How to create devices and tasks

This article describes a Windows Performance Counter Task. If you are interested in adding a custom collector task, check out the article on creating custom collectors.

The MetricsView Windows service enables Windows computer or server monitoring, as well as allowing users to monitor a test or production environment, using data from Windows Performance Counter (WPC) and set alerts when limits are exceeded.

Once you have created a device and are adding or editing a Windows Performance Counter Task, you will be prompted to adjust the following settings:

Collector

MetricsView Collectors enables the gathering of WPC from target computers.

To start with the task, you need to specify the collector agent, that will be used as a monitoring target for the task:

  • If a collector agent has already been set up, select the name of the collector agent in the Use Existing Collector or Install New list.
  • If there are no collectors in the list, click Install New to set up a new collector.

Machine Address

Provide an IP of the counter carrier host. Though, any identificator may be used.

Counter Category

Select 1st level grouping criteria (for example, CPU).

Counter Name

Select 2nd level grouping criteria (for example, CPU #2 load).

Counter Instance

Select 3rd level grouping criteria (for example, CPU Core number).

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 alerting.
  • Max threshold: Threshold exceeding will result 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 starts 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.