Monitoring Form Help

Junctionbox's Network Operation Center uses sophisticated monitoring tools to ensure server, and network uptime of our core systems. If you would like to take advantage of that, and have our Network Operations Center monitor your Managed Server at Junctionbox, we'd be happy to do that. This is the form to specify what type of monitoring you would like us to for you. Keep in mind that we offer no monitoring of our services by default, and will leave monitoring off until you tell us what you would like monitored, and what notification you would like to receive.

If you have a Managed Server with Junctionbox and you have purchased the Operating System Management option then we already monitor and respond to every event. This form is not necessary.

Adjustments to your monitoring service can be made at any time by using this form to submit changes.

Download the Monitoring Service Request Form (MS Word Document)

Please be sure to describe what you are trying to accomplish in the space provided on the form. That helps us make we are monitoring the right thing, and responding appropriately to each alarm.

Monitoring Form Explanation

Name, phone, etc.

Only administrative/emergency contacts can add or change monitoring services.

Please fill in the contact information. We may need to contact you for clarification and/or suggestions about the monitoring services you request.

Please allow two business days for new monitoring changes to take effect

Equipment and Services to be Monitored

Add,
Modify or
Delete

Device
IP address

O.S.

Monitoring Service
(SNMP, ITO Agent,
http, ftp, port#, etc)

SNMP
Read Community
String

Equipment
Function

Type or Location
of Equipment

#
The first column is a number for administrative purposes.

Add, Modify or Delete:
This is where you specify if you adding, modifying or removing a monitoring service. When you are starting out, you are usually Adding a monitoring rule. If you want to change the IP address or type of monitoring service that you have on your server, specify that you are Modifying the rules. Delete rules if you want to stop a particular monitoring service.

Device IP address:
This is the IP (Internet) address of the computer, router, or other networked device that you would like us to monitor. You can usually find your IP address on your Junctionbox Account Information sheet. If you have any questions about what an IP address is, or how to find out what yours is, please contact our Customer Support department either via email support@junctionbox.net or by phone (352) 683-0349.

O.S.
Please tell us what operating system is running on the devices we are to monitor. For routers, switches, etc. please provide the name of the manufacturer.

Monitoring Service:
This specifies the type of monitoring service you need. There are primary types of monitoring services available:

Port Monitoring - This is the most basic form of monitoring and will report on a device or service being "up or down" only. Port Monitoring uses a TCP/IP connection to the device on a specified port. This is similar to a ping test but more reliable and with the added benefit of being able to monitor a TCP/IP service running on a specific port. TCP/IP ports usually represent the port a particular service listens on. For example, a web server listens on the http port which is port 80. If the TCP connection cannot be established the monitor will fail and the device or service will be marked unreachable which will generate a Critical alarm, although no information is given about what caused the failure.
SNMP Monitoring - This type of monitoring not only checks the up/down status of a device but also determines the health of the hardware. SNMP monitoring uses the SNMP protocol to monitor and communicate with the SNMP agent running on a device reachable with TCP/IP. SNMP is available as standard on most TCP/IP devices including routers, switches, and servers. SNMP generally reports on the performance and integrity of the hardware such as network interface utilization and errors, power supplies, cooling fan performance, CPU utilization, etc. SNMP monitoring requires that the device be configured to allow SNMP polling by our Network Operation Center and it must be configured to have SNMP traps pointed to a special IP address on our servers which captures and reports on this information to the Network Operations Center.
ITO Agent - This is the most advanced monitoring option which checks the up/down status of a server, the health of the hardware, and also checks the health of the Operating System. This is only available for servers running Win NT/2000. ITO Agent monitoring builds on the functionality of SNMP monitoring and extends it to the actual operating system of servers. SNMP Monitoring is included in ITO Agent monitoring. This service requires that a piece of software called an "intelligent agent" be installed on the server. This agent check every significant aspect of the routine operation of the server and reports on the overall health of the server to the Junctionbox Network Operations Center. Any problems such as low disk space, application errors, hacking attempts, and countless other elements are constantly checked and compared against baselines for indications of trouble. This service is only available for servers (not routers, switches, etc.) and requires simple server side software installation and configuration. Junctionbox will provide you with the agent software as part of the monitoring service activation process.

SNMP Read Community String:
For either SNMP or ITO Agent monitoring we must know the Read Community String for the device we are monitoring. This is usually a single word with no spaces and acts as a kind of password for SNMP monitoring. Many devices will allow for both a read only and a read/write Community String. These two string should usually be different and you only need to provide the Read Community String for Junctionbox Monitoring. The read string only allows us to gather information and does not allow us to change anything on the device. Port monitoring does not require a community string.

