Overview

Client monitors, at the most basic level, simulate user actions against online systems and record the effects that those actions have on system health.

As a project manager you must carefully consider the characteristics and distribution of monitors that will most help you meet your organization's needs. This section will guide you in defining the most vital aspects of your simulation infrastructure: monitors, conditions, rules, and custom incidents.

The Projects page

The Projects page (Performance Manager > Projects > Overview) is a read-only informational page that offers important information regarding the projects that have been assigned to you. Project details include:

Status - Whether a project is currently active or inactive
# Monitors - The number of monitors associated with a project
# Transactions - The number of transactions associated with a project
# Rules - How many rules are associated with a project
Created by - Who created a project
Created at - When a project was created

The Monitors tab

In addition to offering you access to monitor settings (by clicking monitor names), the Monitors tab (Performance Manager > Configuration > Monitors) offers other important functionality.

Read-only monitoring details include:

Transactions - The number of transactions associated with a monitor
Next Run - The next scheduled monitor execution

Available functionality includes:

Status - Toggles monitor status between Active and Inactive.

Monitor status

To change a monitor's status:

On the Monitors tab (Performance Manager > Configuration > Monitors), click a monitor's Active/Inactive status link.
The Deactivate Monitor Confirmation page appears.
Click Deactivate to deactivate the monitor's status.

Bounds - Enables you to change the thresholds that are used for health calculation and specify which dimension each specific result is to influence. See Boundary Editor for details.
Schedule - Allows for a custom monitor schedule rather than a project-wide schedule. See Project Schedules for details.
Run Now - A schedule override feature that executes monitors immediately, regardless of the next scheduled run.

Run monitor immediately

To execute a monitor immediately, from the Monitors tab, click Run Now.

Download: Allows you to download the Silk Performer script packages upon which monitors are built. This is required when you need to locate and edit the latest versions of user scripts to modify simulated user behavior. Available downloads are indicated by disk buttons. Downloads that are either unavailable or available only to system administrators (for example, download packages that are associated with Essentials) are grayed out.

Note: Once you have edited a script in Silk Performer, upload it to Performance Manager using Silk Performer's Upload Project menu or the Deploy Monitor workflow button and reassign the uploaded project to the monitor using the Replace Package link on the Configure Monitor - Define Monitor Settings page. See Editing Monitors for more information.

To download a Silk Performer script package for a monitor:

On the Monitors tab (Performance Manager > Configuration > Monitors), click the Download Monitor button of the monitor.
A download dialog appears. Click Open to open the package with Silk Performer. Click Save to save the package to your hard drive.