Have questions about how to best use LogicMonitor? LogicMonitor experts are live to explain best practices and answer your questions. There are no planned topics as this webinar is a true office hours. Bring your coffee and questions!
Employee
Q: My question is sorta newbie, but it seems like every time a data source updates dashboards break, is there an easy way to test for that ahead of time, or know what is changing in an updated data source? [1:11 and later]
A: Dashboards are built up of widgets that refer to Resources, Instances, and Datapoints by name. Generally, the Monitoring Engineering group generally updates LogicModules in a way that will not affect dashboards. In the odd case that this happens, you should be able to see what the widgets are referring to and figure out what happens. I would reach out to support if something like this happens.
We also noted that there are now generalized dashboards built into the product and a whole set at https://logicmonitor.com/sales/dashboards
Q: What network diagram view or creation capability does LogicMonitor have? [8:25]
A: Topology https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/forecasting/topology-mapping/topology-mapping-overview
Q: Does the diagram only show the devices being monitored that I'm paying for, or will it show all devices on the network including workstations not being monitored?
A: Only devices under monitoring will appear in topology maps.
Q: Will you please explain dynamic thresholds and the best practices for using them?[11:15 and later]
"When we enabled the critical level for VM Disk fullness, it was alerting to large changes even if the disk fullness is under 50%. this triggered critical alerts (text message to the client) for a non full disk.. not ideal..",can you provide more detail on the bands / polls settings?,"Agreed... we went back and removed critial from the dynamic level but left warning and error.
this alerts us to a large change, but doesnt allow it to go critical.",
Q: Are there limitations? Such as enabling it on too many devices?
A: Yes, there are limits. You can see them in the usage section in the settings page in the account page.
Q:We're looking into options for monitoring Windows outstanding patches, and found the community / staff contribution (LM Locator N7R7YZ) which looks promising. However, with very limited staff resources for maintaining custom LogicModules we try to stick with Core modules as much as possible. Is there anything in the pipeline for a Core module for Windows patching like this? ("No" and "I don't know" are totally valid answers for this one!!)
A: Check the Community for things like this.
Q: How and where can I make use of relations between objects?,
A: Topological links can be used to navigate through maps and are also used by LogicMonitor's Root Cause Analysis.
Q: Does the diagram piece only show the devices being monitored that I'm paying for, or will it show all devices on the network including workstations not being monitored?
A: It won’t typically display those objects because LM has to know about them in some way. Most “undiscovered vertices” that can be displayed are things like switches and other network gear.
Q: Is there an option to save and roll back device configurations? Switches, routers, etc?
A: Configs collected through LM Config are stored in LM. You have the option to download the config and restore manually. I’ve heard of some customers who use the API to fetch the config automatically and feed it back to something like Ansible which can push the config back out. You typically will want to include some human element there anyway, so we do not currently automate this.
Q: how to generate a device availability SLA report/dashboard? i.e. if a device (or group of devices) became unreachable from LM collector for certain duration breaching their 99% availability SLA, is it possible to report on that metric? [29:30]
A: We offer two SLA reports in the reports page, one which uses alert status to determine availability, and the other uses the satisfaction of given metrics. There is also an SLA widget for dashboards.
Q: In the doc about Collector config editing (https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/collectors/collector-configurations/editing-the-collector-config-files) it states: "...it is highly recommended that you use the interface (and not manual modification of the local Collector configuration files) to make any required updates as there are safeguards in place in the UI to prevent errors. Manually modifying the local Collector configuration files should be done at your own risk." There are Patch and Update methods in the API/SDK for changing Collector configs. Are those API/SDK methods going to give the same error-checking as the UI, or is the API/SDK more akin to a manual filesystem file change without error checking?
A: We do not think that the API has the same safeguards as the UI. If you intend to hand-modify (or machine-modify) you collector config files (other than changing their size), we recommend you work with our support team in order to make sure what you're doing is sound.
Q: I'd like to be able to compare different config versions side by side when something changes so I can decide whether to roll back. [39:25]
A: Yes, there is a diff view when looking at the actual config. There's a switch and then you select the two versions you'd like.
Q If we wanted to split a company out of our LM instance into a child LM instance under our enterprise plan do you have an easy process for this? [41:50]
A: Speak with your account manager about how this works.
Q: Please talk a little bit about Services, especially adding websites in. [50:00]
A: Website monitors cannot currently be added to services, although this is a good idea. Please bring it up with out product team using the feedback link in the support area.
Q: ,We have ran into issues with high CPU coming from collectors with large clients. A lot of people internally in my company contribute this to being a java based application. Are there any design plans on moving away from java for collectors?
A: No plans that we are aware of. If resource usage is an issue it may be able to be tuned with collector configuration or by managing monitoring workload.
Q: Is there a place to show the data sources that have dynamic threshold enabled?[56:00]
A: In the Alert Thresholds report, with only custom thresholds selected.
EmployeeUS attendees:
Thanks for a great session! The session feedback survey can be accessed here.
The recording is here:
I'll be posting the question list and times as soon as I process them.
Q&A from the EMEA session (Q=Question, A=Answer from LM, OP=Original Poster, AP=Another Participant):
Q: Network mapping is not always complete. We have used Auvik in the past. They did the mapping alsmost flawles and with port nr's in the mapping picture.
A: Answered at 6:06.
OP: Port nr would be nice.
OP: I will put it in the feedback. we just renewed for 3 year. So we are very happy with Logicmonitor overall.
Q: If we want to monitor a website that requires a client certificate to access can this be accomodated in a LogicMonitor Web Monitor
A: Answered at 15:44. https://www.logicmonitor.com/support/services/adding-managing-services/executing-internal-web-checks-via-groovy-scripts
AP: (35:22) Could you use LogicModule = SSL Certificate Expiration?
OP: That's really useful - thanks very much !
Q: Do you have a template for running API queries via Powershell?
A: Answered at 27:53. https://github.com/sweenig/lm_scripted_control
Q: Can you find out what version of TLS they are running via LM?
A: Answered at 40:09
Q: Are there any reports in LM to find out possible security misconfigurations on resources?
A: Answered at 42:04
AP: configsources is a different license. At least for whay i know
AP: We use it to check firewall changes. and auto config backups
OP: I was thinking down the Firewall side of things like Robert
AP: We made a check in the firewall for wrong authentication on the firewall to check for hackers. it give us an alert in logicmonitor. sort of a canary
EMEA attendees:
Thanks for a great session! The session feedback survey can be accessed here.
The recording is here:
I'll be posting the question list and times as soon as I process them.
