Adding Monitors

Your system administrator must create a Performance Manager project before you can create a monitor.
To add a new monitor:
  1. On the Projects page (Performance Manager > Projects), click the project to which you want to add a monitor.
  2. Select the Performance Manager > Configuration > Monitors tab. The Monitors tab displays all monitors that are currently selected for the project. Click Add New Monitor.
  3. The Configure Monitor - Select Monitor Type page contains a list of all monitors that have been uploaded to Performance Manager from Silk Performer, including pre-installed monitors (Essentials). Click a monitor upon which you want your new monitor to be based.
  4. (Silk Performer script monitors only): The Configure Monitor - Select Script page contains all scripts that comprise the selected monitor type. Select a script to use it as a monitor.
  5. Click Next.
    Note: If your Silk Performer project contains only one script, the Configure Monitor - Select Script page does not appear.
  6. (Silk Performer script monitors only): The Configure Monitor - Select User Group page contains all the user groups that associated with the project. Select the user group that is to be included in the monitor.
  7. Click Next.
    Note: If your Silk Performer script contains only a single user group, the Configure Monitor - Select User Group page does not appear.
  8. (Silk Performer script monitors only): Select the transactions that are to be included in the monitor from the Configure Monitor - Select Transactions page.
  9. Click Next.
    Note: With Silk Performer script monitors, if your Silk Performer script contains only one transaction the Configure Monitor - Select Transactions page does not appear.
  10. If your monitor is built on a Silk Performer script that contains project attributes, the Configure Monitor - Customize Project Attributes page appears.
    Note: Performance Manager project attributes are drawn directly from uploaded Silk Performer project attributes. See Working with Silk Performer for details.
  11. Click Next. The Configure Monitor - Define Monitor Settings page allows you to adjust the attributes of the selected script so that it serves as an effective monitor. With Performance Manager, appropriate monitor configuration pages are provided automatically. The available fields on the Configure Monitor - Define Monitor Settings page vary depending on the monitor type you have based the new monitor on.
  12. Enter a name for the monitor in the Monitor Name field.
  13. Select a profile for the monitor from the Profile list. Note that profiles come directly from Silk Performer project profile settings, and may not be included. In such cases the Profile list is not available.
  14. Select a browser type from the Browser list, or leave the field set to default from profile to use the browser specified in the Silk Performer project profile. This feature allows you to override Silk Performer's browser profile setting for this project.
  15. If you want to distinguish hits generated by Performance Manager from other traffic, select Identify as Silk Performance Manager. This setting will add a Silk Performance Manager prefix to the user agent of the HTTP header, thus allowing for separate entries in the Web statistics.
    Note: If the monitored Web application's behavior is based on user agent information, turning Identify as Silk Performance Manager on may cause application misbehavior. If you do not need to differentiate the traffic, switch this feature off.
  16. Select a connection speed from the Connection Speed list, or leave the field set to default from profile to use the connection speed specified in the Silk Performer project profile. This feature allows you to override Silk Performer's connection speed profile setting for this project.
  17. Specify how Performance Manager should calculate performance rates by selecting one of the Performance Rate Calculation radio buttons. Have performance rates calculated Based on automatically adjusted bounds if you want to have Performance Manager calculate performance based on past performance levels. See Analyzing Results and Calculating Health for more information regarding performance and health calculations. Have performance rates calculated Based on static boundaries if you have run benchmark tests against your system and are familiar with the specific threshold boundaries against which performance should be calculated. Although Performance Manager's boundary editor is the recommended means of changing static boundaries (See Boundary Editor), an alternate method that you may find useful when initially setting boundaries involves MeasureSetBounds scripting functions. Here is an example MeasureSetBounds function: 
    function InitMeasureBounds
begin
   MeasureSetBound (NULL, MEASURE_PAGE_PAGETIME, 1, 1.0);
   MeasureSetBound (NULL, MEASURE_PAGE_PAGETIME, 2, 2.0);
   MeasureSetBound (NULL, MEASURE_TRANS_TRANSBUSYOK, 1, 1.0);
   MeasureSetBound (NULL, MEASURE_TRANS_TRANSBUSYOK, 2, 2.0); 
   MeasureSetBound (“TBUYER-019-Order Processed”, MEASURE_PAGE_PAGETIME, 2, 0.637*4.0);
   MeasureSetBound (“TBUYER-018-Order Information(#1)”, MEASURE_PAGE_PAGETIME, 2, 1.521*4.0); 
   MeasureSetBound (“TBUYER-017-Order Information”, MEASURE_PAGE_PAGETIME, 2, 1.604*4.0); 
   MeasureSetBound (“TBUYER-017-Order Information”, MEASURE_PAGE_PAGETIME, 1, 1.604*1.0); 
   ...
end InitMeasureBounds
  18. Utilizing the meta information capabilities offered by Performance Manager, you can define how monitor results (Transaction Response Times, Page Timers, and Custom Measurements) affect overall system health. Results can be disabled using meta information. In such cases users can specify a no results or display only setting for transaction response time. Alternatively, some customers use the Silk Performer Recorder to monitor complex business transactions and design custom timers that are ideally suited to their measurement needs. In such cases Performance Manager's standard timers might alter results or make the interpretation of results confusing. A user could then specify that all Custom Measurements be disregarded entirely (no results) or only be displayed (display only), rather than factored into performance ratings (performance rating).
  19. Though the default error-reporting setting (Report availability and accuracy separately) is applicable for most situations, Performance Manager enables you to optionally specify that availability and accuracy errors be reported only as availability errors (Report all errors as availability errors) or not recorded at all (Do not record errors). For example, if you are only interested in the performance data generated by a monitor, you might specify that availability and accuracy errors not be recorded at all (Do not record errors).
    Note: If you select Do not record errors, errors will not be factored into overall system health, but they will be recorded in the execution log.
  20. Specify how you want TrueLog to be generated for this monitor by selecting one of the Generate TrueLog radio buttons.
    • Select On Error to have TrueLog generated only when errors are encountered. This is the recommended approach.
    • Select Always to have TrueLog track all activity. Note that this is a processing and storage intensive option that may affect system performance.
    • Select Never to not have TrueLog generated for this monitor.
  21. Select the Generate Default Output File (.wrt) check box to have .wrt files written and accessible via Performance Manager's Execution Log (as TrueLog files are).
    Note: Scripts that include Write() or WriteLn() statements end with the extension .wrt. If the Generate Default Output File (.wrt) check box is not checked, such files will not be written.
  22. With Create default rule with default condition(s) automatically you can create rules that are activated when availability or accuracy drops below 100, or when performance reaches 0 (when a performance measure reaches bound 2). Simply select the Availability, Accuracy, and/or Performance check boxes to activate these rules. The default rule can later be modified in the rules section. See Editing a Rule for more details on rules.
  23. Select the Run exclusive option box to prevent other monitors from running simultaneously on the same execution server. This is particularly useful for Silk Test monitors.
  24. Click Finish to save the monitor with the project-wide schedule.
Parent topic: Setting up Monitors