Network Instruments Tech Tip:
Device Discovery and Monitoring

Link Analyst 5 uses SNMP, WMI, and TCP Application Service Requests to automatically discover and identify network devices and services. Based upon the device determination and services running, Link Analyst assigns a specific Monitor to each device. The Monitor tracks application and device conditions, known as elements, pertaining to or running on the device. If Link Analyst detects a device as a switch, it will assign it a Switch Monitor. Right-click on the switch in the Monitor Map and select Monitor to view CPU, port, and memory utilization graphed over time.

In addition to the default Monitors, you can create custom Monitors to track elements of interest to you. In the example below, rather than monitor elements contained in a default Monitor, you’ll set up a Monitor that only tracks the number of posts to the Windows web server.

To create a customized Monitor to monitor web posts you would:

  • From the Link Analyst main screen, click on Tools from the menu and select Program Options.
  • In the Program Options Screen click on the Monitors Tab. You can’t modify default Monitors, which are indicated by the locked icon. Under the list of Monitors click on the New button.
  • This brings up the New Monitor Screen where you’ll name your Monitor and designate the device type. In this example, we’ll call the Monitor “Web Server Monitor,” and indicate the device (a web server) is an Internet Information Server (IIS). In any future discovery, whenever Link Analyst identifies an IIS server, it will automatically apply the new Monitor. You don’t need to indicate a device type if you don’t want the monitor applied in future discoveries. Click OK

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You should now see the Program Options Screen, where you’ll configure the monitor to track specific elements.

  • Highlight the new Monitor and click New. On the next screen, New Monitor Elements, define polling parameters. For our Windows server, select WMI object property. Once you have selected the appropriate parameters, click OK.

  • On the WMI Connection Parameters Screen, you’ll enter the device IP and login information. Click OK.
  • Link Analyst will connect to the device and present the elements you can monitor. For the web server, click Web Service from the left side and Post Requests/Sec from the Properties Window. Then click Next.
  • The Select Instance Screen allows you to analyze a specific page or the entire site. In this example, we select Total posts from the drop-down menu next to Instance name. When finished select Next.
  • On the WMI Object Property Screen you can customize how the Posts/Sec graph is presented. You can choose to set an alarm on a specific monitoring condition. Knowing we usually have 50 Posts/Sec, we might set an alarm for 500 Posts/Sec. Click Finished and the Monitor has been configured for real-time tracking.

You can also set up Monitors to track SNMP elements. Customizable Monitors provide an extremely flexible level of performance tracking.

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