Cuevision Server Monitor

Do you have applications running on servers in your environment that cannot run as a service and have a GUI interface? These applications pose a problem because they usually require that the server remains logged in at all times so that the application remains running. Alot of us have those types of applications still running, so how to you ensure they are up at all times? What if someone logs off the machine or shuts down the program? what if it crashes?

If the application is critical to your business, then you want to monitor it with the applicaton monitor in Cuevision Server Monitor.

To add an application monitor, click File -> New -> Monitor -> Application.  Fill in the Application Monitor dialog as illustrated below. 

Here is an example using Notepad.

You can also add a recovery action such as restarting the application if it should shutdown.  If you want an alert when the application is shutdown or becomes unresponsive, you can configure email, message popups, logging, etc on the notificaiton tab.

When using the application monitor, the Cuevision Server Monitor service must be installed on the client you are monitoring.  For this type of scenario, you would want to purchase a site or enterprise license so that you can install the service on more than 1 server in your environment. 

If you have some VBScripts that you use to query devices or perform tasks, you could use these with Cuevision Server Monitor to execute them periodically, track the result code over time and alert you when things do not go the right way.  Most importantly, you can save yourself the time and effort of running them manually.

To get started, create a new monitor by selecting File -> New -> Monitor -> VBScript.  Enter a display name (something friendly so that you will know what it is the next time you look at it).  Then either enter the path to an existing script or click the Script Builder button and write the script in there.

In my example, I’m going to use the Script Builder, so I select that button, and then in the Script Builder window, I add the path to store my script, the function name of the function within my script that should be called and finally the argument that I want to pass to the function.

The script must contain at least 1function and you can pass 1 parameter to it.  the Function must return an integer value.  

When you are finished with the script, click the Test button to see the results.

Click Save to close the script builder window and return to the VBScript Monitor window.  Finally, enter a value in the ‘Alarm when’ to indicate the value at which an alarm should be set, you can choose to alarm if the return value is greater than, less than or equal to the vaule that you enter. 

Select notificaiton and recovery actions that you want executed, then click OK and the monitor will be added to the console. 

Monitoring CPU usage on servers in your environment is obviously an important task for the network administrator.   Cuevision Server Monitor can monitor CPU usage on servers accross your network and alert you when a predetermined threshold is passed. 

A CPU monitor can be setup in a matter of seconds, click File -> New -> Monitor -> Performance -> CPU -> % Processor Time.  Update the Server Name field, then select the instance form the Instance field.  You can then set the threshold.  The threshold value can trigger an alarm if the measured value goes below or above the threshold.

Click on the notification tab if you want to receive an email, network message or write an event log message when the measured value exceeds the threshold.  Click OK and save the monitor.

This is fast and simple, but what if you want to monitor 50 or 100 or more servers?  Don’t panic, to automatically create monitors for multiple servers, simply run through the discovery wizard (you are prompted to run it when the console starts - or access it through Tools -> Network Discovery.