Synthetic Monitoring (ASM)
ASM Portal
The following video serves as an excellent reference for users who are new to the ASM portal.
ASM Portal Navigation
Below is an overview of the ASM platform navigation. It allows users to easily find all of the features offered within ASM. This article provides an overview of the different pages which can be accessed from the top navigation bar.
Clicking on the ASM image to the left of the Overview menu item will always bring you back to the main Dashboard.
Overview
Dashboard
See Dashboards for more information.
Apica Panels
The “Apica Panels” menu item allows users to view their configured Apica Panels instances. Apica Panels is a feature which allows users to integrate Apica data into Grafana dashboards for easier viewing; see Using the Apica Panels Dashboards for a complete overview of the feature. The “Apica Panels” menu item contains two sub-items: “Panels” and “About”.
Panels
Clicking the “Panels” link will bring you to the Panels page, on which you can see a high level overview of your Panels dashboards and open or delete an individual Panels dashboard.
The default Panels version available in the ASM SaaS portal is called “Apica Panels (v2)”. There are two major versions of Apica Panels; one version is based on Grafana version 4, and the other (Panels v2) is based on Grafana version 8. Apica Panels (v1) is only available to customers who had ASM Panels enabled before the major version change and have a need to maintain their older dashboards.
If you do not see “Apica Panels (v1)” on your dashboard, it means you do not have legacy Apica Panels configured on your account. Proceed with using only Panels v2 panels.
About (Apica Panels)
Clicking on the “About” sub-menu item will bring you to the “About” page, which provides a high-level overview of the Apica Panels feature.
Tools
The Tools section provides access to a number of different system features, such as Impersonate, API settings, Maintenance, Journal, Trace Route, and Messages.
Menu
Impersonate
With the Impersonate tool you can view Synthetic Monitoring from a different user's perspective. This feature can be very useful for troubleshooting or assisting your users with any problem they may encounter.
Item
Description
Filter
Search for user accounts by name.
Customer
Customer the user account belongs to.
User Name
Account user name.
Roles
List of roles associated with the account.
Last Activity
Clear the settings.
Switch from current user and impersonate.
Start Impersonation
The Impersonate tool allows Admin users to use Synthetic Monitoring with the permissions and settings of another user.
Impersonate User
To impersonate a user:
Open the Tools menu
Click Impersonate
Use the Filter to search for users
Find the user in the table
Click Impersonate
Drop Impersonation
When you want to stop impersonating, you can drop the impersonation without logging out and in again.
Drop Impersonation
To stop impersonating a user:
Open the User menu
Click Drop Impersonation
The user context is switched back to the original one.
Maintenance
The Maintenance view lets you modify or delete result records for individual checks and recalculate any associated consolidation records. The table shows a list of previous maintenance tasks and information about them:
Button
Description
Show entries
Number of rows to display per page.
Refresh History
Reload and update the table display.
Column
Description
Created
Timestamp for when the task was created.
Action
Action(s) performed by the task.
Status
The task status (running/success/cancelled).
Records
Number of items affected by the task.
Maintenance Tasks
Maintenance tasks can be created by selecting relevant checks and applying the appropriate action.
Apply Action
The apply action section lets you select what action to apply to the selected checks and queue the task for processing.
Option
Description
Update
Change the Check Result Status to this severity.
Set Value to NULL
Exclude the check from all calculations.
Delete
Remove the results.
Press Process Selected Records to remove the results.
Selector View
The selectors allow you to pick which checks to include in the task.
Item
Description
Type
List of check types.
Checks
List of checks of the selected type.
Check result Colors to include.
From
Start date and time for the period.
To
End date and time for the period.
Refresh
Reload and update the table display according to settings.
Display records
The number of rows to display per page.
Search
Search for checks by message text.
Create A Maintenance Task
Maintenance tasks can be created by selecting relevant checks and applying the appropriate action.
