Using Solarwinds to monitor Windows Performance Monitor (perfmon) Counters

Had a request from our Exchange admin to setup Solarwinds alerts for some of our Exchange servers based on Performance Monitor counters.

MSExchangeTransport Queues(_total)\Active Remote Delivery Queue Length       (above 200)
MSExchangeTransport Queues(_total)\Largest Delivery Queue Length                 (above 200)
MSExchangeTransport Queues(_total)\Messages Queued For Delivery                (above 200)
MSExchangeTransport Queues(_total)\Retry Remote Delivery Queue Length        (above 20)

Before setting up alerts I need to add them to Solarwinds first. Here’s how you do that.

First, open up the Solarwinds web console, go to Applications, and then SAM Settings.

applicationssam settings

Then go to Component Monitor Wizard.

component monitor

 

Select Windows Performance Counter Monitor.

perfmon

Notice that it says the data is collected using RPC. This means (1) the server must be monitored by Solarwinds using WMI and not SNMP. In case of the latter, switch to monitoring via WMI. And (2) RPC ports must be open between the Solarwinds server and the target server. If not, monitoring will fail.

Enter the name of a server you wish to target. This server would be one that contains the perfmon counters you are interested in. You use this server to setup monitoring for the counters you are interested in. Change to 64bit if 32bit doesn’t work.

target

Change the “Choose Credential” drop down according to your environment. To select the server it’s better to click “Browse” and find the server you are interested in if Solarwinds complains that it cannot find the name you type in.

Note: The next step will fail if you have not opened the required RPC ports.

Select the counters you are interested in. First select the object you want to monitor (MSExchangeTransport Queues, in the screenshot below) and then the counters.

select counters

The next screen will list all the counters you selected and give you a chance to set warning and critical thresholds. Customize these.

 

properties

Select where you would like these counters added to – a new application monitor/ monitor template, or an existing application monitor/ monitor template. I am going with a new application monitor template. Easier to make changes to templates than individual application monitors.

whereadd

 

Choose more nodes you would like to assign this application monitor to. Am skipping this screenshot. This step is optional as you can assign the application monitor to nodes later too.

An optional step – I also went to Manage Application Templates screen after the above steps, selected the template I created, and assigned it some tags and set a custom view.

defineview

A custom view lets you define what details are shown when anyone clicks this application monitor template on a particular node in the Solarwinds web console. You can customize the view by going to Settings (of Solarwinds) and selecting Manage Views.

Next step is to create an alert. For that you have to logon to the Solarwinds server itself, go to Alert Manager, create a new alert (skipping screenshots for all these) and create a new alert whose condition is as follows:solarwinds trigger

Note that the type of property to monitor is “APM: Component”. This is important for the correct variables to be visible in the alert message. Also, note that I am triggering for each of the component (with an “any” condition) and not for the application monitor itself. This lets me get alerts for individual components; if I don’t do this, and instead trigger on the application monitor itself, I will get alert emails for each component including the ones that don’t have an issue.

Here’s the alert message:

solarwinds message