A great tool you can use to configure
Performance Monitor Tag is the Performance Monitor Tag
Builder Plug-In under Points
in the System Management Tools.
The first tab, called Tag Settings,
will simply ask you for some generic information
for this Plug-In to know how to configure tags:
information such as the Point Source, Interface
IDs, and the Scan Class to link the
tag to a specific instance of the
Performance Monitor Interface, and then some more
details to configure your tags.
What's interesting here is that the Plug-In
integrates with ICU, the Interface Configuration Utility,
As you can see, there's a list
from which you can choose a Performance Monitor
Interface. In some cases, if you did not
configure any interface in ICU, you will
see None, and then you will have to configure
Point Source, Program Instance ID Number,
and the Scan Class Number manually.
Otherwise you will have a great list of the Interfaces
you configured in ICU. So you just
choose it. Point Source is a [inaudible]
configured for you. Same thing for the ID Number.
And then you get a nice list of the different
Scan Classes you can use.
The second tab is the really important. one.
It's the one where you choose counters and build them.
As you can see, there's an, there's a hierarchy here.
All the Performance objects,
by [inaudible] interface, by Performance Monitor Interface, they all
provide counters. Under these
objects, you have Performance Counters,
and in some counters you will have
instances. So,
here we have the number of
points configured in ScanClass1 and
ScanClass2 in my PI Ping Interface.
You simply browse the hierarchy.
You choose some by checking their checkboxes.
They are pasted to the right and
inaudible] Ping, and then you can simply
create the tags. So, this is
it for configuration of Performance Monitor
Tags. This is the, the way
where you choose counters. In some cases, you may have
templates to use. If, for example,
you have, let's say 20 mail servers,
you do choose counters for one,
and then you can save this template and reuse it
for the 19 other ones. Let's take a look
at the next page. To use templates,
everything is done via the Right-Click Menu.
In the Right-Click Menu, when you
click anywhere in the hierarchy,
you get an option called Load Counter
Template. A window will
appear, a window in which you can choose a template
that's already created. For example,
a, a , a template you created for a SQL Server
or a Mail Server. Once a template is
chosen, all the entries included
in this template will be marked in red.
As you can see, some of the counters are
in red. You can then choose
some more, and when you are done, you can
right-click again and then choose
the option called Check All Template Entries.
Let me show you in System Management Tools.
So you can go Start Menu,
Programs,
PI System,
PI System Management Tools.
Under Points,
Performance Monitor
Tag Builder.
Then, on the Build Tag Tab,
you
see, you could right-click anywhere in this area
and click
Load Counter Template.
By default, we provide three templates: one for
SQL Servers; one for PI3 machines; and
one for a generic Windows
XP 2000 or 2003 machine. Let's choose
the PI3 Diagnostics Template.
So now, in the list,
as you can see, there are some counters in red, some
in black. Save some in red.
These are
the important Counters we suggest people
to monitor as part of our template.
Then, if you judge you, you need some more, you can simply
check them, and when you are
done, you right-click
Check All Template Entries. This will result
in checking all the entries that are marked in red.
Then you can review
your tags here, remove some, then add some
more, and when you are really done
you simply click on Create Tags.
This would result in creating
17 tags you can use in
ProcessBook or in DataLink
to see detailed information about your PI Server's
operations. You may have
noticed that it is possible to create templates.
You could spend some time choosing
the counters you really want to monitor on your Mail Servers.
When you are done, you can right-click
in the area, in the hierarchy area,
and create or edit counter template.
Choosing that would allow you
to create your template using all the entries
you selected in the hierarchy.
So you can re-use it then for your, let's say, 19
other Mail Servers.
One last thing you have to know, on the second tab,
before to click on Create Tags,
is that you can change the properties of all the selected
counters. For example,
you could click on one or more,
right-click actually, and then click Properties.
You would get in there, Properties,
so you can change the, their Descriptor, their
Span, their Step Attribute,
and so on. Well, this
was how to configure tags using our Plug-In.
Now here is what you would see in Excel
if you import their configuration. The
PointType is any numerical type.
By default, we normally use Float32. Their
PointSource should correspond to what you chose in
the Interface. By default, the, the pound
sign is the PointSource for the Performance Monitor Interface.
Then Location1, as usual,
should correspond to the Interface ID Number
as configured in ICU. Location4
should be set to one of the Scan Classes
as defined in the Interface.
The special field here is the Extended Descriptor.
ExDesc. This one is
the, the attribute containing the path to the counter.
An example of a path could be backslash,
backslash, the name of some machine,
backslash, the Performance Object,
and then when applicable,
an Instance in parentheses,
then backslash and the name of the counter.
In some cases, you may be interested in using the
Convers Attribute in which you simply put a number
so the value is multiplied by
this one prior to get our tag.
For example, you could convert bytes into kilobytes
or megabytes. Here are
some examples of tags you could configure to monitor PI
itself. For instance, you could look at the
PI Base Subsystem to get the number of points that are
currently configured on your system,
or you could see the number of Events that are archived per
second, or Snapshot Events per second,
or get the time remaining to the next
archive shift. You could even see
how many connections are currently open on your server.
Or how many events are pending in your
Update Manager Subsystem.
On this page you can see two more examples of tags
you can configure. Beside the PointType,
the PointSource, the Location1 and
the Location4, what you have to look at here is
the Extended Descriptor, ExDesc.
The difference in these two tags is that you
have backslash, backslash, the name of the server in the
first one, while it's not there in the second
one. When not using the backslash, backslash,
server, that tells the interface to
look for Local Counters, Counters
on the machine where the interface is running.
This is something possible but not recommended.
We normally suggest people to use the backslash,
backslash, server name notation, so it
is more consistent. So now,
if you have access to the regular IT Monitor Class Manual,
you could go in Exercise #14,
where you will have a step-by-step solution on how to create
tags to monitor your PI System.