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Windows Server

Learn how to monitor Windows Server hosts using the WMI ActiveGate extension.

Prerequisites

  • An Environment ActiveGate (version 1.155+) that has the ActiveGate plugin module installed and isn't used for synthetic or mainframe monitoring

    • 1 environment ActiveGate can typically support 30-50 Windows Server hosts

  • Windows Server host that supports WMI

  • A user account belonging to both the Performance Monitor and Distributed COM user groups that has the following WMI rights:

    • Enable Account
    • Remote Enable
    • Read Security

  • To verify the above, Run wmimgmt.msc, right click WMI Control, select Properties, click Security, select Root, and click Security

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Environment ActiveGate installation

ActiveGate plugin module installation

ActiveGate version 1.175+ has the plugin module installed by default.

Extension installation

  1. Obtain the install file (custom.remote.python.wmi.zip). Don't rename the file.

  2. Unzip custom.remote.python.wmi.zip to the plugin_deployment directory of your ActiveGate host.

  3. If the resulting directory structure isn't .\plugin_deployment\custom.remote.python.wmi\, please make the neccessary changes.

  4. Restart the DESK Remote Plugin Module service by running these two commands in a Command Prompt launched as Admin:

    • sc stop "DESK Remote Plugin Module"
    • sc start "DESK Remote Plugin Module"

  5. Return to the DESK web UI. Click Settings, the Add new technology monitoring button, and finally the Add ActiveGate plugin button.

  6. Click the Upload plugin button and upload custom.remote.python.wmi.zip.

  7. Enter the endpoint information requested for connecting to your Windows host:

    • Endpoint name: Meaningful and descriptive name
    • User: A user account that belongs to the Performance Monitor user group
    • Password: The password for the user account
    • Hostname/IP: Hostname/IP and port of the server. Examples: 192.168.55.180[:1414], 192.168.55.181[:1414]
    • Comma-separated list of the processes to be monitored.

    WMI

Troubleshoot ActiveGate plugins

Metrics

The IP address of all network interfaces and the ports used by the services is automatically captured, as are the following metrics:

Properties

  • Hostname
  • Domain/IP address(es)
  • Uptime
  • Number of logical processors
  • Number of enabled cores
  • Processor name
  • Current/Max clock speed
  • Windows version/build
  • Machine Architecture
  • Manufacturer/Model

Host

  • Availability
  • CPU load
  • Memory utilization
  • Error entries in event log

Network (per interface)

  • Bytes sent/received
  • Sent packets discarded/errors
  • Received packets discarded/errors
  • Output queue length

Disk (per logical disk)

  • Percent free space
  • Free MB
  • Disk read/write latency
  • Disk read/write queue length
  • Disk read/write bytes per second

Processes (max 100 /host)

  • Availability
  • CPU utilization
  • Memory footprint
  • Thread count
  • Page faults
  • IO read/write