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Simple way to migrate from Nagios to PRTG

Votes:

0

I am migrating from Nagios to PRTG and was wondering how to configure large number of servers which provide the same services, for example all SQL servers or servers that run IIS and SQL.

In Nagios i used host groups and all the monitoring was applied to the group, I had groups for SQL, IIS, FTP, etc.. Then we added the host to one or more groups depending on what needed to be monitored.

How would I configure PRTG to accomplish the same task?

Auto discovery leaves me with having to individually configure each device, which is not feasible in our enviroment.

Thanks Sal

group sensor template

Created on Jan 27, 2015 9:50:42 PM



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Accepted Answer

Votes:

10

Actually, you can have more than one template per device and auto-discovery combining these templates. To me, a sane approach for using templates is to define your templates as basic as possible and combine templates for auto-discovery as needed. Example: You might have a Windows template containing only sensor common to all Windows systems, a template monitoring Domain Services, and another one monitoring e.g. DNS and combine all those for auto-discovery of a Windows Domain Controller.

Created on Jan 29, 2015 11:55:05 AM



6 Replies

Votes:

7

In PRTG, you have the concept of device templates (https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/create_device_template.htm), which accomplish part of Nagios' group functionality. You can use those templates for autodiscovery to only have the sensors in the template being added, with the given configuration. Limitation are that the template is only used during initial discovery, meaning you can not apply changes to all devices created via a template by changing the template, and furthermore, you can not change the template at all (with acceptable effort). Unfortunately, the full group functionality known from Nagios is missing in PRTG.

Created on Jan 28, 2015 8:37:19 AM



Votes:

0

Thanks for the information. After I looked at the device templates I have one more question.

Can you run auto-discovery against the same device and use a different template each time?

For example if I create a device template for a generic windows server using a set of default sensors (ping, cpu, disk, memory) and a separate device template with sensors to monitor SQL, would I be able to run the initial auto-discovery by specifying the generic server template and at a later date run auto-discovery on the same device BUT specify the SQL monitoring template.

PS: I have been trying to test this process with out success, the original device does not get any additional sensors added after the initial discovery.

Thanks Sal

Created on Jan 28, 2015 8:31:09 PM



Accepted Answer

Votes:

10

Actually, you can have more than one template per device and auto-discovery combining these templates. To me, a sane approach for using templates is to define your templates as basic as possible and combine templates for auto-discovery as needed. Example: You might have a Windows template containing only sensor common to all Windows systems, a template monitoring Domain Services, and another one monitoring e.g. DNS and combine all those for auto-discovery of a Windows Domain Controller.

Created on Jan 29, 2015 11:55:05 AM



Votes:

0

I was looking at the auto-discover process and I see that you can select multiple templates, and I read that the easy way to create a template is to configure one device with the sensors already configured and create a device template.

Is there a place in the auto-discovery process to specify the device type? (cisco router, windows server, etc.. ) I'm asking because I ran auto-discovery against a sub-net thinking that because I specified a cisco template it would only identify cisco equipment, the discovery picked up all other devices as well.

Again thanks for the help.

Created on Jan 29, 2015 4:08:47 PM



Votes:

1

While this can probably only be answered definitely by someone from the Paessler team, to my knowledge there isn't such an option.

Created on Feb 2, 2015 8:38:05 AM



Votes:

0

Ages is correct. When you define an IP address range, all devices will be scanned. The templates are to control which sensors are created by Auto-Discovery. When using the Cisco template for example, no WMI sensors will be scanned for or when using a SNMP template, SSH sensors won't be created. There is no way to find only a certain device type with PRTG.

Created on Feb 2, 2015 8:46:23 AM by Greg Campion [Paessler Support]




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