Welcome to SOLVE by ControlUp. 

ControlUp SOLVE gives you powerful and comprehensive, real-time monitoring and analysis in a hosted web application.

Accessing via a web interface means there's less resource consumption on the endpoints that are logging in and viewing the data, giving you and your users a leaner, more performance-driven experience.

SOLVE provides a wide range of new functionality including:

• Dashboard widgets that have been configured to provide you the latest, most relevant information on your environments, right out-of-the-box. See more details below.
• Topology view of your environment that displays the relationships between components. Discovered components are displayed dynamically. You can drill down from each component to access detailed performance information. See more details below and in this article.
• Drill down from any component in the topology or dashboard widgets with powerful contextual navigation built from our recommendations engine.
• Data grids from the ControlUp console with a more modern look and feel and lots of new features. 
• Historical Trends for metrics related to machines and hosts.

Navigation

The main navigation on the left gives you the option to select how the data is displayed and which data to display. 

Tree

Your organization is represented in the same tree structure as in the ControlUp console. You can choose to open and close the tree with open triangle icon on the left side below the page navigation icons.

The data in the Dashboard and Discovery views are displayed in the SOLVE web page, based on the context you selected in the organization tree. For example, if you set up a folder in the ControlUp console to represent the components that belong to a certain team in your organization, when you highlight that folder in SOLVE, only the performance and monitoring data for those components are displayed in the topology, widgets and columns.

When a folder is highlighted in the tree affecting the data displayed, this message is displayed telling you what data you are seeing: Focusing on: <folder name>.

Dashboard View

The dashboard provides out-of-the-box widgets with easy to understand visual indicators of many of the metrics, performance indicators and details found in ControlUp. These widgets provide you more insight so you can better understand the performance and status of your whole environment. The out-of-the-box widgets include the following:

• Single statistics. For example, number of running hosts, average logon duration in seconds, datastore free space in terabytes.
• Gauges. Computed based on data types, for example, session and process stress levels. 
• Bar graphs. Categorized data on specific metrics, including:
  • Top 5 processes by CPU usage
  • Top 5 processes by memory utilization
  • Top 5 processes by disk usage
  • Top user sessions by CPU consumption
  • Slowest logons
• Line graphs. Analyzing data from different sources. For example, averages, usage percentages, and usage over time.

If you drilldown into any of the widgets, you can see the Discovery view that includes the new Topology view and the data grid below. You see this data based on the context of which widget you clicked in the Dashboard view and its related metrics.

User Experience and Resources Selection

You can choose to view the dashboard based on these selections:

• User Experience: Displays all the metrics relevant to the end-user computing experience. These can include logon duration, user sessions, etc. You can view the metrics that affect how your users are experiencing your IT environment.
• Resources: Displays all the metrics relevant to the infrastructure of your IT environment. These can include CPU usage, memory, network, machines, disk space, etc.
• All: Displays metrics for both User Experience and Resources. This is the default display.

Discovery View with Topology 

The Discovery View enables you to perform accurate investigations on real-time data. The data displayed provides you with accurate and targeted information on your systems so you can efficiently discover issues as they arise.

There are dedicated pages with specific widgets and columns depending on what you choose to highlight in the topology at the top of the page. 

Topology

The topology is a new feature that displays your organization visually, showing the connections between all the elements in your monitored environment. Each of the elements can be drilled down to provide you with more information and monitoring details.

• When drilling down from the topology, the elements are displayed in the dashboard widgets and grid below.
• When drilling down to objects in the dashboard or the grid, use the topology to navigate between the objects that are related to the element you drilled down to, both parent and child elements.

Drill downs, breadcrumbs 

SOLVE give you smarter drill-downs and navigation to troubleshoot any issues and see the status of your environment. Drill-downs and navigations are based on common configurations so the columns you see in the grid are the ones that are most relevant to the entity selected in the drill-down. These column groupings are based on the data in ControlUp to give you the best monitoring experience and remove less relevant data.

At the top of the SOLVE screen, you can see if you have drilled down and into what entities, so you have the context for the data you are accessing. The trail of what you have accessed is visible in this 'breadcrumb' and you can back through your steps by clicking any entity appearing in the breadcrumb.

The Topology at the top of the solve screen also changes based on what you might have accessed in the grid. 

