• Active. Check availability, simulate user or exercise services or APIs, and return up or down indicator.
• Passive. Check for specific logged or trapped event.
• Performance. Measure performance statistics and trigger alerts and actions based on thresholds.

Note: The grid on the Monitors tab is filtered by default to only show monitors assigned to the device that are currently enabled. To display all assigned monitors, hover your cursor over the Enabled column header, click the drop-down arrow that appears, then clear the applied filter from the options displayed.

Tip: You now have the ability to specify the protocol by which WhatsUp Gold collects CPU, Disk, Memory, and Interface utilization data from the device. From the Monitors tab, select the applicable monitor, click , then select the desired protocol for collecting performance data at the top of the configuration dialog.

Learn More

• Monitor Precedence.
• Monitor Types.
• Complement Device Monitoring with NetFlow (NTA).

Tip: In WhatsUp Gold, a given device is considered to be in a down state if it has either a critical monitor down or all monitors down.

• Polling Interval. Determines how frequently WhatsUp Gold fetches observations from this device.
• Poll Using. Select an IP address for a particular interface or resolve to a specific DNS hostname.
• Poller. The name and status of the poller gathering information from this device.
• Poller Avg Lag. The average amount of time in seconds the poller is behind its scheduled time to poll devices.
• Poller Description. The description given when adding/editing the poller in using the Polling Configuration interface.
• Manual Maintenance. Drop the managed device to maintenance mode and specify a date and time for the maintenance period to end without further end-user interaction, if desired. (Useful mode and marker in reports and for SLA accounting.)
• [Configure Polling Up/Down Dependency]. Poll based on the status of another device or resolved host.

Tip: If you need to apply a shorter poller interval either temporarily, or for troubleshooting performance, consider using the RealTime Performance monitor.

Note: In WhatsUp Gold, a given device is considered to be in a down state if it has either a critical monitor down or all monitors down

• Schedule Recurring Maintenance Times. Specify when the selected device regularly enters/exits maintenance mode without user interaction.

When you apply active monitors, you typically associate an action and a device state with changes observed by the monitor. There are three main categories of built-in action types available through the Actions Library. Actions can be triggered or scheduled.

Note: Certain actions (CM Actions, for example) can be invoked on demand (Run Now).

Built-in action types include:

• Notifications. Send messages to stakeholders and responsible individuals according to site policy.
• Remote execution. Create scripts, execute remote programs, and apply configuration changes.
• Log. Include state change observed by WhatsUp Gold in platform logs.

Notifications

• Beeper action. Activate a beeper with this type of action.
• E-mail action. Send an Email to a specific address.
• Log to Text File action. Write a message to a text file.
• Pager action. Send a message to a pager.
• Web Alarm action. Activate a Web Alarm in the WhatsUp Gold Web Interface
• Text to Speech action. Plays a voice message on your computer.
• SMS action. Send a text message to a specific target.
• SMS Direct action. Send a text message to a wireless phone or other wireless device.
• Sound action. Play a specific sound.

Remote/Local Script or Execution

• Service Restart action. Start or stop a Windows service.
• Active Script action. Write code to perform a customized action.
• Configuration Management action. Perform script or task from CM Task (includes Task Scripts) or CM Script Libraries.
• PowerShell action. Develop custom actions through direct access to scriptable component libraries, including the .NET Framework.
• SSH action. Connect to remote devices via SSH to execute commands or scripts.
• Program action. Execute an external application.
• SNMP Set action. Use SNMP to increase a counter, set a flag, or change the attribute value of a managed object.

Log

• Windows Event Log action. Write an event in the Windows Event Log.
• Syslog action. Write a message to a log in the Syslog system.
• VMware action. Use the VMware API to perform an action on a virtual machine.

Credentials Library provides the following credential types:

Network Management. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv1, SNMPv2, SNMPv3).

System Attributes and Instrumentation. Windows, VMware, SSH (typically used for Linux and UNIX).

Remote Execution. Secure Shell client (SSH), Telnet client.

Storage Device Management. Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S).

Cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure.

Applications. ADO, JMX.

Tip: Most active monitors that include scripting (PowerShell, for example) have the ability to apply credential sets as part of remote processing (before and during the active session).

Learn More

About Credentials.

Tips for Applying Credentials.

Tip:: Most active monitors that include scripting (PowerShell, for example) have the ability to apply credential sets as part of remote processing (before and during the active session).

The Groups panel enables you to see the existing device groups to which the device belongs.

You can add the device to additional device groups by selecting the Add icon, selecting the desired group, then clicking Apply.

To remove the device from one of the groups displayed, simply click the icon to the left of the group name, then click the Delete icon.

Note: Clicking a group name launches the map view filtered to display that group.

Note: You may not remove the device from any dynamic group since membership is determined automatically by WhatsUp Gold.

Attributes panel enables you to view device system and host descriptions, modify some of this information, and populate user defined attributes (such as Contact Information).

• Most fields are populated at discovery time such as device MAC address, device name, and so on. For example, for a Windows device, Discovery pulls in system and host information (Computer Properties) as attributes.
• Other fields, such as contact information, can be auto populated at discovery time using custom role definitions or edited through the Attributes panel.

Tip: Attribute values can be auto populated using Device Role definitions. You can also customize Device Attributes using discovery percent variable syntax.

Primary Role. Consider these roles as candidates for the current role definition during discovery/rescan.

Sub Roles. Add sub roles to consider for discovery/rescan.

Learn More

About Device Roles

Tip: You can customize roles and subroles using the Roles/Subroles Editor.

Inventory provides complete views of the device management information.

• Richness of information depends on credentials available at scan time.
• Information available depends on device role/type. (Windows devices will show updates, switches show ARP cache, for example.)
• Information is read-only from this view.
• Discovery-time device boundary decisions and information used for merging determination.

Note: Viewing operating system data requires WMI access.

Define a custom link and apply it to the discovered device. You can customize for each device using discovery percent variable syntax.

• Add. Add a custom link.
• Edit. Edit a selected custom link.
• Delete. Remove the link.

Note: Custom Links can be tabulated and distributed as Custom Link reports.

Examples

Add link for viewing web role or web service running on current device.

http://%Discovery.Device.Name.example.com:80

Add link to manage vCenter using vSphere web client.

https://%Discovery.Device.Name.example.com:9443/vsphere-client

Configuring WhatsUp Gold to monitor an application is a simple process. It starts with selecting a profile that captures data points necessary to understand the performance, health, and status of a given type of application. The application profile groups the components, discrete applications, and associated thresholds necessary to capture the data points into a blueprint that can be used to create individual application instances. These instances actively monitor your applications. WhatsUp Gold provides a selection of profiles which are available upon successful WhatsUp Gold installation. You can also create your own application profiles. After you have the necessary profiles, you can automatically discover your applications and create instances for each discovered application, or you may choose to manually create and modify instances individually before you begin monitoring.

Tasks enable you to apply controls, perform maintenance, and simulate user behavior, based on your site policies and goals.

• Managing Tasks.
• Associating Devices.
• Scheduling Tasks.
• Launching a Single Task. (Run Now)

  Note: When you view the Tasks Tab in Device Properties, refresh the page or open the CM Task Library to see scheduled tasks that just ran.

Learn More

Typical Tasks

Tip: For more details on how to build Scheduled Tasks and Password Tasks, see the section titled Configuration Management.