Adding Servers for Monitoring

Overview

In order to get started with the monitoring for servers, we need to first add them to Motadata AIOps and in turn enable it to collect data from these devices for monitoring. This guide helps you with the process of adding servers to Motadata AIOps so that you are able to start monitoring them.

At a high level, this process includes creating a credential profile and a discovery profile, assigning the credential profile to a discovery profile, and executing a successful discovery run.

This is followed by provisioning the discovered devices as monitors in the system. This will enable Motadata AIOps to continuously monitor the resources and generate alerts and insights based on their performance metrics. You can also customize the monitoring settings for each monitor, such as the polling interval, threshold values, and alert notifications.

Servers Supported

You can add the following servers to AIOps to monitor them:

Types of Servers Supported
Windows
Linux
HP-UX
IBM-AIX
Solaris

Let us look into the process to add the Linux and Windows server one by one to understand the process of adding a server for monitoring.

Windows
Linux

Adding a Windows Server

Prerequisites

If the server is part of a domain, you'll need to have credentials of a user that is a member of the domain admin group. For standalone servers, you'll need credentials of a user that is part of the local administrator group.
To ensure proper connectivity, it's important to allow traffic through firewall ports 5985 and 5986. Enable ICMP protocol on both ports to monitor availability via ping check.
Before integrating the Windows Server with the AIOPS product, some WinRM configurations need to be done. To do this, log in with the user for whom you'll be performing the discovery, open the command prompt as an administrator, and run the following commands:

winrm set winrm/config/service/Auth @{Basic="true"}
winrm set winrm/config/service @{AllowUnencrypted="true"}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxMemoryPerShellMB="1024"}
winrm set winrm/config/client/Auth @{Basic="true"}
winrm set winrm/config/client @{AllowUnencrypted="true"}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxProcessesPerShell="2147483647"}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxConcurrentUsers="100"}
winrm set winrm/config/service @{MaxConnections="50"}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxShellsPerUser="2147483647"}
winrm set winrm/config/service @{MaxConcurrentOperationsPerUser="4294967295"}
net stop winrm
net start winrm

1. Create a Credential Profile

We will start by creating a credential profile for the Windows Server we are trying to add.

Go to Menu. Select Settings . After that, Go to Network Discovery and select Credential Profile. The credential profile screen is displayed. Select Create Credential Profile to create a new credential profile.

A pop-up for entering the credential profile details is displayed.

Credential Profile Parameters

Enter the required details in the pop-up as follows:

Field	Description
Credential Profile Name	Provide a unique Credential Profile Name. This name is used to identify a credential profile.
Protocol	Select Powershell as Protocol from the drop-down. The option to provide the credential details is then displayed based on the protocol selected.
Username and Password	Enter these details for the windows server you want to monitor.

Select Test to check if you are able to access the device you need to monitor using the credential details you provided.

Select Reset to erase all the current field values entered in the pop-up, if required.

Select Create Credential Profile to create the credential profile in the system. The credential profile is now created.

You can view the newly created profile on the credential profile screen by using the Search option available above the list of profiles.

Now, let's move to the next step and create a discovery profile.

2. Create a Discovery Profile

Let us create a discovery profile for the device we are trying to add. Discovery profile allows us to discover devices in an infrastructure using the device address and associated credential profile.

Go to Menu. Select Settings . After that, Go to Network Discovery and select Discovery Profile. The discovery profile screen is displayed. Select Create Discovery Profile to create a new discovery profile.

A new screen to create the discovery profile is now displayed. Server is selected by default.

Discovery Profile Parameters

Enter the required details in the screen as follows:

Field	Description
Discovery Profile Name	Provide a unique Discovery Profile Name. This name is used to identify a discovery profile.
Windows/Windows Cluster	- Select Windows if you want to discover a Windows server. - Select Windows Cluster if you want to discover a Windows cluster.
IP-Host/IP Range/CIDR/CSV	The address of the device to be discovered in one of the following formats: - IP: The IP address(IPv4 or IPv6) of the device to be discovered. - IP Range: A range of IP addresses(IPv4) in case multiple devices need to be discovered using the same profile. - CIDR: A range of IP addresses(IPv4) using the CIDR notation if multiple devices need to be discovered using the same profile. - CSV: The name of the CSV file used to import a range of addresses. You can enter IPv4, IPv6, or a combination of both addresses in the CSV file that you wish to upload.
Collectors	Select one or more Collectors that should be used for collecting data from the devices discovered using this Discovery Profile. Select multiple Collectors for load balancing and failover mechanism. In case you don’t select a Collector, the AIOps shall automatically select a relevant collector to leverage the load balancing feature.

note

Ensure that you select correct Collector(s) based on how you want to distribute the load across all Collectors


Groups	Select one or more Groups that will be assigned to the monitors you provision using this discovery profile.
Credential Profile	Select a created Credential Profile to assign it to the discovery profile you are trying to create. You can also create a new credential profile from this screen using the Create Credential Profile button. In this case, we will select the credential profile win_server_cred we created in the 1st step while creating a credential profile.
Tags	Select one or more Tags that you wish to assign to the discovery profile. These tags will in turn be assigned to the device that you discover.
Port	Port number field is already populated.
Ping Check	The Ping Check button is switched ON by default. This means that AIOps will only discover the device if the ping is available for that device. Toggle this button OFF if you want AIOps to discover the device withouth doing a ping check.
Notify via E-mail and Notify via SMS	The system allows notifying users about a discovery run through E-mail and SMS. - Specify E-mail addresses (comma separated) in the Notify via E-mail field to trigger email notifications. - Specify mobile numbers (comma separated) in the Notify via SMS to send SMS notifications.

Select Reset to erase all the current field values, if required.

Select Save and Exit if you have created the discovery profile but do do want to execute a discovery run.

Select Save and Schedule if you have created the discovery profile and wish to schedule its run at a specific time.

Select Save and Run if you want execute the discovery run immediately after creation.

We have created a credential profile win_server_cred in the 1st step. After that, we have created a discovery profile win_server_dis in the 2nd step and assigned the credential profile to the discovery profile. After selecting, Save and Run, we have initiated a discovery run which leads us to our next step, which is, Provision the Discovered Devices as Monitors.

3. Provision the Discovered Devices as Monitors

After initiating the discovery profile execution, AIOps starts the process to discover the devices.

Once the discovery execution is complete, the list of all the devices discovered is displayed. Select the devices that you want to be listed as Monitors in the system.

Click on Add Selected Objects to add the selected devices as Monitors. These devices listed as Monitors will now be monitored further by AIOps.

These devices can be viewed under the Monitor tab from the Main Menu. Select the Monitor tab from the main menu. After that, Select Server & Apps to view all the monitors that are added to the system.

The Windows Server is now successfully added to AIOps.