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. 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. 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. The following scenarios outline best practices and how to implement custom keywords as targets: ***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.

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.

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.

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. 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. Please contact support@tools4ever.com with questions.