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What is the difference between an application and component?

FormerMember
FormerMember

I am new to Server and Application monitor and to networking in general.  Can someone please explain what is the difference between an application and a component?  I have a few basic applications being monitored, and am setting up alerts for them.  There is an alert for a component and an alert for an application.  Thank you in advance!

  • From the SAM Admin Guide....Understanding Component Monitors and Application Monitor Templates

    Component Monitors

    Component monitors are the building blocks of SolarWinds SAM. Each monitors the status and performance of a different aspect of an application. There are several different types of component monitors, each containing settings that define what is monitored and how to monitor it.  Some types of component monitors allow you to set threshold conditions on the monitored parameters. You can set separate thresholds to indicate warning and critical conditions. For example, if you are monitoring the percentage of free space remaining on a volume, you can set a warning threshold at 15%, and a critical condition at 5%.  As an analogy, pretend SolarWinds SAM is monitoring a car. You would have component monitors to check tire pressure, engine RPM, water temperature, battery voltage, and other important subsystems of that vehicle. You can set alerts to give notification if the water gets too hot, or if the battery voltage drops too low.

    Assigned Component Monitors

    Assigned component monitors are created by assigning Application Monitor templates to server nodes. Each actively monitors its assigned node according to its settings. Component monitors inherit these initial settings from the template. If you make a change to a template, that same change is rolled out to all assigned Application Monitors based on the template. You can override the template settings at any time, breaking the inheritance relationship between the component monitor and its template. For example, the user name and password usually differ for each node, and you would select a different credential for each assigned Application Monitor, thus overriding the template setting for the Credentials field.  To restore the inheritance relationship between a component monitor and its template, click Inherit From Template next to the setting.  Continuing the car analogy, when you assign the Dodge Charger template to a Dodge Charger vehicle, you now have a set of assigned component monitors for monitoring the vehicle’s tire pressures, engine RPM, and so forth.

    Assigned Application Monitors

    An assigned Application Monitor runs its assigned component monitors at regular intervals, and then uses the status results from the component monitors to determine an overall status for the application. If some of the component monitors are up and others are down, the Application Monitor follows the Status Rollup Mode setting in the SolarWinds Web Console Settings to show either the worst status of the group or a warning status.

  • Probably the easiest way to understand it is visually, as seen in the product itself. Below is such an example. Essentially an application is a collection of individual component monitors that have been each specifically configured to monitor a specific aspect of a given application.

    Application v Component Monitor.png