ControlUp Data Collector

A data collector is responsible for collecting metrics from external sources such as VMware vCenter, Citrix Delivery Controllers, XenServer Poolmasters, AHV Clusters, and NetScaler appliances. Data collectors increase the performance capabilities of both your console and monitor.

Benefits of having a data collector

In the image on the left side, you see 2 consoles and a monitor both connected to the vCenter without a data collector. Each of these components is initiating its own API query to vCenter to gather data.

The API receives 3 API queries per interval with this configuration. The traffic can be significant in large environments.

In the image on the right side, a data collector is deployed. The only entity that does the API query is the data collector and it saves the data locally on the machine's memory buffer. The consoles & monitor, which are connected to the agent on the data collector (light connection), can read the data from the agent itself instead of performing their own API queries.

Data collector requirements

• A data collector is assigned 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of RAM. View the Sizing Guidelines article for exact sizing information.
• The OS can be either a client or a server.
• The machine must have the ControlUp Agent installed on it.
• .Net Framework v4.5
• Depending on the type of port connection, you should enable ports 80/443/9440.
• A pair of data collectors can be provided for high availability purposes.
• In the event of a failure of the data collector, a backup data collector assumes this role until the data collector is brought back online.
• SDKs from Citrix must be deployed to the data collector to connect to the XenDesktop Delivery Controllers (you can download it from the following article).

Data collector configuration

The following steps are strongly recommended to ensure optimal performance of ControlUp connections to the console and the monitor. It is a best practice to designate one or more machines in your ControlUp organization to act as a data collector for hypervisors. The steps below should be performed either while you add your hypervisors / EUC environments or after you have already added them. The data collector must be connected to every hypervisor / EUC environment in your environment.

To configure a dedicated data collector:

1. Add a managed machine to the console which will function as the data collector and will later be defined as the active data collector. You must designate this machine as the data collector for every hypervisor and EUC environment connection.

2. To add the data collector to a new hypervisor or EUC environment, click either Add Hypervisor or Add EUC Environment in the top ribbon. You must set up the connection to the hypervisor or EUC environment in the top area of the dialog and then follow the steps below.
   To add a data collector to an existing hypervisor or EUC environment, right-click it in the organization tree and select Connection Settings.
   

For hypervisors, the Connection Options section below the connection to the hypervisor is where you designate data collectors. For EUC Environments it is in the Data Collectors tab.

3. By default, the ControlUp Console / Monitor acts as a data collector so to designate a data collector you first have to remove this default.
   Click Remove and then OK. The ControlUp Console / Monitor is removed as the default.
   

4. If you are in the connection options for a hypervisor, click +Add.
   If you are in the connection options for an EUC environment, click the Data Collectors tab and then click +Add.

5. Select the managed machine you added to function as the designated data collector in step 1 above and click OK.
   Your data collector is now configured for this connection.

6. Repeat for every hypervisor / EUC environment.

You can also set a monitor as a data collector by installing the agent on the monitor machine and following this procedure.