Create an Application Ping

1. Select ADMINISTRATION > Agent Configuration > Application Ping.

2. Click the Create new button.

3. Specify a name for your new application ping.

4. In the definition field, specify the IP address or hostname of the server that you want to your application ping to connect to.

   Examples:

   URL=192.168.1.10
   

   - or-

   URL=www.google.com

   In addition to the required IP address/hostname, you can specify two optional parameters:

   • Iterations to specify if the application ping should be carried out several times after each other. This can be useful in order to gain a sufficiently large data set if your network groups contain very few PerformanceGuard agents.

   • Delay specifying the required amount of seconds between the iterations.

     
     

     Example:A definition like this would connect to www.google.com twice with 15 seconds in between:

     URL=www.google.com
     Iterations=2
     Delay=15

     If you specify the optional iterations and delay parameters, make sure that the amount of time it will take to perform the iterations doesn't exceed the delivery interval (the interval with which your agents send data to PerformanceGuard). The delivery interval is typically 180 seconds. You can check whether that has been changed in your organization by selecting ADMINISTRATION > Setup > Parameters and then selecting the Status tab.

5. In the Interval field, specify the number of seconds that should pass before the PerformanceGuard frontend server gives the task of carrying out the application ping to the next PerformanceGuard agent that connects to the frontend server.

   If you have many agents in your network groups, agents will connect to the frontend server more or less all the time, and every time the required number of seconds has passed, an agent from each network group will be given the task of carrying out the application ping. In that case, the interval will quite closely mirror the actual number of seconds that passes between each time the application ping is carried out from each network group. However, if you have few agents in a network group, the frontend server won't get so many agent connections from that network group, and in that case, the frontend server may have to wait longer than the interval you have specified before it can give the application ping task to the next agent that connects.

    How does the interval work if I specified a delay in the previous field?

   They are completely independent. Say that you use an interval of 60 seconds for an application ping whose definition specifies two iterations and a delay of 15 seconds: In that case your application ping will be carried out every 60 seconds, and when it's carried out, it will be carried out twice with 15 seconds in between.

   The PerformanceGuard agent can only carry out one application ping at a time. Thus, if there is only one agent in a network group, and that agent should carry out several different application pings, the agent will connect to the frontend server and be asked to carry out one of the application pings. The next time the agent connects to the frontend server, it will be asked to carry out the next application ping and so on. This fact can severely affect the number of seconds that passes between each time an individual application ping is carried out from a network group.

6. From the Type list, select Http request, Ping or Traceroute.

7. Click the Create button.

8. Your new application ping will be added to your list of existing application pings.

Now you must apply your application ping to one or more agent configuration groups. See the following.