{"id":51230,"date":"2023-12-15T10:20:28","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T10:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/?p=51230"},"modified":"2024-01-05T17:01:50","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T17:01:50","slug":"a-head-nerds-guide-to-building-custom-monitoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/de\/blog\/a-head-nerds-guide-to-building-custom-monitoring","title":{"rendered":"A Head Nerd’s Guide to Building Custom Monitoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have spoken with many prospects and partners over the years and one of the more frequent questions I am asked is: \u201cHow do you build Custom Monitoring\u201d.\u00a0 This is not an easy question to answer as there are so many variables at play, including: what type of device are you trying to monitor, what metrics are you looking for, what thresholds should trigger a warning or failure, etc. <\/span><\/p>\n

In this blog, I thought it would be good to share the eight steps I take when it comes to building Custom Monitoring, to help you get started on your own.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 1: Define what monitoring you want to achieve<\/span><\/h2>\n

Before you even start creating anything, be sure you know exactly what you want to achieve, clearly defining what monitoring you require will help you be focus on the task in hand, and is essential to successfully completing this process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 2: Check the Product and Automation Cookbook to see if it exists<\/span><\/h2>\n

Why do all the dirty work if someone has done it already? Once you have clearly defined what monitoring you want to achieve, check that it doesn\u2019t already exist today. Just because it\u2019s not currently applied to a device doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s not in the product already, someone else hasn\u2019t already built the same monitoring and shared it via the N‑able Automation Cookbook<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Step 3: Search the Web for Existing Scripts That Get the Information you Want<\/span><\/h2>\n

So, if you haven\u2019t been lucky enough to find what we are looking for in the product or the Automation Cookbook, that\u2019s not to say it doesn\u2019t exist in the wider world. Because you have defined exactly what you are looking for, you can use that to search the web for scripts that will help you achieve this. I\u2019m amazed that no matter how niche my requirement is, I often find a script that does exactly what I want\u2014or very close to it\u2014when I search the web.\u00a0 This step can take a bit of time and often involves reading through forums, but can be very fruitful. One piece of advice is to not to be immediately drawn to the \u201cBest Answer\u201d or \u201cTop Answer\u201d, you may actually find what you need buried amongst the general replies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 4: Use AI Tools to Modify Existing Scripts or Create New Scripts to Gather Metrics<\/span><\/h2>\n

Struck out in the web search or found a script that does roughly what you want but isn\u2019t perfect? Not confident in your own scripting abilites? Well, we are \u201clucky\u201d we live in a world where AI tools are openly available to us. If you had no luck finding a script, ask an AI tool like ChatGPT to create the script for you, it may not get it exactly right on its first attempt, but by testing it you can feed the errors back to it and it will adjust the script accordingly until you have what you need. If you have a script that does some of what you want but needs to be tweaked, again feed this into ChatGPT and ask it to make the required modifications. Again it might not hit a home run with its first reply, but feeding back the errors will help you get what you need. You\u2019ll be amazed how successful this approach can be when it comes to building custom monitoring.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 5: Run the Script on Your Test Device to Confirm it Gathers the Right Metrics<\/span><\/h2>\n

Now that you have a script to work with, you need to confirm it gathers the information you are looking for. Before you even consider running the script via your Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solution, you need to run it on a test device and confirm the outputs are correct.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 6: Run the Script in Automation Manager on Your Test Device to Confirm it Gathers the Right Metrics<\/span><\/h2>\n

Now that you have the script running natively on your test device, the next step is to ensure you can run the same script via Automation Manager on that device. This is an essential step to ensure you can use the script for monitoring purposes in N‑central or N‑sight RMM. I always download and install Automation Manager on my test device, and then test and tweak the automation policy (AMP) until it does exactly what I need. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with Automation Manager, make sure you check out the Head Nerd Boot Camps on Automation that are scheduled to next run live in January 2024. You can click the links below to register<\/span><\/p>\n