In this video,
we're going to take a look at application templates
and how to use and modify the out-of-box templates
to quickly monitor and manage your applications.
So, what is a template?
You can think of a template as a blueprint
of what needs to be monitored
for a particular type of application.
It lists all of the components
or building blocks for that application
and the default thresholds they should be set to.
A good analogy for this would be a template
for monitoring a car.
Your standard template would probably cover basics
like speed, fuel, and oil levels.
After monitoring your fleet of vehicles,
you might decide that the warning threshold level
for fuel needs to be adjusted.
Adjusting the level on the template
will propagate that change down
to all applications based on that template,
in this case, your entire fleet.
If one of your drivers tends to speed,
you could adjust the warning and critical thresholds
for that one car if you needed to,
without affecting the standard monitoring
of the rest of your fleet.
Server & Application Monitor comes
with a large of out-of-the-box application templates
to cover a wide range of common applications.
To manage and apply them to servers,
click 'All Settings' from the menu bar,
and under Product Specific Settings,
open 'SAM Settings.'
Under Application Monitor Templates,
click on 'Manage Templates.'
By default, the Manage Application Template page
will display the hundreds of application templates
that are available for you to apply to your servers.
Each template is tagged with one
or more descriptive tags,
which you can use from the menu on the left
to narrow down your options closer
to what you're looking for.
In addition to the templates that are pre-installed,
SAM also has access to templates
that have been contributed by THWACK community members.
To access these templates,
click on the 'Shared Templates' on THWACK tab.
This will display the templates
that have been uploaded to SAM's content exchange.
Just like the pre-installed templates,
these templates can be sorted by their tags.
Information about each of the templates
is displayed on the right side of the page.
This information can be useful
when deciding which templates to import.
Each template includes the date it was published,
its community rating, and the number of times
that a template has been downloaded.
To add a shared template,
click the check box by the template's name,
then click 'Import.'
You will then be prompted to enter your THWACK credentials.
Once entered, click 'Log In.'
The template will then be imported into SAM.
Once the import is complete,
click on the 'View Imported Templates' button.
The new template will then be displayed.
The Shared Templates on THWACK tab
will only function if the Orion server
has access to THWACK.
If for whatever reason your Orion server
cannot access THWACK,
you can still manually import templates
that have been shared on the content exchange.
Let's take a look at how this is done.
You can find the THWACK Content Exchange
by opening THWACK and selecting 'SAM'
from the Product menu.
Under Get the Most Out of SAM,
click 'Content Exchange.'
You'll find a number of documents,
scripts, and templates shared by other users here.
Using the search filter will help
to locate more relevant options.
I'm going to search for Unix here
and download the Unix file change template.
You'll notice that all SAM templates
have the extension of APM template.
Also, please note that this is community-created content,
so if you choose to use these templates,
it's at your own risk.
If you're downloading templates,
particularly script-based ones,
make sure you know exactly what it does
before you apply it to your environment.
Now that we have it downloaded,
you can import the template into your SAM environment
by clicking 'Import/Export.'
Choose the file and click 'Submit.'
In your tag list, you'll see a new tag
called Imported from THWACK
where you can find your newly downloaded template.
Now, let's apply one of our templates
to a server to begin monitoring that type of application.
You can apply a template to one
or more servers at once.
Before selecting an application to apply,
note the number of licensed components
that an application will use when added
to your target server.
Complex applications may have 20
or 30 licensed components,
so depending on your license limit,
you may need to consider carefully
what needs to be applied and where.
Select the template to apply
and click 'Assign to Node.'
You'll see a list of your nodes
on the left that you can potentially apply
this template to.
Select the nodes to apply it to
and click the green arrow to choose them.
This doesn't apply the template
to these nodes yet.
We must first test the template
against the selected nodes to ensure we
have the correct credentials
and that the application exists
on those servers.
Always remember that the credentials you use
must have sufficient access on the target servers
to monitor the components.
Sometimes, you might find that you need
to use a different credential for one
of the components of the template.
If you do, your initial credentials test
for the application will succeed
for some components and fail for others.
If this happens, apply the application template as normal.
You'll then need to edit the template
after it is assigned to set credentials
for the failed components.
Click 'Assign Application Monitors',
review and confirm the changes you've made,
and click 'Done.'
Let's assume there were some modifications you need
to make to that template.
For example, additional credentials to apply,
or maybe an additional item you'd like
to monitor as part of that template.
Go back to the Manage Templates page
and select your new template again.
Click 'Edit' from the menu bar.
You can adjust the configuration
of your template from here
and any changes you make will automatically propagate
to all applications created with this template.
For example, you can adjust the polling frequency
to poll more or less often.
If you adjust polling settings,
make sure the polling timeout is equal to
or less than the polling frequency.
If it's greater, polling could potentially begin again
before the previous poll is completed.
To add more components to the template,
you could click the 'Add Component Monitors' button.
To adjust existing components,
change the credentials used
or modify their thresholds, expand the component
and make the necessary adjustments.
Your options for adjusting each component
will be based on the component type.
For example, the options and settings available
for a script monitor would be very different
to that of a service monitor.
If you're not yet sure which thresholds
to set for Warning and Critical, try the
Use Thresholds Calculated from Baseline Data check box.
To learn more about creating a new template
and adding components to it,
please see the video, Creating a New Application Template.