How much does up.time cost?
up.time's pricing changes based on discounts for license volume & organization type (education, not for profit & government). Please contact [email protected] for a quote.
Who else uses up.time?
up.time is used in hundreds of organizations world wide. A sampling of our client list can be found here
How does up.time licensing work?
up.time is licensed based on the number of monitored elements (servers, network devices). All up.time modules are included in the out of the box product for free. No additional fees for the size of monitored elements like per-CPU charges.
How long does it take to roll out up.time?
Rolling out up.time is an easy process and is limited primarily by the layout and organization of your environment. Some large clients have reported rollout times of less than 10 business days for up to 2500 monitored servers.
Is the system costed by server, agent, or both?
up.time is licensed based on the number of monitored elements (servers, network devices). No additional fees for the size of monitored elements like per-CPU charges.
What training will I need to effectively run up.time?
up.time is very easy to use, in most cases no additional training is required. Information on our available eduction options can be obtained by contacting [email protected]
Does up.time require full time staff to manage?
In most cases no full time resources are required to maintain up.time. We generally recommend allocating 0.25 person days per week per 250 service monitors
How to I extend my evaluation license key?
To extent your license to cover additional servers or additional time please contact [email protected]
Can I write my own custom service monitors?
Yes, the up.time monitoring engine is customizable. To see examples of custom service monitors visit this page
Can I write my own reports?
Yes, the up.time DataStore is open to direct ODBC connections to give you complete control over your historical performance data
Does up.time provide real time performance monitoring?
up.time monitors servers down to once per minute
What types of data storage can I use with up.time?
up.time supports MySQL (bundled), Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 & Oracle 10g/11g
What architecture and language is up.time built with?
The user interface is written in PHP and the core logic components are written in Java.
Is up.time open source?
No, up.time is not open source but it does utilize licensed portions of open source software from MySQL & Apache
Does up.time do transaction monitoring?
No, up.time does not measure end to end transaction details. up.time does provide a number of user experience monitors for web pages and email retreival
Does up.time do end user experience monitoring?
Yes, up.time provides end to end user experience monitoring for web sites and email retreival
Can I change the default up.time login page?
No, the My Portal page is the only login page option. The 'View Applications' page can be accessed via direct URL without login.
Can I rebrand up.time?
No
How does up.time integrate with my other applications?
up.time integrates with other applications in several ways including via custom service monitors, custom action triggers (scripts), ODBC data manipulation & inline HTML linking
Can I resell up.time?
For reseller options please contact [email protected]
Does up.time provide patch or change management?
No, up.time does not provide functionality around patch or change management
Does up.time provide security management?
No, up.time does not provide functionality around security management
Does up.time provide network traffic profiling or management?
No, up.time does not provide functionality around network traffic profiling or management
I want to know more about up.time, who do I contact?
Feel free to contact [email protected] or open a support case at [email protected]
What does up.time technical support offer me?
Standard up.time technical support offers unlimited support cases via phone, email & remote desktop sharing, free product updates & unlimited access to support.uptimesoftware.com.
How do I open a support case?
To open a support case contact [email protected] or open a case under the 'My up.time' section of support.uptimesoftware.com
What information should I send to support when I open a case?
Please include as much information about the problem as possible including screen shots, version & log information where possible.
What are the support hours for my area?
Technical support is available between 6am-8pm EST
What is support's telephone number?
+1.416.868.0152 Option #2
What does support cost?
Technical support is based on a yearly subscription and is based on your software license entitlement. For more information contact [email protected]
Where are your support centers located?
All up.time technical support centers & employees are located in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
How do I tell what my support entitlement is?
Visit the 'My up.time' section of support.uptimesoftware.com
What do I need to install to run up.time?
up.time comes with all required components for a default installation. You must install the 'monitoring station' package on the central up.time server, this is where your web interface will reside. You must then install the up.time agent package on any server that you wish to monitor using up.time.
How do I update or enter my license key?
Access the up.time user interface, click the 'Config' tab. In the main pane a text box should be available that you can copy & paste your license key into. Click 'Update'
How do I install agents?
