Monitor Cloud Services with Joined Server IP

You can join multiple IP addresses, DNS names and/or entire networks into a single virtual IP address in PerformanceGuard. This is ideal for monitoring cloud services that typically involve many different servers.

Important

Example: When users in your organization use the cloud-based Office 365™ suite, their computers are in touch with hundreds of different Office 365 servers. You are not interested in each of those servers; you are interested in the performance of the Office 365 service as a whole. In PerformanceGuard, you simply group all of the Office 365 servers into a single virtual IP address. This makes it much easier for you to monitor the overall performance of the Office 365 service, and it also dramatically reduces the amount of data that PerformanceGuard needs to process.

PerformanceGuard will need to process much less data because the consolidation of the many individual server addresses into one virtual IP address is handled by the PerformanceGuard agents: As part of their configuration the agents will know which IP addresses, DNS names and/or networks they should join into a single virtual IP address before they send the data to PerformanceGuard. This means that PerformanceGuard only receives and processes data about one virtual IP address for an entire cloud service, and that in turn makes it much quicker and easier for you to monitor the performance of the service.

Caution

You can only do this if you’re a PerformanceGuard administrator.

Caution

This is a global feature. It applies to all of your PerformanceGuard agents regardless of which Manage Agent Configuration Groups.

Caution

Only use this feature if you can truly benefit from it—typically if you use cloud-based services. The ability to filter away unwanted data by joining multiple individual servers into a single virtual IP address in PerformanceGuard is very powerful as long as you realize that PerformanceGuard will not record individual data about the individual servers while they are joined into a virtual IP address. If you regret using this feature, you can of course stop using it, but you’ll not be able to view data about individual servers from the period of time when those servers’ were joined into a virtual IP address.

Caution

Application pings and Web Applications are not affected by this feature.

Create New Virtual IP Address

You can join individual IP addresses, DNS names, entire networks or combinations thereof into a single virtual IP address. In PerformanceGuard, such virtual IP addresses begin with 0 (example: 0.0.0.1). If you create more than one, they are numbered consecutively (0.0.0.1, 0.0.0.2, etc.).

1. Select ADMINISTRATION > Server > Joined Server IP.
2. Click the New Virtual IP Address button.
3. Specify a meaningful Name for the virtual IP address.
4. You can now add the individual IP addresses, networks and/or DNS names that you want to be joined into the virtual IP address.

Important

Example: To add the DNS name cloud365.com, type the name in the DNS field and click the Add button.
You can add as many IP addresses, DNS names and networks as required.
Note that for networks you must specify the required netmask in the last field (example: 192.168.0.15/24). For DNS names you can use * as a wildcard character (example: cloud*.com)

5. When ready, click the Create button.

Your new virtual IP address is automatically added to the Server Lists.

Important

Do I need to push the virtual IP address information to the agents?

No, when you save your new virtual IP address, updated configurations are automatically distributed to your PerformanceGuard agents.

Important

Can't I just select the required servers from the monitored servers list?

No, in this PerformanceGuard version you can’t use the monitored servers list to select the servers that you want to join into a single virtual IP address. This may be possible in future PerformanceGuard versions.

Edit Existing Virtual IP Address

1. Select ADMINISTRATION > Server > Joined Server IP.

2. In the list of existing virtual IP addresses, click the Edit icon next to the required virtual IP address.

3. Edit as required:

   • To delete unwanted IP addresses, DNS names or networks, click the Delete icon  next to the no longer required item.
   • To add further IP addresses, DNS names or networks to the virtual IP address, specify the new items and click Add as required.

4. When ready, click the Close button.

Delete Existing Virtual IP Address

If you delete a virtual IP address, all IP addresses, DNS names and networks that have previously been joined into the virtual IP address will be treated individually going forward.

1. Select ADMINISTRATION > Server > Joined Server IP
2. In the list of existing virtual IP addresses, click the Delete icon  next to the no longer required to the required virtual IP address.

Virtual IP Filters Are Applied in the Order they Appear

When PerformanceGuard agents examine IP addresses, DNS names and networks in order to determine if they should be joined into a virtual IP address, the agents will use the sequence in which the IP addresses, DNS names and networks are listed in the PerformanceGuard web interface and in the agents’ configurations.

This is normally not something you need to worry about, except for one scenario: If you accidentally add the same network to a virtual IP address with different netmasks (for example 192.168.0.15/24 and 192.168.0.15/8), the item that appears first will determine which of the two network sizes will be joined into the virtual IP address in PerformanceGuard.

If you need to verify the sequence in which the IP addresses, DNS names and networks for a virtual IP address are listed, follow the procedure in Edit Existing Virtual IP Address in the previous, and look at the Existing Virtual IP Filters list. Alternatively you can open the configuration of any agent (because the feature is global) and view the sequence there.

Test Virtual IP Filters in Your Agent

When users access the IP addresses, DNS names or networks that you have defined in your virtual IP filters, it will show up under the virtual IP address (for example 0.0.0.1) in the PerformanceGuard web interface’s monitored servers list. However, that can sometimes take a while, because you must wait for your users to do something.

If you don’t want to wait, and you have the PerformanceGuard agent installed on your computer, you can quickly test your virtual IP filters in your agent’s web interface. Here’s an example:

You have set up a virtual IP filter that uses the virtual IP address 0.0.0.1 for every address that matches *.google.*

On your computer, which has the PerformanceGuard agent installed, you open a browser and connect to the agent’s web interface on http://localhost:4007

Important

4007 is the default port number. If the port number has been changed in your organization, PerformanceGuard administrators can view it in the PerformanceGuard web interface: Select ADMINISTRATION > Agent Configuration > Configurations, click the Edit link next to the agent configuration group that the agent belongs to, select the Agent Configuration tab, scroll down to Agent Service Parameters section and look for the Web Server TCP port number.

In the agent web interface’s yellow menu ribbon, you select View > Configuration and scroll down to the bottom of the configuration page. There you’ll see your virtual IP filters. In this example, there is an entry that says:

VirtualIP.1.Address = 0.0.0.1

VirtualIP.1.Host.1 = *.google.*

Important

What if I don't see such an entry?

This could be because your agent hasn’t yet received the configuration that contains the virtual IP filter. Try to wait some minutes until the agent has been in contact with the PerformanceGuard frontend server and then refresh the page.

Now you open another browser tab or window and connect to maps.google.com

Back in the agent’s web interface, you now select View > IP Data. In the table that contains TCP/IP traffic (that’s the bottom one), you’ll now see one or more entries about the IP address 000.000.000.001. That’s the virtual IP address that you set up for every address that matches *.google.* (including maps.google.com that you just visited), and that proves that your virtual IP filter works. This will of course also be reflected in the PerformanceGuard web interface’s monitored servers list after some minutes, depending on the delivery interval of your agents.