Application/Container Icons

Objective

The aim of the application/container tool is to group several monitoring objects related to the same monitored application, IT component or device. It greatly facilitates the monitoring management of applications/components and permits you to have a clean and well-structured hierarchy of the monitored objects.

Method (summary)

Create a new application or container icon (when created, it appears at the same level as the main Monitoring Studio icon).

You can create sub-containers within your application/container which is very useful to ensure that the monitoring matches your actual applications as closely as possible.

Specify an application name (or container name) and enter properties that will be useful to operators such as:

•	Description of the application

•	Name of contact in case of an application failure, etc.

In addition, it is possible to specify up to three advanced options that facilitate the monitoring management of applications:

•	You can set command lines that allow starting or stopping of the application from the menu command.

•	You can specify signature files whose existence means that the managed application is currently present on the system and consequently should be monitored (great for clustered applications).

•	And the third option consists of setting application constants which are very useful for monitoring an application whose properties may change from one system to another.

Result

The application/container icon appears in the PATROL console and you can create or add other monitored objects belonging to the application under it. This way they are all grouped together. This is useful, for instance, if you wish to apply global Alert Actions to all monitored objects belonging to one application. The application containers enable you to have a clean and structured hierarchy of your monitored objects.

Create and edit application/container icons

To create a new application/container icon, right-click the Monitoring Studio icon in the PATROL Console and select KM Commands > New > Application icon (container)…

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_1Welcome

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Welcome Page

To edit an existing application/container icon, right-click the icon in the PATROL Console > select KM Commands > Edit.

To create sub-containers, right-click the application/container icon under which you want to create a sub-container > select KM Commands > New > Sub-container…

Step 1: Identifying the application to monitor (naming a container)

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_2Naming

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Container Name Page

•	Container name: Enter the name of the container or application to monitor. This builds the label of the icon in the PATROL Console.

•	Description (optional): Description of the application or IT component being monitored.

•	Contact (optional): Enter the name of the person to be alerted or who can provide support in case of an application failure.

•	Let me setup advanced options: Selection enables setting advanced options.

Step 2: Advanced options (optional)

If you decide to set advanced options in the previous panel shown, the next dialog panel gives you access to three options start--stop; signature files; applications constants:

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_3AdvancedOptions

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Advanced Options Page

Click on the desired button to show the panel for the corresponding option.

Start -- Stop

This option enables the starting and stopping of an application through a Monitoring Studio KM command. To activate this feature, you need to specify two command lines: One to start the application, and the other to stop it, and then enter user credentials to run these commands.

On clicking the Start--Stop button in the panel shown above, the following panel pops-up:

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_3aStartStop

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Advanced Options (Start/Stop Options) Page

•	<Application name> can be started with the following command line: Set a command line to start the application.

•	<Application name> can be stopped with the following command line: Set a command line to stop the application.

•

Run these commands as this user with password: Enter a login and password to execute the start and stop command lines. If you enter the word "PASSWORD" as a Command name, the corresponding value will automatically encrypted once you click the Finish button at the last step of the wizard. The Password field will then show ŸŸŸŸŸ instead of the actual password characters.

Make sure you click the Accept button before you go to the next step. If you click the Cancel button, the newly applied settings will be disregarded!

You can start or stop this application by right-clicking on the application/container icon > KM commands > Manage > Start the application/Stop the application.

Signature files

This is a feature for managing the monitoring of clustered applications. The presence of signature files indicates that the managed application is currently available on the system and should be monitored.

When none of these signature files are present, it means that the application is not actually present on the system and consequently should not be monitored. In such case, Monitoring Studio will disable the entire monitoring of this application. This can be extremely useful when the application is hosted by a "fail-over" cluster.

When you click the Signature files button in the first panel of "Advanced options", the following panel is displayed:

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_3bSignature

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Advanced Options (Signature File) Page

•	Paths to the signature files: Up to four signature file paths can be entered in these fields. The application monitoring will be performed only if a minimum of one of these four files is found. The presence of a signature file means that the application is currently present and should be monitored.

If none of the required files can be found, the application monitoring will be turned offline.

These file names do not accept wildcards.

Make sure you click the Accept button before you go to the next step. If you click the Cancel button, the freshly applied settings will be disregarded!

Application Constants

Application constants are defined at the level of an application/container and can be reused in the various objects underneath. They facilitate the monitoring across various systems of an application whose properties may change from one system to another.

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_3cAppConstants

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Advanced Options (Application Constants) Page

Example 1
When creating the application/container icon for "MyApplication", you define the APP_PATH constant with the /opt/MyApp value. Then, when creating a "LOG File Analysis" object in Monitoring Studio, you can specify %{APP_PATH}/log/MyApp.log as the path to the LOG file.
If you plan to monitor the same application on another system, and this application is located under another directory (/usr/local/MyApp for example), you will be able to use the same configuration of Monitoring Studio (export and import) and just modify the APP_PATH constant on the new system.

Example 2
You specify the monitoring of a remote device using SNMP polling and SNMP trap listening objects in Monitoring Studio.
Instead of specifying the IP address of the remote device directly in these SNMP objects, you can define a DEVICE_IPADDRESS Application Constant at the level of the application/container and use %{DEVICE_IPADDRESS} in the SNMP polling and SNMP listening objects.
If the IP address changes later, you will only need to modify the value of the DEVICE_IPADDRESS constant, instead of editing every SNMP polling and trap listening object.

•	Constant name: Enter the name of the constant. Example: APPLICATION_PATH

•

Value: Set a value for the constant. Example: /opt/MyApp. If you enter the word "PASSWORD" as a Constant name, the corresponding value will automatically encrypted once you click the Finish button at the last step of the wizard. The Value field will then show ŸŸŸŸŸ instead of the actual password characters.

•	Required: Check the box to activate this newly-set application constant.

When you check the Required box, the monitoring of the application container and all its dependent objects are taken offline if the value of the application constant is not set. This ensures that no monitoring operation is performed until the required application constants are properly set.

This feature is particularly useful if you create an application monitoring template where all the defined application constants are empty – in this case, you first:

1.	Import the configuration template

2.	Enter values to all required application constants before the monitoring actually starts

3.	Click Accept. The application constant/s will be taken into consideration by Monitoring Studio.

Step 3: Monitoring Studio settings

WIZ_NewAppContainerIcon_4ObjectID

New Application/Container Icon Wizard — Object ID Page

•	Container/Application name: Label that will be displayed in the PATROL Console for this application/container monitoring object.

•	Object ID: PATROL internal identifier of this application/container.

Click Finish and the application/container icon will appear in the PATROL console.

Removing an application icon/container

You can remove an application icon or container from the PATROL Console simply by right-clicking the application icon and selecting KM commands > Delete. After confirmation, the application icon and all its dependent objects will be removed from the PATROL Console and from the agent configuration.

Deletion of an application icon or container cannot be undone.

Application icons/container objects are instances of the SW_APPLICATIONS class.