Linux Agents
Solaris Agents
AIX & HP-UX Agents
Windows Agents
What is the difference between agent and agent-less?
A system added as an agent gathers performance data (such as CPU, memory, disk, network, process data) which tells you what's running on the system and how it is running. An agent-less system is a device that can only be pinged, such as a router.
Can up.time use my own web server or database?
up.time supports the following database backends: MySQL 5.0 (bundled version only), Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008, as well as Oracle 10g/11g. Using a different web server is not supported
What is the default up.time password?
There is no password setup by default. Once up.time is installed it will ask you to enter a password for the admin user. If you have forgotten this password view this article to reset it.
Will I lose my historical data when upgrading?
No performance data will be removed or modified when upgrading
Do I need to update my agents when I update my monitoring station?
No, the monitoring station will communicate with the agents without a problem
Does up.time integrate with Active Directory or LDAP?
Yes, up.time can both authenticate user sessions agains AD/LDAP or syncronize users with your domain.
Can I import an up.time configuration from another installation?
Yes, for full instructions please contact support.
How do I create service monitors?
Click on the Services tab, then click on the "Add New Service Instance" link on the left. Select the service monitor you want to create and click next to configure the monitor
What is a service group?
Service groups are monitor templates that enable you to simultaneously apply a common service check to one or more hosts that you are monitoring.
How do I create a service group from the monitors I already have?
Click on the Services tab, then click on the "Add Service Group" link on the left. Enter a name and description (optional) for the service group and click Continue. On the next page you can select the service monitors and systems you want to add to the service group
How do I change my service group?
Click on the Services tab, then click on the "View Service Group" link on the left. Click on the service group that you want to make changes to and then click on the Edit Service Group button on the top right
Does up.time provide suggested thresholds and monitors?
When adding an agent system to up.time, two service monitors are added by default: ping and uptime monitors. up.time does not give any configuration suggestions since every configuration is different. We recommend monitoring your environment for at least a week to find out what the "normal" level is. You can setup thresholds once you have a good idea of what the acceptable level is
How do I create an outage escalation?
To create an outage escalation you will need to follow these steps:
Now the monitor will alert different people depending on the escalation
What alerts and notification does up.time support?
up.time supports Email, SMS, Windows Pop-up as well as a completely customizable notification option
How do check interval, recheck interval & max rechecks work?
How can I test a service monitor or alert/action profile?
Simply click on the service monitor or alert/action profile and then click on the Test Service Instance/Test Alert/Action Profile button on the top
Can I reset the status of a service monitor?
The only way to "reset" the status of a monitor back to OK status is to either fix the issue that caused the event, or modify the monitor settings so that it does not cross the thresholds
How do I schedule a server downtime or maintenance window?
Under the Services tab, click on "Add Maintenance Profile" on the left menu. After creating the maintenance profile you can assign it to a host or service by clicking on the appropriate links on the left menu
Can I retroactively apply a maintenance window?
No
How do I stop monitoring of a server or service monitor?
To temporarily disable monitoring for a host, search for the host in the search box, click on it's name, then click "Edit System Profile". Turn off the "Monitored" check box. To temporarily disable monitoring for a specific service search for the service in the "Services" tab, click "Edit" icon beside the monitor name, turn off the "Monitored" check box and then save the monitor
How do I avoid false positives & spam alert messages?
up.time provides several built in features to prevent false positives. These include host checks (stop alerts on secondary monitors if the whole host is down), topological dependencies, as well as a flexible rechecks system that will rerun service monitors multiple times to ensure the problem is real before sending an alert.
How do I stop alerts for or acknowledge a service monitor outage?
To stop alerts click the check mark icon beside the outage message in up.time. this will acknowledge the problem and disable further alerts for that outage
Can up.time open a ticket in a 3rd party incident ticketing system?
Yes, this can be accomplished using an action profile custom script
Can up.time restart a service or process?
Yes, this can be accomplished with an action profile service restart/custom script
Can up.time reboot a server?
Yes, this can be accomplished using an action profile custom script
Why isn't my service group updating properly?
To update a service group click on the "View Service Groups" link under the Services tab and there you can update the service group
How do I create an SLA?
