Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
An Operations Manager watcher node is a computer, a management server, or a device that
hosts an Operations Manager agent that runs rules that probe an application or feature run-
ning on a third computer or device. For example, you might want to use Operations Manager
to test the availability of a TCP port on a VPN appliance located on your organization's pe-
rimeter network. You could do this by using a computer deployed on the perimeter network,
that has the Operations Manager agent installed, to probe the port of the VPN appliance to
determine its availability. In this scenario, this computer on the perimeter network is function-
ing as the watcher node.
Operations Manager watcher nodes support synthetic transactions. Synthetic transactions
are special tests that can be used to determine the availability or performance of the follow-
ing:
■
OLE DB Data Source
■
Process
■
TCP Port
■
UNIX or Linux Log File
■
UNIX or Linux Process
■
Web Application Availability
■
Web Application Transaction
■
Windows Service
If you are planning on using watcher nodes to verify the availability of an application, con-
sider using watcher nodes on different networks. This will allow you to determine whether the
application is available from multiple locations.
The following management pack templates use watcher nodes:
■
OLE DB Data Source
■
TCP Port
■
Web Application Transaction Monitoring
If necessary, you can configure the computer that hosts the application or feature that you
want to monitor as the watcher node. You specify which agent managed computes will func-
tion as watcher nodes on the Watcher Node page of the Add Monitoring Wizard, as shown in
Figure 2-33.
