Centralize monitoring with our Metaconsole

Centralize Monitoring: The Importance of the Metaconsole

Gradually, brick by brick, we will get the necessary toolkit to build a company and maintain it. If on previous occasions we have emphasized the importance of monitoring a company’s IT systems, today we will review what it is and what advantages we when we centralize monitoring. The goal is pretty simple: we want to have maximum control over the IT of a company moving unbridled to the summit.

The importance of centralizing monitoring

To be able to talk about the importance of centralizing monitoring, you must first know what monitoring is. Monitoring is “to observe by special devices the course of one or more physiological or other parameters to detect possible anomalies“. In our field, it could be translated to the monitoring of a technological device (computers, servers, cell phones…) to detect anomalies. Monitoring software has many objectives; among others we can find the maximum use of the company’s resources, the prevention of incidents and detection of problems, the notification of possible problems, cost savings, time savings and improving customer satisfaction. Pandora FMS, the monitoring software we’ll talk about, performs its functions mainly in order to be a preventive service.

Once we know what it is to monitor and what it is for, let’s put a monitoring case whose need for centralization is critical. Let’s imagine a company, “Tundra P.F.” , with offices spread over Spain. This well-advised company begins to monitor each of the servers, computers, network devices, etc. of all of their headquarters: Albacete, Palma de Mallorca, Lequeitio… with the same working tool. In total the company has a multitude of monitored devices, divided into different installations of the same tool, where each one has to be configured individually from the headquarters that is monitoring. In the end the company sees the need to hire specific personnel for each of those locations to control the configured monitoring… or not?! Pandora FMS, always with its eagle eye and always being on the breach, noticed this problem and decided to react by creating the Metaconsole!

Metaconsole. What is it, how it is used and what advantages does it have to centralize monitoring?

Metaconsole is nothing more than a Pandora FMS console where you can view, synchronize and manage in a unified way different monitoring systems of Pandora FMS (from now on instances), thus avoiding having to look at all the different systems individually.

It is a complex environment that is intended to operate with all the infrastructure you have, and not at a low level as for one instance.

Once we have installed the Metaconsole on one of our servers, the next step would be to configure the data for all the instances that we want to handle centrally. In order to perform this step, you’ll need to grant permissions to the Metaconsole admin user on the information that you want to handle within each instance. In order to obtain and modify the desired information, each instance will be accessed through the API and by direct access to its database.

It is true that, to this day, the Metaconsole does not have all the functionalities that an instance has, but in the future everything will be achieved and be managed from it. In addition, there are unique functions of the Metaconsole, such as the self-provisioning of agents, with which new agents will be assigned to one of the multiple registered instances in the Metaconsole following specific parameters.

Metaconsole is based on two modes of use: synchronization and propagation. Synchronization is based on passing all the information that has been created in the Metanconsole to the desired instances. This is critical because, for example, a user created in an instance cannot be managed from the Metaconsole, but we will be able to do it if we create the user in the Metaconsole and synchronize it with the instances. Through propagation, the Metaconsole generates information that will be provided to the instances.

Do you still want to delve deeper into this great tool, the Metaconsole in Pandora FMS? In these two links you can see in more detail the functionalities of the Metaconsole and all the services that you’ll be able to do with it:

https://pandorafms.com/docs/index.php?title=Pandora:Metaconsole:Documentation_en:Introduction

https://pandorafms.com/docs/index.php?title=Pandora:Documentation_en

As we have seen, it is totally necessary to centralize monitoring for greater order and control over the parts that make up our company’s IT, and the Metaconsole, tool of the Pandora FMS monitoring software, helps us in this.

Now that you’ve seen in the ins and outs of networks and innovations, would you like to take a walk on this path? Go even further in the world of technology? Would you spend a few minutes to know what it is to monitor computer systems and also why is it very important?

Monitoring systems monitor technology (hardware, networks and communications, operating systems, or applications, for example) to analyze its operation and performance, and to detect and alert about potential errors. And this leads us to Pandora FMS, which is the great tool thanks to which this blog is possible.

Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring software, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes. Do you want to know what Pandora FMS can offer you? Find out by going here.

Or if you have to monitor more than 100 devices, you can also enjoy a FREE 30-day Pandora FMS Enterprise TRIAL. Get it here.

And remember that if you have a small number of devices to monitor you can use the OpenSource version of Pandora FMS. Find out more here.

Don’t hesitate to submit your inquiries. The Pandora FMS team will be happy to serve you!

Discover the great results we got at Hughes using Pandora FMS