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I'm Morten, I manage the PerformanceGuard help. I also run my own complete PerformanceGuard system in order to monitor the computers and servers that we use to create and deliver help articles like this one. To illustrate how PerformanceGuard works, I'd like to take you on a short tour of my system. We begin the tour on my computer, and then we follow some performance data from my computer as the data travels through the PerformanceGuard system:


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titleMy Computer Has an Agent

My Computer Has an Agent

My computer has a PerformanceGuard agent installed. It's a very small program that collects performance data about resource usage, response times, etc. from my computer.

As a computer user, I never see the agent or hear from it. It runs silently in the background. The important thing to note is that the agent doesn't monitor me. It monitors how well my computer works for me.

At regular intervals the agent sends the collected performance data to a PerformanceGuard frontend server. The amounts of data that the agent sends are so small that they don't affect the performance of my computer or the network.

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titleMy Frontend Server Listens and Stores Detailed Data

My Frontend Server Listens and Stores Detailed Data

This is my PerformanceGuard frontend server. It's located under my desk. It continuously listens for data from my agent, as well as from agents on 11 other computers that I look after. The frontend server never contacts the agents. It's always the agents that contact the frontend server.

When my frontend server receives performance data from my agent, it stores the data in a database together with performance data from the other agents. Data from individual agents is labeled with individual IDs, so PerformanceGuardknows where each piece of data comes from.

The frontend server then sends a copy of the performance data to my PerformanceGuard backend server. Bigger PerformanceGuard systems than mine can have multiple frontend servers that each send performance data to the backend server.

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titleMy Frontend Backend Server Listens and Stores Detailed Data This is my PerformanceGuard frontend server. It's located under my desk. It continuously listens for data from my agent, as well as from agents on 11 other computers that I look after. The frontend server never contacts the agents. It's always the agents that contact the frontend server. When my frontend server receives performance data from my agent, it stores the data in a database together with performance data from the other agents. Data from individual agents is labeled with individual IDs, so PerformanceGuardknows where each piece of data comes from. The frontend server then sends a copy of the performance data to my PerformanceGuard backend server. Bigger PerformanceGuard systems than mine can have multiple frontend servers that each send performance data to the backend serverthe Less Detailed Data

My Backend Server Stores the Less Detailed Data

This is my PerformanceGuard backend server. It's located in a server room. My backend server aggregates the data it receives from the frontend server.

Aggregation means that PerformanceGuard stores the data in different resolutions: My frontend server stores the very fine-grained data from individual agents. That's the data resolution I use when I view detailed performance information about a specific computer. My backend server then stores the less detailed data resolutions for when I just want to view trends or information about groups of computers.

The detailed data about individual computers takes up far more space than the other data resolutions. That's why my frontend server by default only keeps it for some days, but I can view the less detailed data from my backend server for a long time. If I want to view monthly trends, for example, I have data from more than a year.



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titleHow do the agents know which data to collect?
They get a configuration when they connect to the frontend server. PerformanceGuard administrators set up agent configurations in the PerformanceGuard web interface. You can set up anything from a single general agent configuration to multiple different configurations for agents on different computers.
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titleDo I need separate frontend and backend servers?
No. Technically, the PerformanceGuard frontend server and backend server are services, so they can run on the same computer and use the same database server. For larger PerformanceGuard installations, however, you get a better load distribution if you use separate hardware. See our Hardware Recommendations.
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titleWant to Know More About how PerformanceGuard Works?

For more detailed information, look in the table of contents, for example under Concepts & Terminology.

For the technical details, look in the table of contents under Technical Reference.

If you're a technical consultant or software developer who needs to integrate PerformanceGuard with other tools, look in the table of contents under API.

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