Monitoring Templates - Tests Page

Use this page to add, remove or configure service tests and beacons associated with this monitoring template. For more information, see About Monitoring Templates for Services.

Before creating a template, you must create a target containing one or more service tests that you wish to associate with the template. The template you create will be based on the target and will contain definitions of the service tests in the target. You can then use this template and apply to other targets so that they contain similar service tests. For more information, see Creating a Monitoring Template for a Service.

A service test based template contains the following elements:

Variables

A variable may occur at multiple locations in the service tests. The Variables table allows you to specify default values for all the variables. These default values will be stored in the template along with the variables. You can specify values other than the default while applying the template to a target. For more information, see Applying a Monitoring Template for a Service.

Parameters such as host, protocol and port (which occur in url properties in the service tests) typically vary from target to target. These variables are created by default when a service test based template is created. For example, a service test URL property containing the value "http://www.cnn.com:3000" will be replaced with something like "{PROTOCOL1}://{HOST1}:{PORT1}". Here, HOST1, PROTOCOL1 and PORT1 are variable names, with the curly braces indicating the beginning and ending of a variable definition. These variables will initially have default values of "www.cnn.com", "http" and "3000" respectively, but you can change them as required.

Apart from these default parameters, variables are automatically created for all non-blank password fields in the original target's service tests. For example, if you create a template from a target containing an FTP test with a non-blank password field; in this case, when the template is created, a variable is automatically created for the password field and you can enter the password. Such a variable is denominated as a password variable, and its value is hidden to protect content.

You can perform the following operations:

Click Add in the Variables section. The Add Variable Page is displayed. Enter the name of the variable, which can consist only of letters, numbers or underscores. Click Continue to add it to the list. You can also add variables while editing the service test. For more information on editing a service test and specifying variables in service test properties, see the Service Tests section described below.
Rename a variable. Select a variable and click Rename and specify the new name. All variable references in the service tests will be replaced with the new name. For example, if the you rename variable “HOST1” to “CNN_HOST”, the url property in the test would automatically be replaced with “{PROTOCOL1}://{CNN_HOST}:{PORT1}”.
Remove variables for properties within service tests. If you remove a non-password variable, all references to the variable in test properties will be replaced with the variable's default value. For example, if you remove variable CNN_HOST, the corresponding property's value would automatically be changed to “{PROTOCOL1}://www.cnn.com:{PORT1}” – assuming that variable CNN_HOST had “www.cnn.com” as the default value when it got removed. If you remove a password variable, any test properties referring to that variable are left blank.
Replace text in test properties with a variable definition. Select a non-password variable and click Replace Text. The Replace Text With Variable page is displayed. Enter the text that is to be replaced with the variable definition. For example, you can replace 'cnn.com' with '{Host1}' where Host1 is name of the variable. After specifying the text to be replaced, click Continue. This will replace all occurrences of the text with the variable definition (in this example, all occurrences of 'cnn.com' in service test properties would be replaced with {HOST1}. You will then return to the Edit Monitoring Template page.

Service Tests

All the service tests that have been defined for this template are listed here. The table contains the following details:

Property	Description
Name	The service test associated with the Monitoring Template. Click on the link to drill down to the Edit Service Test page.
Enabled	You can specify whether the test will be enabled after the template is applied to the target.
Key test	You can specify whether the test will be a key test after the template is applied to the target. If this flag is set, the Enabled flag must also be set.
Monitoring Settings	Click on the link to drill down to the Monitoring Settings page. On this page you can define metrics and define critical and warning thresholds in the template.

You can perform the following operations:

Add or remove a service test by clicking the Add / Remove button. You can select the tests from the original target that are to be part of the template.

Note: You cannot add new tests to a template, you can only remove existing ones.

You can add variables through the Edit Service Test and Monitoring Settings pages. In either page, you can specify a string with a variable definition and click Continue to add this variable to the template. Based on the existing value of the field, a default value will be generated for the variable. For example: the test had a “Username” field with value “sysman”, and you replaced it with the string “{user}”. When you click Continue, a new variable “user” will be added to the Variables table with a default value of “sysman”.

You can also use a variable to replace only part of the value of a string. For example, in a Web Transaction test, if the Post Data field contains the value “event=submit” and you replace this as "event={action}, then the variable 'action' will be added to template with a default value of 'submit'.

Usage Tips

For password fields, you can only specify a value representing a single variable definition. For example, for the password field in an FTP test, you can specify a value of “{ftp_password}”, but not values like “welcome” (since it is not a variable definition) or “{var1}{var2}” (since it specifies two variables).
Password variables can occur only in password fields; similarly, non-password variables can only occur in non-password fields.
To specify curly braces '{ }' as literal characters in a test property value, you must escape them with an additional curly brace. For example, you can type the string "{{element}}" to specify the literal string "{element}" as the value of a property.
Curly braces are interpreted as variable definitions only in the Edit Service Test and Monitoring Settings pages. In other places, they are interpreted as literal characters.
Only text properties can have variables. You cannot define variables for numeric properties or non-property fields like step names, step group names, etc.
If you add more than one variable in a property field, no default values will be generated for the new variables in this field.

Beacons

In addition to tests, the template also contains a list of beacons that can be applied to targets. For each beacon, the template stores a Key flag that determines whether the beacon will be a Key beacon in a target to which the template is applied (this flag can be changed at the time of apply). You can use the Add / Remove button to specify which beacons are to be included in the template.

After you have made the required changes to the template, click OK. The template will be saved in the repository. You can later view, edit, copy or apply it to a target.

Related Topics

About Services

About Monitoring Templates for Services

Creating a Monitoring Template for a Service

Applying a Monitoring Template for a Service

Enterprise Manager Information Roadmap