Click on the "My Enterprise" tab and click on "Add Service Level Agreement"
What is a Service Level Objective (SLO)?
A Service Level Objective (SLO) should cover a particular goal for your end-user-facing application, such as Availability, Performance, Log Monitoring, Business Metrics, or Service Desk Responsiveness
What is a Compliance period?
A compliance period is the period of time that is used to determine success or failure of your SLA. Standard compliance periods are weekly or monthly
Can I change my compliance periods or ignore old results dynamically?
Yes, compliance periods can be reset after adding your SLA. Old results cannot be ignored but they can be recalculated based on new SLA criteria
What is the best SLA results report to send to my management or users?
The SLA Summary report is intended for your end users. The SLA Detailed report is a more detailed operationally focused report that often won�t hold much meaning to your users
Why does my SLA say 'OK' but my service is down?
SLAs are time-based, so the SLA is not critical until the service has been down for a longer amount of time
What service outages count against my SLA?
Any service monitor that enters a Warning, Critical, Unknown or Maintenance state will count as an outage against your SLA. Service monitor rechecks are also counted as outages
Can I send alerts at certain points in SLA status?
This can be accomplished by editing the "Service Level Agreement status monitor" in the SLA
What types of monitors should I include in my SLA?
Any up.time service monitor can be included in an SLA. It is best to include monitors that truly define the availability, and end user perception of availability, of your IT services and applications
Can I change how MAINT or UNKN status' are recorded?
No
What report output formats does up.time support?
up.time produces reports in HTML, PDF, and XML formats. It can also be setup to automatically email the PDF as an attachment as well
Why does the Resource Scan have 3 needles?
The needles indicate the min, max, and current value
Why does the Recent Outages chart show no outages?
The recent outages chart will display any outages that occured within the last 12 hours, so there may be some outages that are still critical, but occured longer than 12 hours ago, so they are not counted
How do I schedule a report?
When creating a new report, on the bottom of the page, you can choose to save the report and have it automatically run on a scheduled time
How do I publish reports?
When creating a new report, on the bottom of the page, you can choose to save the report and have it publish the report to a directory
Does up.time limit report size?
No, up.time does not limit report size
What does GlobalScan SWAP indicate?
It indicates how full the swap/page file is on the system, which can be an indication the system is low on memory
Can I ignore information in GlobalScan?
No
GlobalScan is an instantaneous window into your enterprise. Service monitors that are in their recheck state will appear as down on the GlobalScan but may not have sent you an alert because they have not finished all of the required rechecks
Can I display up.time dashboards in another application?
The Application status dashboard can be viewed from other web pages, contact support for more details.
Can I customize the default reports or dashboards?
No, the built in reports and dashboard is hardcoded, so no modifications are supported
How does up.time data archiving work?
At the beginning of each month, up.time will archive old data out of the database, depending on how many months of data your archive policy is setup to retain
Does up.time aggregate historical data?
No, up.time keeps all the raw data. It will archive older data out of the database depending on the archive policy
Can I archive data on my own?
On the Archive Policy page you can click on the "Archive Now" button to start archiving. If you do not have enough data in the database beyond the archive policy, nothing will be archived
Does up.time publish a DataStore Schema?
up.time does not publish a database schema because there are constant changes to the schema, so any schema posted would be considered out-of-date shortly after. Contact [email protected] for the latest schema package or you can extract the schema using database tools such as Visio to access the schema
Does the up.time schema change between DataStore types?
No, the schema is the same regardless of the database backend
What time periods does archiving support?
up.time will archive data older than the number of months that are specified in the archive policy
The up.time agent by default requires port 9998 to be open
How much data (bandwidth) does the agent return?
One agent (regardless of the OS) produces approximately 3KB on a 5 minute interval
How do I know if the windows agent is running?
By checking if the "up.time agent" service is in a running state, or if the process "uptmagnt.exe" is running
What is the performance impact of the agent?
All the agents are meant to be lightweight and have little to no footprint on the system. Agents should only use 1%-5% CPU usage for a few seconds on a 5 minute interval
What is the difference between agent and agent-less?