To create a maintenance task:
Select the check results you want to modify:
Type from the list
Check from the list
Pick a period:
Enter a From date and time
Enter a To date and time
Search for strings in message texts, if needed
Click Refresh
Click Process Selected Records
A database task is placed in a queue for execution. It will run as soon as possible.
When queued, the maintenance task is visible in the Task table.
Table
The table shows the result of applying the selectors.
NOTE: The action in the task will apply to all selected checks. Make sure you have selected the correct checks before clicking the button.
Column
Description
Severity
Check result status severity.
Time
Timestamp for the check run.
Value
Duration
Message
The result message. (Clicking this will show the browser results).
Attempts
Number of attempts for the check run.
Journal
The Journal keeps a record of all user actions taken in the system.
Selectors
The journal can be filtered by a number of parameters.
Item
Description
Severity
Event Severity to include.
From
Start date and time for the period.
To
End date and time for the period.
Message
Event description.
Customer
Customer account.
User
Involved user, if any.
IP-Address
The associated IP address for the event, if any.
Source
Originating location.
Category
Event categories.
Check
Involved check, if any.
Apply Filter
Reload and update the table display according to settings.
Entries
The Entries table shows the result of applying the selectors.
Column
Description
Severity
Event Severity.
Timestamp
Date and time when the event occurred.
Message
Event description.
Customer
Customer account.
User
Involved user, if any.
IP-Address
The associated IP address for the event, if any.
Source
Originating location.
Category
Event categories.
Check
Involved check, if any.
Traceroute
The Traceroute tool allows you to easily run a Traceroute from any of our Apica Locations to any URL or IP address you choose.
Introduction
The purpose of running a traceroute is to get an indication of which way traffic takes between a source and a destination. Traceroute sends test Packet with TTL values starting at 1. The resulting ICMP Time Exceeded messages are used to discover any devices (called "hops") forwarding the packets to the destination. For each hop, the response time is recorded to indicate transmission speed. Any detected failures or packet losses on the way are also the recorder and displayed to give an idea of the transmission quality.
Configuration
The Traceroute tool configuration is fairly simple.
Item
Description
Host
Target destination.
Location
Apica Locations to use as starting point.
Execute
Perform traceroute.
These Traceroute settings are used by default and are not configurable:
Option
Value
Maximum number of hops
30
Wait timeout per hop
5 seconds
Job execution timeout
60 seconds
Traceroute Results
The results of the traceroute run is shown in the results frame.
The first line shows information about the traceroute configuration:
Hostname and IP address, the upper limit on hops to try, and size of the test packets.
On each subsequent row, information about each hop is shown:
Hop Number, hostname and/or IP address for the hop, and the response times for each of the three test packets.
Messages
The Messages view lets you configure system messages to display to Synthetic Monitoring users.
View
Item
Description
Importance
Message importance (and display color).
Message
Message to display
Customer
Customer to display the message to.
Include Sub-customers
Also display message to sub-customers.
Active Time Period
Period during which to display the message.
Activity
Turn message on or off.
Configuration
Item
Description
Message
Message to display
Message is From
Sender to display
Active Time Period
Period during which to display the message.
Importance
Message importance (and display color).
Enabled
Turn message on or off.
Customer
Customer to display the message to.
Include Sub-customers
Also display message to sub-customers.
Test
Preview the message.
Cancel
Close dialog.
Save
Save the message.
Formatting
The message can contain some formatting. You format the text by putting the text within .
Formatting
Tag
Preview
Link:
[link="linkurl"]Link Text[/link]
Link Text
Bold:
[b]Bold Text[/b]
Bold Text
Italic:
[i]Italic Text[/i]
Italic Text
Bold and Italic:
[ib]Italic and Bold Text[/ib]
*Italic and Bold Text*
Create Message
Messages can be added from the Messages view.
Add New Message
Click the Add New Message button
The Add New Messages dialog is shown
Configuration
Item
Description
Message
Message to display
Message is From
Sender to display
Active Time Period
Period during which to display the message.