Grid with Grid Options

Columns options:

• Search
• Enlarge / Decrease column grid
• Grid at full screen
• Select columns

If you find that there are columns that you want to see that are not appearing in your view, you can search and add more columns. You can save your view and restore defaults to revert to the ControlUp suggested column view.

Historical Trends

While SOLVE's power lies in its real-time monitoring, you can also use it to view historical trends on any metrics related to machines and hosts. These metrics are available for single entities, multiple entities and for the relevant Dashboard Widgets. Read Historical Trends in SOLVE for full details on this feature.

SOLVE Access and Login

You can access SOLVE either directly via URL or from the ControlUp console. First-time access must be done through the Console.

When you access via a URL, you must also identify a ControlUp organization name at the end of the URL: https://solve.controlup.com/ORG_NAME where ORG_NAME is the your ControlUp organization's name.

The login to both ControlUp and SOLVE is now more secure and includes using a one-time passcode (OTP).

For details on how to configure login settings and access SOLVE, see Login Flow for The ControlUp Console v8.2 and Up & SOLVE 1.0 and Up.

When you first log into the ControlUp Console as a new user, you are required to register into ControlUp with your contact details including an email address. A one time passcode is then sent to that email address for verification. There is no need to sign in again into the console once you are verified.

Insights and SOLVE are web applications that can be accessed from the ControlUp console. If accessing from the console links, you don't sign in and can directly access both Insights and SOLVE.

Direct URL Logins

You can also access the Insights and SOLVE web applications though a direct URL. Details on these options below.

Login for Insights

Users without SSO can log into https://insights.controlup.com/auth with their email and one-time password (OTP). For complete information about logging into Insights, see here.

Prerequisites for Direct URL Login to SOLVE

The following are required to use this login approach:

• ControlUp Monitor v8.2 or higher.
• Users must have an Active Directory account to use SOLVE.
• Users must authenticate using their Active Directory account to be authorized in the ControlUp Console and in SOLVE.

Login for SOLVE

The following are the options for logging into SOLVE:

• Using the SOLVE button from the console as described above.
• Direct URL access using either:
  • SAML Single Sign On
  • LDAP Integration

The ControlUp monitor facilitates communication to the SOLVE instance in the cloud, and serves and authorizes multiple SOLVE users concurrently.

When logging into SOLVE:

• First time access to SOLVE must be from the link in the Console even if you plan on using one of the direct URL methods after that first login.
• Login to SOLVE is possible only for users who are already registered users in the ControlUp Console.

Tip: If you are using SOLVE and want to open a separate window, we recommend using your browser's Duplicate feature to open that second window. You will not be asked to verify your credentials to open that second window.

Go to SOLVE from the Console

Your first access to SOLVE must be from the SOLVE ribbon in the ControlUp Console, and you can always access SOLVE this way from the ControlUp Console. The user accessing SOLVE must have a verified user in the ControlUp Console.

SAML Login

When logging into SOLVE with SAML integration:

• Browse to the SOLVE instance URL, which must include the organization name (e.g. solve.controlup.com/<organization name>). You are redirected to the Identity Provider (IdP) server for authentication (for example: ADFS).
• You submit the credentials that you use for your internal organization's IdP in the IdP's authentication webpage and the IdP server passes the credential for internal authentication.

LDAP Login

Logging into SOLVE with LDAP integration uses a two step verification.

1. Browse to the SOLVE instance URL that you received by email the first time you opened the ControlUp Console after the upgrade to version 8.2 or higher.
2. You are prompted to enter a valid user principle name (UPN).
   Note: If you don't know your UPN, go to cmd and enter: whoami /UPN and press enter, and your UPN should appear.
3. Go through the one-time password (OTP) verification. The OTP is sent to your registered ControlUp email - the one you used to register to ControlUp. 
4. After you pass OTP verification, you are prompted to enter your valid Active Directory password and SOLVE opens.
   When entering the OTP, you can select Don't ask again on this computer, and skip the OTP verification for 30 days on this computer.

Troubleshooting

• Make sure that you’re using Chrome or Edge! 
• Try clearing your browser cache, then try again.
• Try logging into an incognito (Chrome) or InPrivate (Edge) browser window.   
• Make sure that the IP you’re entering to access SOLVE is on your organization’s whitelist. 
• Check that if using LDAP, you are entering your UPN and not your ControlUp user email address (even though these may be the same).

