Tips & Tricks - MonitorMagic
4. Streamline configuration with keywords
MonitorMagic is used by hundreds of organizations
worldwide to ensure the stability and uptime of their
most critical servers. Implementing MonitorMagic
in a proactive fashion allows system administrators
to be notified of potentially crippling problems
before they occur. The majority of system administrators
have chosen either SMTP email or popup messages as
their primary method of receiving MonitorMagic alerts. |
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| The product has been designed in such a fashion
where each individual monitor has it’s own
set of alerts attached to it. This means that there
will more than likely be at least one alert for every
active monitor. Most organizations using the product
don’t send all of their alerts to a single
system administrator. The system administrator that
should receive a particular alert is often determined
by a number of factors, e.g. nature of the problem,
office hours, or current availability. Only after
these determinations have been made can the product’s
alerting be configured effectively. |
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| Having at least one alert per monitor often leads
to a large number of alerts and a significant amount
of time spent configuring them. But what if the system
administrator who receives the majority of MontiorMagic’s
alerts is out for the day? Does each alert need to
be edited manually to reflect it’s new target?
If you’ve employed the use of custom keywords
the answer is NO. Custom keywords allow system administrators
to specify the target for an alert as a variable.
If the target for an alert needs to be changed only
the custom keyword value need be edited, the targets
will then update automatically. In order to use this
concept effectively a custom keyword should be specified
as the target for EVERY alert MonitorMagic sends. |
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| The following scenarios outline best practices
and how to implement custom keywords as targets: |
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| ***This example assumes that one of three system
administrators should be notified: SA01, SA02, or
SA03. Upon implementation be sure to use targets
valid within your organization. |
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Custom keywords for single target popup messages |
1. Open the MonitorMagic client and use the “Network
view” to navigate to the machine running the
MonitorMagic service
2. Right-click the machine and choose “Configure service…/Custom
keywords”
3. Click “Add”
4. Enter “%POPUP_SINGLE_TARGET%” as the “Keyword name:”
5. Enter “SA01” as the “Keyword value:” (SA01 is a username,
use one that’s valid within your organization.) Click “OK” |
| When configuring popup alerts, with a single target,
be sure to specify “%POPUP_SINGLE_TARGET%” as
the destination. At any point in time, if a different
user should receive the popup just edit the keyword
and replace “SA01” with another value. |
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Custom keywords for single target email messages |
1. Open the MonitorMagic client and use the “Network
view” to navigate to the machine running the
MonitorMagic service
2. Right-click the machine and choose “Configure service…/Custom
keywords”
3. Click “Add”
4. Enter “%EMAIL_SINGLE_TARGET%” as the “Keyword name:”
5. Enter “SA01@yourorganization.com” as the “Keyword value:” (SA01@yourorganization.com
is an email address, use one that’s valid within your organization.) Click “OK” |
| When configuring email alerts, with a single target,
be sure to specify “%EMAIL_SINGLE_TARGET%” as
the destination. At any point in time, if a different
user should receive the email just edit the keyword
and replace “SA01@yourorganization.com” with
another email address. |
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Custom keywords for multiple target email messages |
1. Open the MonitorMagic client and use the “Network view” to navigate
to the machine running the MonitorMagic service
2. Right-click the machine and choose “Configure service…/Custom
keywords”
3. Click “Add”
4. Enter “%EMAIL_MULTI_TARGET%” as the “Keyword name:”
5. Enter “SA01@yourorganization.com, SA02@yourorganization.com, SA03@yourorganization.com” as
the “Keyword value:” (SA01@yourorganization.com, SA02@yourorganization.com,
and SA03@yourorganization.com are email addresses, use ones that are valid within
your organization.) Click “OK” |
| When configuring email alerts, with multiple targets,
be sure to specify “%EMAIL_MULTI_TARGET%” as
the destination. At any point in time, if different
users should receive the email just edit the keyword
and replace any/all of the email address with different
email addresses. |
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| A single point of management for alert targets
is clearly the efficient way to implement alerting.
Custom keyword targets can easily be configured for
alerts types other than popup and email, just apply
the logic used in the aforementioned scenarios. |
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| Please contact support@tools4ever.com with questions. |
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