Deploying monitoring with a ServiceNav Box

1. Conventions

The following conventions apply in this document.
          Indicates that failure to follow the given instruction may prevent the application from working properly.
          Indicates specific instructions or clarifying information.
Indicates a tip.
Field          Fields to be modified or identified in the application
Important    Important information
Value           a value to insert/modify in a field.

 

2. Goal

To explain how to set up monitoring at a customer site. We assume that the company has already been created in ServiceNav and if it is monitored using a ServiceNav Box mode, that the SNB is already associated with it.
The preparation of the ServiceNav Box and requirements on the customer's network are described in other documentation on this site.

The creation of a company or a site is either carried out by the manager of the monitored site or by following the document: Company and internal customer management

The association of a ServiceNav Box with a company or site is covered in other documentation on this site.

The management of notifications is an important step and comes only after the configuration of the monitoring. This step is covered in the documentation : Configuring notifications available on this site.

3. Overview

The deployment of a client require 5 steps:

1. Configuring ServiceNav prerequisites
2. Creation of monitoring accounts
3. Adding devices to be monitored in ServiceNav
4. Configuration of monitoring checks
5. Creation of user services

4. Configuration of prerequisites

The prerequisites are typically the following:

• SNMP installed and configured on the devices to be monitored. The community used must be entered in the monitoring inventory spreadsheet
• A windows domain account that is in the administrator group (used for some Microsoft server monitoring and used for discovery)
• A static internal IP address, dedicated to the ServiceNav Box with associated information (default gateway, subnet mask, DNS servers)
• Opening the TCP port (To be requested from support) from the client network to the DNS name of the monitoring web platform (the address of the ServiceNav platform is: azure.servicenav.io)
• Sending e-mail messages (SMTP protocol) must be allowed from the box to the Internet, or the box must be allowed to send messages via a mail relay server

In order to be able to monitor the host, it is necessary in certain cases to configure the SNMP service on the device.
To configure these prerequisites on your equipment, consult the manufacturer's manual. The configuration of some prerequisites is also described here :
https://servicenav.coservit.com/en/documents

5. Monitoring Accounts

Before starting to monitor devices, we will create the monitoring accounts that will allow the retrieval of data via SNMP, WMI, etc.

To do this, you need to select the correct company , choose Configuration and follow General => Monitoring accounts .
To save time in the deployment of the monitoring we recommend creating the monitoring accounts: SNMP, Windows - WMI and Windows - Standard.

• Add a monitoring account. The main accounts are :
  a. SNMP
  b. Windows - WMI
  c. Windows - Standard
• List of existing monitoring accounts

Example of adding an SNMP monitoring account :

• Selection the type of monitoring account to add, in this case SNMP
• Enter the SNMP community, here 'public'
• Enter the port used for SNMP connections, leave blank if you use the default port

6. Adding hosts to be monitored

6.1. Discovery

In order to speed monitoring deployment, a network discovery feature is available. By specifying IP address ranges it allows detection of devices present on the network which respond to ping and SNMP.
To launch a discovery navigate to Configuration then Hosts => Discovery .

 

Click on Discover .

• Select the ServiceNav Box which will perform the host discovery.
• Enter the network address range(s) on which we want to detect devices.

• The SNMP community is the one defined in monitoring accounts. If in the environment to monitor several different SNMP communities are used, you can specify them as a comma-separated list. The community(ies) are used to check the SNMP pre-requisites necessary for monitoring.
• The Windows - Admin account tests the WMI connection pre-requisite for Windows-type devices.

Launch discovery:

• Click on the "Apply" button to start discovery.
• A progress bar appears indicating that the discovery is underway

Discovery results:

The protocol column indicates whether the device meets the pre-requisites. For all devices ping and snmp should be green. For Windows server type hosts, wmi must also be green. If it is not check the prerequisites and re-launch a discovery.
To add a host to monitoring, just click on the icon in the very first column
To add several hosts, you just have to check them and click the "Add to monitoring" button.