A system added as an agent gathers performance data (such as CPU, memory, disk, network, process data) which tells you what's running on the system and how it is running. An agent-less system is a device that can only be pinged, such as a router.
What security measures does the agent include?
The up.time agent includes built in password checking for custom command execution and can be extended to use SSL encryption as well as IP based connection filtering
Why isn't auto-discovery finding my agents?
Autodiscovery does a basic network port scan to identify agents on the local monitoring station subnet. In some environments these types of scans are not allowed due to network security settings
Are there any limitations to monitoring mixed (Solaris, Windows) environments from a different environment?
No, the up.time monitoring station can be installed on any supported platform and monitor a mixture of agents platforms across your environment
How does the windows agent work?
The Windows agent gathers performance data from the Windows performance counters
How do I know if the windows agent is running?
By checking if the "up.time agent" service is in a running state, or if the process "uptmagnt.exe" is running
Can I mass install the windows agent?
This can be accomplished using Active Directory to push the Windows agent MSI to various systems
Can I add performance metrics to the windows agent?
No, the built in counters are static. You can use custom service monitors to collect other performance metrics from any agent
Why does my agent show 'No current data' messages?
This is usually due to the Windows agent not working properly due to local permission issues. Uninstalling and reinstalling the Windows agent as the Local Administrator usually resolves this issue
How does the Linux agent work?
The Linux agent gathers performance data using built in tools such as SAR and SADC
Can I mass install the Linux agent?
up.time does not provide any mass install method for installing the Linux agent however it is a standard RPM package that can be deployed through many common package management tools
Can I add performance metrics to the Linux agent?
No
How do I change the Linux agent port or user?
Edit the file "/etc/services" and modify the "uptmagnt" to use another port (default is 9998)
This is usually due to the Windows agent not working properly due to local permission issues. Uninstalling and reinstalling the Windows agent as the Local Administrator usually resolves this issue
Do I need to install an agent on each of my Solaris 10 zones?
To monitor performance and services within zones each zone must be added to up.time as an element. The agent software can be installed on all zones from the global zone using the pkgadd command
up.time gathers data for Veritas Volume Manager
Can I add performance metrics to my UNIX agent?
No
How do I change my UNIX agent port or user?
Edit the file "/etc/services" and modify the "uptmagnt" to use another port (default is 9998)
Why does my agent show 'No current data' messages?
This is usually due to the Windows agent not working properly due to local permission issues. Uninstalling and reinstalling the Windows agent as the Local Administrator usually resolves this issue
What versions of VMware does up.time support?
up.time supports VMWare ESX 3.x & 4.x
How does up.time compare to virtual center?
up.time is complimentary to Virtual Center. Virtual Center provides management of VMware instances, up.time only provides performance reporting. up.time is also able to track much more granular and long term statistics than virtual center
Do I have to install an agent on my ESX server?
No, up.time gathers ESX data directly from ESX, so no agent is required
How does up.time communicate with my ESX server?
up.time communicates the same way Virtual Infrastructure does; via the SOAP API
Does VMware ESX monitoring have any up.time license costs?
Adding a VMWare ESX system to up.time will consume one systems license. Any instances running on the ESX system are free and do not take up any licenses
Do I need to install an agent on my VMware instances?
Although it is not required, we recommend installing the agent on all the VMWare instances so that you can monitor what is running on each instance, and not just what is running on the ESX system
How does up.time monitor my pSeries server?
up.time connects to your pSeries server via the up.time agent and SSH to collect performance metrics on each LPAR running on the server
What is the difference between HMC and VIO based pSeries monitoring?
When monitoring via HMC up.time is only able to collect LPAR workload statistics for your pSeries server. When monitoring via VIO up.time is able to collect both detailed pSeries OS performance in addition to LPAR workload
Do I need to install an agent on my HMC?
No, up.time does not require an agent to be installed on the HMC
Do I need to install an agent on my VIO server?
No, up.time does not require an agent to be installed on the VIO server
Do I need to install an agent on each of my lpars?
Yes, up.time requires an agent to be installed on each lpar; even if it isn't added to up.time