As promised, the long awaited and highly anticipated Server & Application Monitor (SAM) 6.2 Beta is now available for download. The premiere feature of this SAM beta is the new optional agent, which is intended to address key environmental scenarios where conventional agentless monitoring techniques are either impractical or impossible to leverage. Some of these scenarios include, but are not limited to, monitoring Windows hosts within the DMZ over a single fixed port; monitoring servers in remote branch offices over high latency, low bandwidth connections; or monitor the servers you have hosted in cloud based services, such as Amazon EC2, Azure, or Rackspace. For even more examples you can check out Part 1 and 2 of this blog series at the links below.
If you can believe it, I still have plenty more examples of where this agent might prove beneficial in your environment. I'll be covering more of those in another follow-up later on. For this post though, I want to cover a few of the different agent deployment methods available in the beta.
As discussed earlier, most agent based solutions rightfully deserve the negative reputations they have received over the years. Many of the negative connotations associated with those solutions surround abysmal management of the agent software on which they are dependant. With SolarWinds heritage of simplicity and strong emphasis on ease of use in all things we do, we firmly believe we are uniquely qualified to address many of the problems that have long plagued agent based solutions of the past. The first way in which we address this is by making the agent optional. Striving to be the absolute best agentless management and monitoring solution is in our DNA and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Everyone knows that the biggest headaches suffered at the hands of typical agent-based solutions has been the initial deployment and continual upkeep of the agents themselves. Agentless solutions allow you to install software on a centralized server and you're up and monitoring in no time. As new versions are released, you simply upgrade the server where the monitoring solution is installed and you're back up and running. The only thing left to do at this point is hit the big red button you got from your local office supply chain and call it a day.
With this in mind, as we set out to build this agent we were determined to ensure that it was not only incredibly powerful and flexible, but that is was also simple to deploy and easy to maintain. Not just easy in comparison to previous generations of agent based solutions, but "easy" by even agentless standards. If you would like to try out this new agent included in the SAM 6.2 beta and follow along, click the button below to sign-up.
Agent Deployment - Add Node Wizard
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om6xeBaVHdY
| If deploying the Agent software from within the Orion web interface isn't possible, due to NAT, firewall policies, or access control lists, and group policy or other software deployment mechanisms aren't really your thing, the agent can of course be installed manually on the host you wish to monitor. The agent software can be downloaded from the Orion web interface under [Settings -> Agent Settings -> Download Agent Software] from the host where you plan to install the Agent software. Alternatively the agent installer is a mere 16MB in size, which is small enough for most environments that it can be emailed to engineers in the field as they bring new services online. During the manual installation of the the Agent you are prompted to provide information, such as the IP address of the Polling Engine the agent will communicate with and your Orion credentials so that the agent can connect and register with the Orion server. Once the installation is complete the host where the agent was installed will automatically register with the Orion server and become a managed node. You will also be notified via the Orion web interface in the Notification Banner that a new agent has registered with the Orion server and become a managed node.Clicking on the notification within the banner takes you to the Manage Agents view where you are given the opportunity to choose the resources you wish to monitor on the node. If you would rather be notified via email, syslog, SNMP Trap, etc. you can optionally configure an alert to notify you of any new agents registered with the system.
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Agent Management
| One of the biggest headaches associated with traditional agents has been maintaining them as new versions are released. Commonly, once the management server itself is upgraded you are blind to what's going on within the environment until all agents are also updated to the same version as the server. This means that a coordinated effort is required to properly upgrade the management server and all associated agents simultaneously to limit the amount of time you're without visibility into the environment. The additional overhead and orchestration required to successfully accomplish such an endeavor is commonly deemed not worth it, and upgrades are avoided unless deemed absolutely essential. Even then, the process is nightmarish at best. While developing the Agent it was our intent to make it as much of a hands off experience as agentless monitoring is today. This means building an agent that is completely self maintaining. As new versions of SAM, NPM, or other products that utilize the Agent are released, the agent automatically updates itself once the Orion server is upgraded. Agents update themselves over the same communication channel the agent uses for polling, allowing agents that were deployed to hosts behind firewalls, proxies, or in the cloud to be updated simply and transparently. For instances where automatic agent updates may not be desired, this feature can be disabled both globally or on an individual agent by agent basis from within the Orion web interface. In the event automatic agent updates are disabled, you still have the ability to approve agent updates manually through the Orion web interface. This affords you the ability to control exactly when agent updates occur on an individual agent by agent basis without the need to manage agent updates separately through other software distribution methods. |
 | Another common point of contention associated with agents is cleaning up after them. Accidentally deployed an agent to a server you didn't mean to monitor, but don't want to deal with the hassle of uninstalling the agent? No problem. Whenever you attempt to delete an Agent managed node in Orion you are given the option to uninstall the agent software from that host. This works for individual nodes deleted from Orion or multiple nodes selected at the same time. Unlike agent deployment however, uninstalling the Agent from the Orion web interface does not require connectivity to the agent managed host via RPC. Instead, the uninstall command occurs over the same communication channel the agent uses for polling. This means you can remotely uninstall agents that were deployed to hosts behind firewalls, proxies, or in the cloud from the comfort of the Orion web interface.
These are just a few of the ways this new agent is designed to make management and monitoring simpler than other agent based products you may have used in the past. All these great new capabilities are available now in the latest Server & Application Monitor 6.2 beta. If you currently own Server & Application Monitor and are under active maintenance we would love you to try out the new agent and give us your feedback. Simply sign-up here to download the SAM 6.2 beta and participate.
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