Adding a host:
To add a host, click on the icon in the first column, the following configuration window appears.

• Modify the name which will be visible from the supervision (if needed).
• Modify the IP address of the host. It is also possible to supply a DNS name to support monitoring via DHCP (if needed).
• Select a company/site toAssociate host with.
• Host category. The host category determines the possible host templates that can be used with the host.
• Template: allows for rapid deployment of a group of service monitoring checks for this category of host. The drop down list represents the available host templates available for the host category selected.
• When you click on a host template its description is displayed, allowing you to see the different service checks included in the template.
• Choose the criticality of the host to support the management of dashboards and notifications

Once the general information has been filled in, go to the "Networks" tab

 

• Network interface monitoring can be added either by SNMP ID or by SNMP name. It is recommended to add the interfaces with their "SNMP name" for switches and for virtual machines with automatic hypervisor switching (vMotion, Live Migration, etc...).
• Select the interfaces to add to monitoring. By default, the interfaces in "UP" status and with an IP address are selected. For switch type devices, all "UP" interfaces are selected.
• Interface status green = "UP", red = "DOWN", by default UP interfaces appear first in the list.
• Click on the pencil icon to edit the name that the service monitoring the disk/partition will take.
• As the information is not periodically refreshed, it is advisable to re-run discovery before adding hosts if the discovery data is more than 24 hours old.

Once the network information has been filled in, go to the tab " Disks / Partitions .

• Select the disk partitions to add. By default all partitions are selected.
• The discovery data shows the current utilization percentage
• Click on the pencil icon to edit the name that the service monitoring the disk/partition will take.
• As the information is not periodically refreshed, it is advisable to re-run discovery before adding hosts if the discovery data is more than 24 hours old.
• Click on " Apply" to add the host to monitoring.

 

Now go to the list of services to refine the configuration...
To do this go to the " Configuration then Services => List .

 

List Search & filter area based on name, service template, criticality and/or notifications etc
Action buttons (+ Add, Duplicate, etc ...) possible configurations to be performed on services.
The result displayed represents all the services associated with the host cosvgre14.
Select an individual service to configure it specifically.

Specific configuration of a Service :
You can change its name, template, criticality and description in the General Information tab.

Service General Information:

• Service template used
• Name of the service (as shown in monitoring interface)
• Criticality of the service; can be High, Medium or Low
• Description of the selected service template to explain what it does and how to configure it.
• Operational instruction
• Documentation (Link to a web page for example)

To make sure that the service check returns good information/results, you need to configure its various arguments as well as the period during which you want to monitor using this service.

Configuring the Availability and checks Tab :
1) Enter the target availability rate (based on the availability period. see 2 below)
2) Choose the time period over which the availability rate will be calculated.
3) Choose the time period over which the service will perform monitoring. Attention: this period must be identical to or include all the time period defined for the calculation of the availability rate.
4) specify if a monitoring account is used to obtain the information. When this is the case, you can either choose "No" to use the monitoring account configured at the host level, at the hosts site level, or at a higher level in the company tree. If the "Yes" option is selected, the required monitoring account for this service check must be entered. For more information you can refer to the documentation on monitoring accounts.
5) Enter the parameters necessary for the recovery of information by the supervision.
6) Hover over a field to obtain information about the selected argument.
7) Specify a time interval between two successive checks (expressed in minutes), or use the default values.

Repeat these steps for all services requiring configuration.

You may need to add hosts manually without performing discovery. To do so, follow the procedure 6.2 Adding a host manually.
You can also add single services manually. To do this, follow the procedure 6.3 Adding a service manually.
If you do not require manual additions go to the section 6.4. Loading the configuration.

6.2. Adding a host manually

To add a host, go to Configuration then Hosts > List .

Click on " + Add  ...a configuration window opens.