Equipment Function:
Please tell us what the primary function of this equipment is so that we know how to evaluate the monitoring messages we receive. For instance, if a server is primarily a Web server then we would know that anything which interfered with the functioning of the Web server application or access to port 80 would be a critical event.

Type or Location of Equipment:
It is important for the Network Operations Center to know where equipment is located that it is monitoring or the type of Junctionbox service it is. This help us understand the monitoring messages we receive and help us identify potential causes of failures.

Describing what you are trying to accomplish

Give us a brief outline of the monitoring that you would like us to for you. Take advantage of our Internet experience, and explain what you are trying to achieve and we will do our best to help you accomplish that.

Alarm Action and Notification Preferences

Alarm Type

Junctionbox's
Admin for Hire

Contact #1 Notification
Name:

Contact #2 Notification
Name:

Contact #3 Notification
Name:

Take No
Action

Alarm Type:
There are five levels of alarms that Junctionbox's Network Operations Center recognizes. These Alarms are:

CRITICAL - The system or device is down or is imminent danger of going down. This is the highest alarm level and generally receives instant attention. All three monitoring services (Port Monitoring, SNMP, and ITO Agent) are capable of producing this type of alarm.
MAJOR - A serious outage has occurred which is likely visible to users. Examples are one or more down services or performance degradation which renders a service or server virtually unusable. All monitoring services are capable of generating this type of alarm.
MINOR - A serious event was detected but it does not seem to deny service to users at this point. Examples would be high CPU utilization which lasts only for a few minutes or a Port Check which fails once but then returns without error. Minor alarms can foretell larger failures in the future. All monitoring services have the potential to generate alarms which are in this category although the most useful information will come from SNMP and ITO Agent monitoring.
WARNING - A noteworthy event but not one that requires immediate action or investigation. This would include isolated failed login attempts, general error log reporting, minor network interface errors, etc. Often these types of messages are helpful in troubleshooting a larger or more serious problem. Only SNMP and ITO Agent monitoring is capable of generating this level of granularity in error reporting.
OTHER - Routine messages denoting successful task completion. This includes successful logins, successful completion of cron or scheduler tasks, successful backups, normal traffic through an interface, etc. This level of monitoring is important to ensure that normal server functions are happening and can assist in troubleshooting events. Only ITO Agent monitoring is capable of providing meaningful information at this level.

Junctionbox's Admin For Hire:
For many server platforms and for many network devices, Junctionbox has the professional System Administrators on hand to actually respond to the problems that our Network Operations Center detects from our monitoring activities. Not only can we detect the problem, but often we can fix it as well.

Use the check boxes in this column if you would like Junctionbox to notify one our System Administrators about the problem detected and have them begin immediately working to resolve the problem. Junctionbox Admin For Hire is billed at a rate of $150/hour (M-F 8:00am - 5:00pm) and $250/hour (holidays and all other times). This service also requires that we have root or Administrator access to the equipment you wish us to work on.

Contact Notifications (1, 2, 3):
These columns allow you to instruct our Network Operations Center as to who should get notified about the different types of alarms detected and how that notification should happen. The contacts (1, 2 & 3) come from the Administrative and Emergency Contact form which you must complete before Monitoring services can be activated. That form contains the e-mail addresses and phone number information the Network Operations Center needs to notify you of an alarm. We ask that you write in the names on this form, only so that we are sure to notify the correct individual.

Your two choices for notification are e-mail and phone. E-mail can include text pages to pagers or cells phones that support e-mail paging. Phone notification means that a technician in the Network Operations Center will place a call to the phone numbers listed on the Administrative and Emergency Contact form for that individual. These notification methods apply unless noted otherwise on the Emergency Contact form.

Take No Action:
The take no action box tells us what to ignore. If you check this box we will not send you alarm notifications or do Admin for Hire work for this level of alarm. This box is especially useful for Warning level alarms for non-essential devices.

Final Notes

At the bottom of the Monitoring Services Request form is a description of Junctionbox's Administrator for Hire service. With this service, Junctionbox System Administrators will respond immediately to the alarm types that you specify and work up to 2 hours, or the amount of time you specify, to fix the problem. You will only be billed for the time our professional System Administrators actually spend to restore a device to it's normal working condition (in half hour increments).

Where to send your completed form:
Please Sign and Date the form and should e-mail it to support@junctionbox.net.