Hello!
Welcome to IT-Conductor’s tutorial on monitoring Windows systems. In this video, we'll guide you through each step, ensuring you can configure and leverage IT-Conductor to monitor and maintain your Windows infrastructure with ease.
[Pre-requisites screen]
But first, let’s go through the items we need to enable before heading into IT-Conductor (show list of items: WinRM Configuration, User privileges)
[#1 WinRM Configuration screen]
(Show the character walking on the screen) First, in your Window system(?), access the Group Policy Management, navigate to Group Policy Objects > WinRM, and apply the following settings. You can pause the video and look at the settings. (Show screenshot).
[#2 User Privileges]
The easiest way to authorize a remote User to access WinRM is to make it a member of the local Administrators group. If granting administrative access is not possible due to a security policy, you can follow the guidelines that we’ve detailed on our wiki to enable monitoring to a non-privileged account. You’ll be able to find this documentation on the link below. (Show list: Domain User Access, WMI Namespace access, Windows Service Configuration Manager Access)
[Configuration in IT-Conductor]
Once that’s done, we can move on to the IT-Conductor platform and add our Windows system for monitoring.
First, log in to IT-Conductor, and navigate to Dashboards on the main menu.
On the Administrator’s dashboard, scroll until you find the Windows Systems panel.
Click on New Windows System and you’ll be redirected to the wizard.
Here, we’re going to fill out the details of the windows system such as a short description, the organization (if you’ve previously set up organizations in IT-Conductor).
The role (or environment).
If you’ve previously created sites on IT-Conductor, they’ll show up here and you can select one, but it’s not necessary.
Select a gateway from the previously configured ones.
Next, fill in the authentication details: the authentication mechanism, which can be Kerberos, NTLM, Basic, Negotiate or Custom, to verify user identities.
The real, KDC and Domain Controller.
Toggle the proxy configuration check when you want to use your preferred host and port details.
Lastly, for the WinRM Connection details. Select a protocol and type in the host details, and port number (default port is 5985).
Click on the plus icon and head on to the New Account screen.
Here, you’ll see the name of the system you’re adding and the name of the IT-Conductor user who’s the doing it.
Here you’ll write the windows user that you previously gave access to, as well as the password. Click on the plus icon when you’re done.
Next, you’ll be redirected to the Windows Systems screen where you can check the status of the newly added system. Refresh the panel if needed until the status changes to “In Progress.” If there’s any error, you’ll be able to check and troubleshoot by clicking the ‘logs’ button.
[Monitoring in IT-Conductor – Key Metrics]
After approximately 15 minutes, the newly added system will show up on the service grid. Now let’s explore the key metrics that you can monitor in your windows system.
The first metric we have here is availability. This metric tracks the operational state and accessibility of a windows system. If you click on the bars graphic, you’ll see a pop-up chart, which you can open up to reveal a more in depth history of the tracking of the following metric. From here, you can select the frequency with which you want to track the metric and go back and forth in time to see the metric’s status in a different date.
Note: It is worth noting that IT-Conductor will only start tracking these metrics from the moment that the system is added to the platform for monitoring.
(Back in service grid)
Other metrics that you can monitor include:
Connection Failures, which refers to the events where attempts to establish a connection are unsuccessful.
Heartbeat, which is the periodic signal sent to the system. This metric is what enables a real-time detection of system downtime. Ideally, you’d want this value to remain zero or just above zero.
Note (On screen/spoken): When you see that a metric is in green is because the system is being actively monitored. If it’s gray, then it isn’t.
Missing Account. This refers to the absence of a required user account or resource within the Windows system.
Retriever Failures. This signals the number of errors that IT-Conductor encounters when trying to collect data from the windows system.
Available Memory, this indicates how much memory is being used by all the running services and applications.
Committed Memory in Use. This refers to the amount of virtual memory that Windows has allocated for all running processes.
Peak Processor Time. This metric tells us the highest utilization recorded at a specific point in time.
The last key metric is Processor Time, and this indicates how much processing power is being used. The higher the CPU utilization, the more work is being done by the system, and the greater the potential for system instability.
(Click on any of the green metrics)
For all the actively monitored metrics, you may click on the bars icon and see the historical information. If any of the metrics fall under the specified threshold, IT-Conductor will send an alert to a registered email, and it will show on the charts.
You will also find the “Threshold overrides” button, which is where you’ll be able to configure the thresholds and alerting. For more information on how to configure thresholds in IT-Conductor, please visit our threshold override video.
[File System Metrics]
In IT-Conductor, file systems are automatically monitored when a Windows system is added. Let’s explore these metrics.
First, Free Space Percent shows the remaining disk space as a percentage, while Free Space displays the same information in megabytes or gigabytes."
I/O Utilization measures how busy the file system is with read and write operations. And Idle Time reflects the percentage of time it’s inactive."
Finally, Read Utilization and Write Utilization track how much time the system spends on reading or writing data.
[Advanced Monitoring Features]
IT-Conductor offers advanced options for users seeking in-depth performance analytics, one of them is the health explorer.
Health Explorer
The Health Explorer allows you to deep dive into the historical data of all the metrics previously mentioned all in one screen.
Maintenance Events
IT-Conductor has the option to pause the monitoring of a system in case of a maintenance event. To create a scheduled maintenance event, click Events in the service grid. A pop-up window will appear, displaying a list of scheduled maintenance events. Enlarge the pop-up window. Click on Create new maintenance event and fill in the description and dates for the event.
Alternatively, click Maintenance On to immediately put the system into maintenance mode.
Retrievers
In IT-Conductor, retrievers are responsible for delivering all information about a monitored system. Each component or application has its own dedicated retriever, ensuring accurate reporting of its state.
"To check which retrievers are being monitored, click on Retrievers in the service grid. This provides a detailed list of all active retrievers and their associated components.
Application Log
Finally, we have our application log. To view the application logs for a Windows system in IT-Conductor, click Application Log in the service grid. This will redirect you to a detailed page displaying a list of all events and their status, as well as a description of that event. These logs will be essential for debugging and troubleshooting any arising issues in your windows system.
[Summary of Agenda(?) – Configuration, Key Metrics, File System metrics, Advanced Monitoring features]
To recap, we’ve set up and configured monitoring for a Windows system in IT-Conductor, discussed key metrics and advanced monitoring features.
Thanks for watching! And for more details, visit IT-Conductor’s documentation, or reach out to our support team.
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