I love it when I can automate work that can be a little tedious/monotonous at times. I try and use a handful of Custom Properties in Orion for a myriad of things. The some of the custom properties go to groups with dynamic queries, custom dashboards, alerts and/or reports. All of these objects are only useful if they are up to date and accurate.
What started this was the ability in Server & Application Monitor to assign application templates to a group. If I can fill the gap of getting nodes automatically into groups, then SAM will auto assign application templates.
So the logic would flow like this
- Alert Trigger Condition to check if node does not have Custom Property assigned
- Alert Trigger Action to assign Custom Property
- Group with dynamic query looking for Custom Property
- SAM Template assigned to group
This is an example I have setup in my lab.
This is only an example but I set it to look for any node that has an IP where the first three octets start with X. The scope of the alert limits the nodes to only ones that start with four different different subnets I have at one location. Then it checks to make sure that the Custom Property is either 'empty' or not set an expected value. You can use other examples like Node Name starts with X if you have a good naming convention in place, or other means to select certain nodes.
The Alert action is Change Custom Property to whatever value I set.
I only have the alert set to run every 15 minutes. When it finds a server that meets the Trigger Condition it'll come into alarm and the action will set the Custom Properties. The next time the alert check, that node no longer meets the Trigger Condition and clears.
When i setup the group, i only add a Dynamic Query.
This is an example of what the Dynamic Query looks like.
Hope that helps and gives some ideas to your other THWACKsters out there.
