Getting Started
What does ServicePilot do?
ServicePilot provides monitoring, alerting and reporting services for your IT environment.
To provide these services, you will need access to the ServicePilot SaaS platform and some basic set-up. The pre-requisites consist of:
- A valid ServicePilot account - to log in to the ServicePilot web pages
- A ServicePilot Agent - to collect data
Set up a ServicePilot account
Before being able to access ServicePilot web pages, a customer account will be required. Go to the ServicePilot SaaS Login page and use the Sign up link to create an account.
Once you have your login Username and Password you can use these to open your ServicePilot web pages.
To manage your account and create other users and groups, see the Manage documentation.
Install a ServicePilot Agent
Before ServicePilot can do anything, it needs to receive monitoring data. There are a number of different ServicePilot Agents. Choose the ServicePilot agent you require, download and install the agent from the ServicePilot web pages.
Download a ServicePilot Agent
- Using a user with administrative privileges, log in to ServicePilot.
- Open Settings
- Click on Agents > Install
- Select the Agent to install and follow the instructions under Get started
ServicePilot Agents are explained in more detail in the Agents documentation.
Start monitoring equipment
A ServicePilot Agent may be able to collect data but ServicePilot still needs to be told what each Agent should do. To monitor a device, pick one of the pre-configured packages and add it to the configuration by answering a few questions. These normally include the device IP address, which ServicePilot Agent to use to query this device and what sort of supervision is required.
It is also possible to automatically monitor resources when new agents are deployed. Set up auto-provisioning rules to tell ServicePilot what package to use when adding a new agent and where to place the resource in the monitoring hierarchy.
ServicePilot provisioning is explained in more detail in the Packages documentation.
Add a manual resource
- Using a user with administrative privileges, log in to ServicePilot.
- Open Settings
- Click on Provisioning > Views
- Select the type of monitoring package needed by category and use the filter to limit the options displayed
- Drag a package into the central view editor and let go
- Set the resource properties based on the package type selected. A unique resource name is always required as well as all fields highlighted with a *.
- Click OK
- Finally, click Save all changes
Note: Many packages use SNMP queries to obtain information. You may need to specify an SNMP policy with the correct credentials to monitor the device. See the Policies documentation for details.
Add an Auto-provisioning rule
- Using a user with administrative privileges, log in to ServicePilot.
- Open Settings
- Click on Provisioning > Auto-provisioning
- Click on Add a rule
- Complete the Automatic provisioning rule dialog. Specify at least a Rule name and set the Discovery type based on the Agent installed.
- Click OK
- Finally, click Save
View data collected
Once data is being collected, it can be viewed in different ways from the left-hand menu.
Monitoring
Data obtained and stored in the ServicePilot database can be viewed in different ways.
Menu item | Data views |
---|---|
Map | The Map view shows data as a hierarchy of views that contain further views and objects and graphical elements. The objects contain indicators which store the data obtained. |
Tree | The Tree view shows the hierarchy of views as a graphical tree. |
Geomap | The Geomap view shows views that have been configured with geo-coordinates. |
Host | The Host view shows all monitored resources by IP address or FQDN. |
Status | The Status view provides lists of resources, objects, views and classes by status. |
Sub-Menu
Menu item | Data views |
---|---|
Matrix | The Matrix view shows tables of hosts or resources with the collection types they perform. |
Uptime | The Uptime view shows Availability & Performance of views and objects as a grid over time. |
List | The List view shows a table of Availability & Performance statistics and alarm counts for all views. |
Dashboards
The Dashboards menu items provide access to ServicePilot data presented as a series of widgets. Each widget presents data as a graph, table or list from many sources. This allows dashboards to show general status overviews, summary information by type of monitored resource or details per monitored equipment, all on one web page.
Custom queries in the ServicePilot database may be performed under Widget.
To create custom dashboards take a look at the Reporting documentation.
Events
Log data received in different forms or events generated by ServicePilot itself are all to be found under the Events heading.
Menu item | Data views |
---|---|
Log | Depending on the type of Log data received, different dashboards are provided, summarizing the information. |
Events | ServicePilot Events, Syslogs and SNMP Traps are presented in their original form before in these dashboards. |
Analytics
Data trends and anomalies may also be analyzed by grouping collected data in different ways or processing the data using machine learning algorithms provide further dashboards and reports.
Menu item | Data views |
---|---|
Services | The Services view provides access to web services data collections by server, service, mappings between hosts, IP addresses, metrics and trace details. |
ML Series | The ML Series views provide analysis of numerical series highlighting spikes in the data, level changes and trend changes. If thresholds are set then predictions are made as to when these thresholds will be passed. |
ML Event | The ML Events views provide analysis of event data received, be it logs, call records or other event data pushed to ServicePilot. |
PDF reports | The PDF reports view allows for the generation of PDF reports based on templates built-in or generated by ServicePilot administrators. Scheduled reports might also be retrieved. |
SLA | The SLA view lists Service Level Agreement figures against objectives. |
Tools | Diagnostic Tools are available to test device reachability before adding elements to the supervision or just for one-off checks. |
Further information
The ServicePilot web interface contains text and concept descriptions to help use the tool.
Built-in help
In many places a question mark icon provides further information, either as a tooltip or as more detailed web pages.
Concepts
Some concepts are fundamental to the way ServicePilot operates. These concepts include, amongst others, objects, indicators, views, packages and policies. To view explanations, go to the built-in help pages:
- Click on the Help button
- Click on the tab Concepts
ServicePilot web site
The ServicePilot web site contains this documentation as well as further information on other aspects of the ServicePilot product.
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