Add / Edit a Custom Collector Task

How to create devices and tasks

• Adding a new task to an existing device
• Creating a single device with a single task
• Creating several tasks within a single device

See also: API: MetricsView Custom Collector Methods.

This task describes creating or editing a custom collector task.  If you are interested in adding a windows performance counter collector, check out the article on Editing a Windows Performance Collector Task.

How to Edit a Custom Collector Task

At the Device Manager page click Add Device and then select Custom Metrics.

Once you have created a device and are adding or editing a Custom Collector task, you will be prompted to adjust the following settings:

• Task Name: Defines the Task’s name, and is listed as part of the device.
• MetricsView Collector: Collector name (attached directly to the collector UID)
• Task UID: Unique Task ID used by API to distribute gathered monitoring results.
• Performance Counter Path: is a descriptive field that is auto-populated by appending the following fields together: Host\Category\Instance\Counter.  Therefore, you do not need to enter anything into this field, simply fill in the following fields.
• Host: field supposed to contain IP of the counter carrier host. Though, any identificator may be used.
• Category: 1st level grouping criteria (example: CPU)
• Instance: 2nd level grouping criteria (example: CPU Core number)
• Counter: 3rd level grouping criteria  (example: CPU #2 load)

Error Thresholds

• Aggregate: All received data will be aggregated on a regular basis, according to the adjusted device frequency.
  • Maximum – the highest value from the array will be taken.
  • Average – value is calculated as an average of all intermediate values.
  • Minimum – the lowest value from the array will be taken.
• Min threshold: Threshold exceeding will result in alerting.
• Max threshold: Threshold exceeding will result in alerting.
• Ignore if Unavailable: Each time during “Agent” <–>”Server” interaction Agent asks if there any new counters for Agent to check. In case there are instructions to gather stats on new counters Agents start to gather them. In case NO was selected each failure in Counters polling will be reflected as an error in reports, in case YES was selected – failures will be ignored.