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Foglight 7.1.0 - Getting Started Guide

Foglight architecture overview

The components described in the preceding sections combine to compose Foglight (as shown in Figure 3).

Figure 3. Foglight architecture

Users interact with the Management Server and the data collected by the agents through dashboards in the Foglight browser interface, which is built on the Web Component Framework. See the Web Component Guide for more information about the framework and browser interface.

Cartridges are installed onto the Management Server, providing agents, rules, reports, and views specific to the application or technology that the cartridge is designed to monitor.

Agents are deployed to monitored hosts and communicate with the Management Server either directly, or through the Agent Manager.

Figure 4. Foglight Management Server architecture

In order to gain a better understanding of how the Management Server provides a complete view of your monitored system, review the following typical data workflows.

Example Agent Data Workflow:
1
Data from an agent arrives. The Management Server transforms it into canonical form (topology CDT) and creates model instances.
2
The Data Service receives the transformed agent data for management.
3
The presence of new metric data triggers the notification of all interested subscribers.
a
The first subscriber is a derived data metric that is calculated and then sent back to the Data Service for management.
b
The second subscriber is the Rule Engine. It notes that a rule wants a particular piece of data and adds it to its locally cached set.
4
The Rule Engine notes that the rule is available for evaluation. It gets the Groovy script that defines the rule expression from the Scripting Service and evaluates it. The rule fires at severity level FATAL.
5
Severity level FATAL has several actions associated with it, including an action to send an e-mail to specific users through the Notification Service.
Example User Workflow:
1
A Foglight user logs in to Foglight through the browser interface to check the system status.
2
The user selects a dashboard.
3
WCF displays the dashboard and makes a series of queries to the Data Service through the Query Service.
a
A query asks the Query Service for data.
b
The Query Service asks the Data Service.
c
The Data Service can provide part of the data as cached. However, some of the data is historical, requiring the Persistence Service to retrieve the historical data from the Database and return the result to the Data Service.
4
The user wants to change a rule condition, and navigates to the appropriate dashboard to do so.
5
The request to change the rule condition is sent to the Service Layer, which verifies that the user has the necessary authorization before passing on the change request.
6
The Service Layer contacts the Rule Engine and makes the requested change.
7
The Rule Engine persists its new state in the Database.
8
Once the change is successful, the Service Layer notes who made the change in the change audit log.

 

 

Installation and Setup Overview

This section provides an overview of the Foglight installation and setup process. It summarizes the main steps involved in installing Foglight and contains directions to instructions in other guides; it is intended as a preface or supplement to these guides.

•
Part 1: Installing the Management Server
•
Part 2: Starting Foglight and logging in
•
Part 3: Installing cartridges
•
Part 4: Installing and running the Agent Manager
•
Part 5: Deploying and creating agents
References to the Installation and Setup Guide set

The Foglight documentation suite includes a multi-guide Installation and Setup Guide set. Throughout this guide, instructions direct you to the Installation and Setup Guide where the same type of information exists in all guides in the set. In these cases, see the Installation and Setup Guide for the database and platform you are running. When information exists only in certain guides, those guides are referred to by name or type.

Before you get started

Before you install Foglight, review the components you plan to install and ensure that you have the necessary information, such as port numbers and server names or the target installation locations.

Before you begin, you must determine if you are going to set up and run the Management Server in High Availability (HA) or standalone mode, and decide whether to use an embedded or external database. For help making these determinations, see “High Availability mode” in the Installation and Setup Guide for running Foglight with an external database and “Using embedded databases” or “Using external databases” in the Installation and Setup Guide for the type of database you plan to run.

Before installing Foglight, review the System Requirements and Platform Support Guide, and “Before installing Foglight” and “Preparing to install” in your Installation and Setup Guide.

Part 1: Installing the Management Server

1
Install the Management Server: Run the installer by following the appropriate set of instructions in “Installing Foglight” in the Installation and Setup Guide.
An instance of the Agent Manager is automatically installed with the Management Server and runs on the Management Server machine. See “Configuring the embedded Agent Manager” in the Agent Manager Guide.
2
Configure the Management Server and database: Once you install the Management Server, you may need to configure it, change its settings, or perform other additional setup steps. For more information, see “Foglight settings” in the Installation and Setup Guide.
Depending on the type of database you are running, you may need to configure it or change its settings. For example:
•
If you are using an external database and decided to manually set up the database after installation, see “Manual database configuration” in the Installation and Setup Guide for your platform and external database.
•
If you are using an external database, see “External database access for remote users” in the Installation and Setup Guide for your platform and external database.
•
If you want to set up an encrypted connection to an external database, see “Setting up an encrypted database connection” in the Installation and Setup Guide for your platform and external database.
For more information, see “Foglight settings” in the Installation and Setup Guide for the platform and database you are running. See the section “Installing Foglight FAQ” in the Installation and Setup Guide if you encounter problems when performing the steps listed above.

Part 2: Starting Foglight and logging in

Before you begin: For instructions to migrate from using an embedded PostgreSQL® database with the Management Server to using an external PostgreSQL database, see “Appendix: Switching from an Embedded to an External Database” in the Foglight Installation and Setup Guide (for UNIX® or Windows® systems with Embedded PostgreSQL Database).

1
Initialize the Database:
•
If you are using an external database, the database must be initialized successfully before you can run Foglight.
•
If you are using the embedded database, the initialization is performed when you start the Management Server.
2
Start the Management Server: The Management Server can be run in standalone mode, in High Availability (HA) mode (with an external database), or as a Windows® service. See “Starting and stopping the Foglight Management Server” in the Installation and Setup Guide and “Running the Foglight Management Server” in the Command-Line Reference Guide.
3
Configure the embedded Agent Manager: In most cases, you do not need to configure the embedded Agent Manager. If you need to configure the embedded Agent Manager, you can do so by running the Agent Manager configuration interface from the embedded Agent Manager installation directory. See “Configuring the embedded Agent Manager” in the Agent Manager Guide for more information.
4
Log in to Foglight: See “Logging in to Foglight” in the User Guide for more information.
* 
NOTE: The Foglight browser interface requires JavaScript. Before attempting to log in, ensure that JavaScript is enabled in your Web browser.

See “Running the Foglight Management Server FAQ” in the Installation and Setup Guide if you encounter problems when performing the steps listed above.

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