In this post I will deploy a Telegraf agent from VROPS. I will then use this agent to show both out of the box application monitoring and also how to set up custom port monitoring.

In a previous post I showed how to deploy the Cloud Proxy Appliance which is required before we can deploy and configure the Telegraf agent.

Deployment

vROPS can handle the life cycle management of Telegraf agents which I will use here. Im using a Windows VM called STO-JUMP01 which also has IIS installed.

Step 1
Browse to Configure > Application Monitoring > and select Manage Agents. Here you will get a list of all your Virtual Machines that vROPS has detected. In my lab I have an handful of VMs. None of these VMs have Agents installed currently. Select the required VMs. As stated STO-JUMP01 is my endpoint. From the … menu select Install

Step 2
This brings up a dialogue reviewing what you previously selected and allowing you to choose the Cloud Proxy you want to associate the agent with. In the lab I have only one Cloud Proxy – sto-vrops01-cp01. Be sure to select the Cloud proxy relevant to your deployment/data centre architecture.

Step 3 and 4
Now we have to input credentials for deploying the agent. Many customers will use a dedicated service account for this so will choose Common Username & Password.

Step 5
In my lab Im just using the local administrator account as opposed to a dedicated service account. Click next.

Step 6
The installation will proceed and will eventually show install success. You can also check the Cloud Proxy details page in order to see that the agent is sending data to VROPs.

Agent Configuration

Within manage Telegraf Agents, you can now use the small arrow to the left of the VM name to view details about what is being monitored. As the agent is new it can take upto 5 minutes for services to be discovered and start reporting. In the screenshot below Microsoft IIS has been detected but a full collection has not yet occurred.

Meantime I am setting up a custom Port monitor on the same VM for port 443.
Select TCP Check and use the 3 dots to select create. A small wizard will open where I can give my custom check a name and the criteria I want. The syntax for the check is ip:port . So in my case I set 10.0.100.5:443. Ensure enabled is selected.

After a few minutes any automatically discovered services are detected and fully monitored and my custom port check is working as intended. I can now set any custom alerts if desired.

Documentation

vRealize Operations – OS and Application Monitoring