Fill in the general information

1) Enter the name of the host you wish to add to monitoring
2) Enter IP address or DNS name
3)Modify, if necessary, its site association
4) Modify, if necessary, its host category
5) Select which monitoring box will be responsible for monitoring
6) assign host templates
7) Assign the hosts criticality within the information system
8) Describe the function of this host within the information system

Click on the tab " Availability and checks .

• Enter the target Availability rate (based on a time slot)
• Choose the time slot over which the Availability rate will be calculated.
• Select the time period over which the service monitoring will take place. Warning: it must be the same as, or cover the entire time period covered by the calculation of the availability rate.
• Set the time interval between two consecutive checks

Click on the tab " Relations .

• ...
• Specify your parent devices from the ServiceNav Box perspective
• Select child devices from the ServiceNav Box perspective
• click Apply to create the host.

Parents and child hosts must always be monitored by the same ServiceNav Box as the host in question.

 

Note: After adding a host, check that you do not have to configure it, specifically for its services (see the step: "Specific configuration of a Service" earlier in this document).

6.3. Adding a Service manually

To add a service without using host templates, Navigate to Configurationand then to Services > List .

Click on " + Add ...a configuration window opens.

Fill in the general information

• Choose the service template appropriate to the monitoring you wish to perform
• Enter the Name of the service you wish to add to monitoring
• Set a Business Impact criticality to the IT environment
• Annotate in Description the role of this service within the IT environment

Click on the tab " Availability and checks .

• Enter the desired availability rate (according to a time period)
• Choose the time period for the Availability period against which the availability rate will be calculated.
• Choose the time period for the Check Timeslot during which the service monitoring will take place. Warning: it must be the same as, or cover the entire time period covered by the calculation of the availability rate.
• Enter the parameters required for the monitoring check to operate as required. (In this example: Port, Warning threshold, Critical threshold)
• Choose a Normal check interval reflecting the time between two successive checks (expressed in minutes), or use default values

Click on the tab " Relations .

• Use the search capabilities to find the hosts to which you wish to deploy this service. This makes for a faster deployment.
• Once all the hosts are selected click Apply

NB: Do not forget to load the configuration to the ServiceNav Box

6.4. Loading the configuration

Navigate to Configuration then General > Loading.

This page shows the ServiceNav Boxes that need to update their configuration. Only the ServiceNav Boxes that need to be updated and the ones you are permitted to administer are visible in this tab.

• Click on the "Apply" button to update the configuration and start monitoring.

A pop-up window appears at the bottom right of the page to confirm that the ServiceNav Box configuration is sent for update.

 

7. Verification of update

Navigate to Monitoring then Monitoring . .

To speed up the first execution it is possible to initiate an immediate check. We filter on the "No data" status (blue) and then select the service checks:

1) Filter on the "No data" state, then validate by clicking on " Search .
2) All objects with "No data" status are selected using the search filter.
3) Then click on " Start a check .

To see if monitoring data has been obtained, you have to refresh the data by clicking on the icon :   it is also possible to switch the page to automatic refresh by clicking on the play button which will then turn green. The pause refresh button allows you to stop the automatic refresh of the page.
After the first check of each service, some services remain in unknown status. These services depend on specific configuration that can only be known after a first check is run, for example: network traffic.
The network traffic needs to be configured according to an interface number which will be known only after the first check because interface numbers vary according to the type of device, model, operating system, ...

Here is how to complete the configuration of the service checks:

1) Set the filtering parameters and apply by clicking on Search .

2) Select a service in "Unknown" status to complete its configuration.

To update the ServiceNav Box configuration you have to go back to step 6.4 Loading the configuration or click on the popup that appears at the bottom right. Please note that this popup will not be displayed for more than 5 seconds.

 

8. Creation and configuration of user services

This step is covered in the "Creating a user service" documentation, where the rules and best practices are explained. The objective of user services is to reflect the functioning of IT services consumed by users to the benefit of the overall business.