Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor

The Topaz Host Last Connection Time monitor checks the last time a Business Process Monitor, SiteScope or Client Monitor Agent contacted the Topaz Agent Server. The Topaz Watchdog group automatically configures this monitor type for a Business Process Monitor, SiteScope or Client Monitor Agent.

The Business Process Monitor is scheduled to connect to Topaz every two minutes. If the last connection was more than four minutes ago, Topaz Watchdog sets a warning status for this monitor. If the last connection was more than six minutes ago, Topaz Watchdog sets an error status.

SiteScope is scheduled to connect to Topaz every 24 hours. If the last connection was made 24 hours and 10 minutes ago, Topaz Watchdog sets a warning status for this monitor. If the last connection was 25 hours ago, Topaz Watchdog sets an error status.

For Client Monitor Agents, Topaz Watchdog always sets an OK status, since Client Monitor Agents are located on machines that may not be open all the time, or operating all the time.

Note that you can change the Error and Warning times, if you know that a specific Agent connects to Topaz at a different frequency than the default one.

For an explanation of the Topaz Watchdog group, see the Topaz Watchdog help, or open the Topaz Watchdog Settings page, and click the Help button.

Usage Guidelines

What to Monitor

Business Process Monitors, SiteScopes, Client Monitors.

Completing the Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor Form

To display the Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor Form, either click the Edit link for an existing Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor in a monitor table, or click the add a Monitor link on a group's detail page and click the Add Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor link.

Complete the items on the Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor form as follows. When the required items are complete, click the Add Monitor button.

Host Location: The location from which this agent is reporting. Note that Topaz Watchdog automatically knows the location of this agent according to the agent registration details in Topaz.
Host ID: Enter the host ID of this agent in Topaz. Note that Topaz Watchdog automatically knows the Host ID of this agent according to the agent registration details in Topaz.
Update every: Select how often the monitor should check the last connection time from the specified agent. 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.

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.

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> <HR>, and <B> 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 may use this drop-down list to choose a different placement for this monitor.

Error if

Set the conditions under which the Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor should report an error status.

Warning if: Set the conditions under which the Topaz Host Last Connection Time Monitor should report a warning status. To set the warning threshold, choose round trip time from the drop-down list and then, in the text box, enter the lowest time value (in milliseconds) which should trigger a warning condition. The time values must be entered as a whole number.
Good if: By default, this monitor returns a status of "good" if the monitor received a status code of 200. You can change it to return a good value based upon round-trip time.