Monitoring of Windows Services with WMI in Nectus

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use WMI to monitor Windows Services. Nectus lets you create profiles that specify which services to monitor with WMI and how to send alerts related to them.

The specific topics we will cover in this chapter are:

1. What is WMI?
2. Why Monitor Windows Services?
3. Creating a WMI Monitoring Profile
4. Editing a WMI Monitoring Profile
5. Assigning a Profile to a WMI Server Group

1. What is WMI?

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is a set of specifications and interfaces that provides information about the status of local and remote computers running Microsoft Windows. In this chapter we look at how Nectus uses WMI to monitor the status of Windows Services and send Alerts based on that status.

Note: WMI is the Microsoft implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard and the Common Information Model (CIM) standard from the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

2. Why Monitor Windows Services?

Knowing which Windows Services are running lets you spot misconfigured servers easily. You can ensure that all required services such as anti-virus software are running. You can also see if any unwanted services such as a web server are running.

Monitoring for stopped Windows Services lets you respond to the failure of an important service quickly.

3. Creating a WMI Monitoring Profile

To create a WMI Monitoring Profile go to the Nectus Home Screen and select Monitoring -> WMI Monitoring Settings.

This opens the “WMI Monitoring Settings” dialog box.

Click Add Profile -> Services.

Create a new Profile by entering the Monitoring Profile Name and checking the Enabled boxes next to the metrics you want to monitor. In addition, check the types of Alerts you want to receive for each Monitored Metric. See Section 4, “Editing a WMI Monitoring Profile” for details on how to specify which Services you want to monitor and how you want to be alerted.

Check the Default Profile box if you want to make this the new default WMI Monitoring profile.

4. Editing a WMI Monitoring Profile

To edit a WMI Monitoring Profile, open the “WMI Monitoring Settings” dialog box and select the Edit Profile icon for the Profile you want to edit. In “Edit WMI Profile” dialog box that appears select the Services tab.

4.1 Editing Options

Select the Options icon for the Metric you want to edit to open the “WMI Options” dialog box.

Set the number of Consecutive Readings needed to trigger an alert then click the Add Name button to add the Services you want to monitor.

4.2 Editing Alerts and Templates

In the Services tab of the “Edit WMI Monitoring Profile” dialog box, check or clear the types of Alerts to receive for each Monitored Metric. To edit the format of the Alerts, open the “Edit Alert Handler” dialog box by clicking the Edit Alert Templates icon.

5. Assigning a Profile to a WMI Server Group

In the WMI Servers Panel on the Nectus Home screen, open the WMI Servers list. Right-click a WMI Server Group and select Properties.

This opens the “Edit WMI Server Group” dialog box.

Check the Enable Monitoring box, then select the WMI Monitoring Profile to use from the Monitoring Profile drop-down list, and specify which groups will receive the Alerts.

The icons to the right of the Monitoring Profile list allow you to edit a Profile or add a new Profile directly from here.