Configuration

Once you have have accessed SOLVE from the console, you can configure SOLVE to be accessible with a SAML or LDAP login. For details, see Configure SOLVE.

To make SOLVE accessible via SAML or LDAP: 

1. From the lower left corner of the SOLVE dashboard, click the settings button and the Setting screen appears.
   
2. From the box in the upper left corner, select either SAML Single Sign On or LDAP Integration. and the page scrolls to the selected section.
   
3. Enable/disable SAML Single Sign On or LDAP Integration by toggling the Turn on/off buttons in the respective sections and the selected integration is enabled/disabled.

Read here about the details for configuring SAML SSO authentication for SOLVE. The article includes a use case example for configuring ADFS.

Note: If SAML and LDAP are both configured, only the SAML configuration works.

For more information, contact support@controlup.com 

SOLVE is ControlUp's new, hosted web application for accessing monitoring and analysis on your IT infrastructure. Read more about this new interface here.

Getting Started with SOLVE

To use and access SOLVE, here are the basic steps to follow. Details for each appear in the links below.

1. Check that you have all the necessary Prerequisites.
2. Manage ControlUp Monitors. Monitors are required for getting data into SOLVE.
3. Access SOLVE from the ControlUp Real-Time Console when accessing for the first time.
4. Set Users and Permissions to manage who can configure and access SOLVE. 
5. Optionally, Access SOLVE via Direct URL and set up LDAP or SAML authentication. 
6. Optionally, view the ControlUp Audit Log within SOLVE.
7. Optionally, Troubleshoot Monitor Issues if you don't see data available in SOLVE.

Prerequisites

• SOLVE is available only with version ControlUp v8.2 and above.
• Users must have an Active Directory account.
• Users must authenticate in ControlUp using their Active Directory account to be authorized in the ControlUp Console and in SOLVE.
• Port 443 must be available from the monitor to communicate to the SOLVE client.
• TCP ports required for connecting to the ControlUp Monitors:
  • • RPC/WMI - for monitor deployment via the console.
    • 40706 - for monitor management.
• If you use one of the following proxy authentication methods, these are supported for SOLVE: Negotiate Proxy; Basic Proxy; NTLM Proxy - if you want to use NTLM authentication for the proxy server, contact our support team to assist with the required prerequisites.

Manage ControlUp Monitors

Monitors are integral and required for using SOLVE to enable continuous monitoring of your resources. Ensure you have monitors connected to your ControlUp environment before accessing data in SOLVE.

The Manage Monitors feature in the SOLVE tab of the Real-Time Console allows you to view the status of installed monitors in your environment. This feature also enables you to add and delete sites, add monitors to existing sites, and modify monitor settings.

For complete information regarding ControlUp Monitors, see here.

Manage Monitors

To access the Manage ControlUp Monitors section, click Manage Monitors from the SOLVE tab of the console.

The Manage ControlUp Monitors screen contains two tabs displaying the status of your monitors and data sources. Only connected data sources are visible. 

Monitors Tab

The Monitors tab displays the monitors connected to the environment.

In the examples below, all monitors are connected properly and are displayed with a green symbol next to them.

If there is an issue with a monitor, the green symbol next the monitor turns yellow to alert about a warning, or red to alert about an error. A brief description of the issue appears in the Details column. To learn more about the issue, click more details... in the Status column and the More Detail popup appears. For a list of possible monitor issues, see Troubleshoot Monitors.

Data Sources Tab

The Data Sources tab displays the components of the environment.

Click on a data source to expand and see which monitor it is connected to each component.

Access SOLVE

There are two ways that SOLVE can be accessed:

• From the Console
• A Direct URL that can be personalized from within SOLVE

First-time access to SOLVE must be through the Console. Once SOLVE has been accessed initially from the Console, it can be configured to be accessed with a Direct URL.

Access from the Console

You can access SOLVE from the ControlUp Console by clicking SolVE from the SolVE ribbon.

Once clicked, SOLVE opens in your web browser.

Access with a Direct URL

SOLVE can be accessed with a direct URL that you can customize from the SOLVE settings page.

