Monitor with AppInsight applications
SolarWinds SAM includes several specially designed out-of-the-box application monitor templates that you can use to monitor virtually every aspect of key business tools, such as Microsoft Active Directory, to get relevant performance information from the server level. They also enable you to drill down into the datastore layer for performance data. Collectively, these templates are called the AppInsight™ templates.
Offering a level of detail and expert knowledge far beyond what standard templates provide, you can assign AppInsight templates to nodes in many ways, including automatically during Discovery. Just as standard SAM templates convert to application monitors after being assigned to nodes, AppInsight templates become AppInsight applications that monitor nodes.
The following AppInsight applications are available to monitor business-critical functions in your SAM environment:
- AppInsight for Active Directory
- AppInsight for Exchange
- AppInsight for IIS (shown below)
- AppInsight for SQL
Note the following details about using AppInsight templates and applications:
- WMI is the preferred polling method because some node data, such as disk I/O, is only available via WMI.
- WinRM is the default transport method to collect data for WMI-based component monitors.
- All AppInsight templates support the SolarWinds Platform agent for Windows. See Monitor with SolarWinds Platform agents in SAM.
- Due to the complexity of these templates:
- Allow extra time for configuration to finish when assigning AppInsight to nodes.
- You cannot add component monitors to AppInsight templates or application monitors.
- Some component monitors have default settings that cannot be modified due to dependencies.
- Some AppInsight component monitors cannot be disabled. However, if situations arise that cause component monitors to fail (for example, a known server outage), you can disable most dynamic component monitors to reduce false-positive alerts and logs, starting in SAM 2020.2.6. See AppInsight for IIS and AppInsight for SQL for details.
- You cannot import or export AppInsight templates in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, or assign them to groups of nodes.
- Unlike most application monitor templates that you can update by importing the latest versions from THWACK, AppInsight templates are updated automatically during product upgrades.
- If using component-based SAM licensing, AppInsight applications consume licenses at flat rates.
- To configure large environments quickly, add AppInsight applications to nodes with automation scripts.
The dynamic behavior of complex AppInsight component monitors can impact polling loads in large deployments (for example, if monitoring a large quantity of SQL servers). If heavy polling slows down your environment, see SAM polling recommendations.
To learn more about SAM's AppInsight applications, see: