed with the new monitor. Unless you specify a list order, the new monitor is listed last in the monitor table.

Index

Editing a Monitor

Use the following steps to edit an existing monitor:

1. From the SiteScope Panel, open the group that contains the monitor you want to edit. The group's detail page appears.
   Note: If the monitor belongs to a subgroup, click the subgroup's name on the group detail page to access the subgroup detail page.
   
2. Locate the monitor that you want to edit in the monitor table and click the Edit link associated with that monitor. The monitor's current information appears.
3. Make the desired changes to the monitor configuration parameters.
4. Click the Update [Monitor Name] button. The group's detail page appears and the changes are in effect.

Index

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