Importance
Message importance (and display color).
Enabled
Turn message on or off.
Customer
Customer to display the message to.
Include Sub-customers
Also display message to sub-customers.
Test
Preview the message.
Cancel
Close dialog.
Save
Save the message.
Formatting
The message can contain some formatting. You format the text by putting the text within .
Formatting
Tag
Preview
Link:
link="linkurl"Link Text[/link]
Link Text
Bold:
[b]Bold Text[/b]
Bold Text
Italic:
[i]Italic Text[/i]
Italic Text
Bold and Italic:
[ib]Italic and Bold Text /ib
*Italic and Bold Text*
Filter Checks
All checks in all monitor groups can be filtered by using the filter buttons.
Filter Checks By Status
To filter out all checks with a particular status:
Click the color button in the menu bar for each status type you want to view
The button is highlighted, and only checks matching the status are shown in the dashboard.
Click the same color(s) again to disable the filter
Log In
Synthetic Monitoring is accessed through a web-based control panel, using basic authentication.
How to log in
To log in to Synthetic Monitoring:
Obtain your user and password from your system administrator
Open the Apica Synthetic Portal in your browser:
The login dialog is displayed:
Enter your username and password
Click Log In
When you have been logged in, the Overview Dashboard will be displayed.
The first time you log in (before creating checks), this view may be mostly empty.
Remember Me
You can have the browser remember your credentials, so you won't have to type them each time you log in.
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To cache your username and password in the browser:
Click the Remember Me checkbox
Reset Password
In case you forget your password, you can reset it from the login dialog.
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To reset the password:
Click the Forgot Your Password link
A dialog opens:
Enter your User Name
Click Continue
An email is sent to the address registered for your account.
Apica Password and Login Policy
Apica Synthetic Monitoring Portal logins will enforce the following minimum password requirements, in line with Apica security policy password and account security.
Password Requirements
Passwords will have a minimum length of 12 alphanumeric characters and must contain a mix of lower, upper, number, and special characters.
A User will be Locked out after 5 failed login attempts and will need to be unlocked by a user with a user or customer administrator role.
Users may reset their passwords as needed. Apica will provide a reset link via email. That emailed link will be valid for 1-hour.
The features below are Opt-In and need to be activated in coordination with Apica Support.
For more information, contact support@apica.io.
New Integration +
New integration checks are created from the New Integration + menu.
Menu
Click New Integration +
Select a Check type to create by clicking on the icon.
The New Integration wizard is shown.
New Integration Configuration
Configuration
After the New Integration wizard has been completed, the finished check is opened in edit mode.
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In the edit view, you can set further configuration options for the check.
The exact options available vary with integration type.
New Integration Creation Wizard
All integration check types can be created through the New Integration wizard. The details vary with integration type, but the general principles are the same for all of them.
Create Wizard: Step 1 Information
In the first step, you can name the check and add a description.
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Create Wizard: Step 2 Specifics
In the second step, you provide
integration information,
metric settings,
Locations, and
other integration-specific settings.
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Create Wizard: Step 3 Options
Step 3: Options
In the third step you can configure
how often the check is to run,
set threshold values for check notifications, and
add it to one or more Monitor Groups.
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Step 4: Confirmation
The final step shows all configurations made, and allows you to go back to revise the check or move forward and create it.
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Status Filter
To the right of the navigation bar, there is a color coded status summary of all the checks associated with your user account.
Menu
The numbers in the colored boxes indicate the number of checks with that status.
Colors
Check Status is represented by four colors:
Color
Description
Green
Information
Yellow
Warning
Orange
Error
Red
Fatal
The colors are used in any context where the check status is displayed.
Filter Checks
All checks in all monitor groups can be filtered by using the filter buttons.
Filter Checks By Status
To filter out all checks with a particular status:
Click the color button in the menu bar for each status type you want to view
The button is highlighted, and only checks matching the status are shown in the dashboard.
Click the same color(s) again to disable the filter
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