What does SysOrb monitor

Our aim is that you should be able to monitor the entire complexity of your data center with only one easy to use tool namely SysOrb.

Therefore SysOrb covers a broad range of different OS platforms like Windows, Linux, Solaris and Nowell see full supported list here. On the network side SysOrb uses SNMP and can monitor any SNMP enabled device.

Our monitoring checks are grouped into three different categories witch performs network, systems and application monitoring. Please read more about each category below.

NetChecks (Ping, HTTP, DNS, FTP etc.)

Netchecks (Ip polling)

NetChecks is a category of checks that the SysOrb Server itself can perform to check the performance of a given service on a node. This means that the node being checked does not necessarily have the SysOrb Agent installed.

NetCheck Description of NetCheck
HTTP/HTTPS Connects to a web server (URL) and attempts to load a specified page, and then reports the response time or the lack of response. Other features is included in this check please read more here or check out a HTTP check here in our demosetup.
ICMP (ping) Sends an ICMP package to a specified node and reports the response time or the lack of response. See and example of this check here
SMTP Connects to a specified mail server and sends a HELO to see if it is alive, and then reports the response time or the lack of response. It is also possible to execute VRFY command if needed.
POP3/POP3S Connects to a specified mail server to monitor if the POP3 service is available. If a user-ID and password is specified, this check will also attempt to log in and get a list of e-mails
IMAP Connects to a specified mail server to monitor if the IMAP service is available. If a user-ID and password is specified, this check will also attempt to log in and get a list of e-mails.
FTP Connects to a specified FTP server to monitor if the FTP service is available. If a user-ID and password is specified, this check will also attempt to log in and get a list of files.
DNS Attempts to forward look-up a specified DNS address by using the NS host specified
Generic TCP Connects to any specified TCP port to monitor if it is open, and reports the response time
Custom NetChecks Executes a user-defined program (script/macro) and reports the return values back to the SysOrb Server. This enables you to monitor specific applications – either standard applications or in-house applications – as well as environmental surroundings (room temperature/humidity etc.)

AgentChecks (Disk Space, Memory, application monitoring, Log monitoring, Custom scripts etc.)

Agents Checks

Agent Checks are performed by SysOrb Agents installed locally on the monitored nodes (typically servers). The SysOrb Agents will collect data locally, and then check in those data to the central SysOrb Server.

Agents Checks Description of Agent Checks
Filesystem Free Space Monitors any drive/partition on the host and reports the remaining free space. See example of this check here here
Free Memory Monitors the different kinds of free memory, e.g. swap, physical and virtual
System Load Monitors the system (CPU) load.
Process Presence Monitors the presence or non-presence of any given process on the host.
Service Presence Monitors the presence or non-presence of any given service (application monitoring) on the host.
Performance Counters (Windows) Monitors a very wide range of system and applications data, e.g. Exchange Server, IIS, SQL Server and many more.You will have all the same counters in SysOrb as you know them from perfmon. See example here
Logcheck Monitors any log, e.g. Event Log, db logs etc Searches any log file for error messages etc. for alert messaging and statistics, based on user-created configuration scripts. Sample scripts are included in SysOrb. See how the check configuration looks like in SysOrb here
System Uptime Monitors the host uptime as the time between each reset/reboot.See example here
Raid status Monitors disks active/inactive, pre-fail/fail etc.
Interface Throughput Monitors traffic throughput of interfaces such as network cards and loop-back devices.
SMART Status Monitors the SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Report Technology) status of IDE disks.
System Handles Monitors miscellaneous system resources such as free inodes, file handles etc
I/O Queue Length Monitors the length of the queues to I/O devices such as hard drives etc.
IPMI Monitors hardware specific checks like temperature, voltage etc. on motherboard, fan speed etc.
Custom AgentChecks Executes a user-defined program (script/macro) and reports the return values back to the SysOrb Server. This enables you to monitor specific applications – either standard applications or in-house applications.
Custom AgentActions Allows user-created scripts to be executed from SysOrb for performing any type of action, e.g. rebooting a server, deleting a print queue, restarting a service etc.

Basic facts about the SysOrb agent

  • The SysOrb agent is extremely thin in nature and most of the business logic is handled by the central SysOrb management server. This means that the SysOrb agent consume a minimum of CPU and memory on the server and you should NOT worry about this.
  • It is always the SysOrb agent which will contact the SysOrb server. All communication is exchanged on TCP port 3241. At remote location you only need to open for outgoing traffic on port 3241 in the firewall, that's all. No VPN is needed and there are no security issues to worry about.
  • If network connectivity fails to a server the SysOrb agent continues to monitor the server and once the connectivity is restored the SysOrb agent will deliver the information to the server. Therefore you will NOT have a gap in the data.
  • Installing a SysOrb agent can be done manual in less than 2 min. It is also possible to do unattended installation of the SysOrb agent via the command line.

    • SnmpChecks for network devices (switches, routers, UPS etc.)

    SnmpChecks

    SnmpCheks are performed by the SysOrb Server by polling SNMP data from SNMP-enabled network devices. This type of check can test gauges, counters and enumerations on SNMP capable devices. Examples of snmpChecks are traffic in/out, package loss, bandwidth usage etc. SnmpChecks are typical used for monitoring a switch or a router. For how to start monitoring a switch in SysOrb see our learning tutorials or see snmp monitoring live here in our sysorb demo.

    SnmpChecks Description of SnmpChecks
    SNMP Gauges Monitors selected (available) gauges in an SNMP tree for the node. E.g. queue lengths, set levels etc.
    SNMP Counters Monitors selected (available) counters in an SNMP tree for the node. E.g. bandwidth usage (traffic in/out), package loss, errors and many more
    SNMP Enumeration (enum) Monitors selected (available) enumerations in an SNMP tree for the node. E.g. links up/down on switches, printers out of paper, printer in paper jam etc

    SysOrb comes with a number of MIB's pre-installed. These MIB's cover standard parameters such as traffic statistics for routers and switches, and some common printer parameters. You should be able to set up basic monitoring of almost any SNMP enabled router, switch or printer without adding other MIB files.
    Should you, however, wish to monitor vendor-specific parameters on your network equipment, you will need to add the relevant MIB files to the ones already in SysOrb. It is easy to ad MIB files to the SysOrb server while it is running and operational.

    Monitor temperature and humidity inside your server room using SysOrb.

    Simply just setup a temperature and humidity sensor in your server room. Let SysOrb perform a SNMP scan on the sensor and then all the counters from the sensor will be available for easy setup of monitoring in SysOrb.

    SysOrb monitoring of VMware ESXi host via vSphere Hypervisor API

    SysOrb now supports monitoring of health and performance status of VMware ESXi hosts.

    • Monitor the health and performance of the physical hardware where the host runs.
    • Troubleshoot problems in the virtual environment before they happen.
    • Easy setup and configure thresholds for alarms and have them sent via email, SMS or script.
    • All data is instantly viewable in high resolution SysOrb graphs giving you a unique overview of your virtual environment.


    SysOrb uses vSphere Hypervisor APIs to collect the critical metrics for the host as well as the individual VMs. Therefore no SysOrb agents are required in order to use this feature. However for deep monitoring of the OS and applications running on each single virtual instance it is still highly recommend to use SysOrb agents.

    See a video tutorial on how to start SysOrb VMware ESXi host monitoring here!

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    If you have questions regarding above you are always welcome to contact us.