By default, the URL is set as https://solve.controlup.com/<ORG_NAME>/login, where ORG_NAME is the name of the organization.

To customize the direct URL:

1. Click the settings button in the lower left-hand button of the SOLVE window and the settings page opens.
2. Enter the the name you want to add to the URL in the textbox of the Instance URL section.
3. Once a valid and unique name as been entered, click Apply and the URL is saved and ready to use.

To access SOLVE with your direct URL, go to the URL and the logon page appears as follows:

You can also set either SAML or LDAP authentication to access SOLVE via direct URL. For details on login options, see Login Flow for SOLVE and the ControlUp Console v8.2 and Up. For details on configurating SAML authentication, see SAML SSO for SOLVE.

Add Users & Permissions

Along with the general ControlUp permissions, there are two permissions that are specific to SOLVE: Use SOLVE and Manage SOLVE, as described below.

For general information about the ControlUp's security policy and permissions, see here.

To access the permissions, click User Permissions in the SOLVE ribbon from the ControlUp Console.

Use SOLVE

All users from your active directory that you want to have access to SOLVE must have this permission. This permission also allows the user to perform the following:

• View folder
• Use shared credentials
• View all hypervisors
• Connect to data source
• Connect to Windows machine
• Connect to Linux machine

For more information regarding these permissions, see here.

Manage SOLVE

The Manage Solve permission is intended for admin users of SOLVE. This permission grants configuration privileges, including:

• Instance URL modification
• SAML Single Sign On settings
• LDAP Integration settings
• Session Timeout settings

To go to the these settings, click the setting button on the lower left-hand corner of the SOLVE window.

Note: The settings button above does not appear for when Use SOLVE permissions are implemented.

Audit Log

The audit log enables you to see actions performed on your managed assets and is available from SOLVE.  See here for more information.

Troubleshoot Monitors 

Here is a list of possible issues you may encounter when monitors are reporting data to SOLVE. You can access this list from the SOLVE tab in the Real-Time Console under Manage Monitors.

When accessing SOLVE via a direct URL, you can configure SAML to enable Single-Sign On (SSO) authentication. The settings in SOLVE enable you to set up a trust relationship between the URL hosting SOLVE and your company's Identity Provider (IdP) so users can access SOLVE securely.

Here is an overview of what you have to do to configure SAML with detailed steps provided below.

• Enter the required URLs from your IdP into the SOLVE settings page.
• Upload a trust certificate from your IdP into the SOLVE settings page.
• Download the trust certificate from the SOLVE page and add it into your IdP.
• Retrieve the necessary fields from the SOLVE settings page and enter them into your IdP.

Here are the specific steps you have to perform. Below this procedure, we have provided a use case using the Active Directory Federated Service (ADFS) as an example of how to configure an IdP with the SOLVE settings.

To configure SAML in the SOLVE interface:

1. 1. In your chosen IdP, locate the trust certificate to use for SOLVE and copy it to a location accessible to the local computer from where you are accessing SOLVE.
   2. Open the ControlUp Real-Time Console.
   3. Access SOLVE from the SOLVE menu on the top ribbon of the console.
      The SOLVE interface opens in a browser window.
   4. In the SOLVE home page, click the settings link on bottom of the menu on the left side of the window.
   5. In the SOLVE Settings page, turn the toggle button on for Enable SAML (SSO) Authentication.
      Note: It is recommended not to enable both SAML and LDAP. If both are enabled, SOLVE uses SAML authentication.
   6. Enter the following URLs from your IdP: 
      - Sign in URL. The URL used for logging into your IdP.
      - Sign out URL. This is an optional field to use for signing out of the IdP.
      For example, if ADFS is the IdP, the URLs could look like this with your company's domain:
      
   7. Click Upload Certificate and locate the certificate from your IdP that you copied in step 1.
   8. Enter the Virtual Server IDs. The virtual server as configured in the IdP connection certificate.
      For example, the URL could look like this with your company's domain:
      
   9. The SOLVE settings page provides you with the following values: 
      - Relying Party Trust Identifier. The uniform resource name that is a unique, persistent identifier.
      - Assertion URL. The endpoint that your IdP will use to redirect during the authentication process.
      - Endpoint URL. 
      Here's an example of what these values could look like:
      
      Copy these values and enter them into the appropriate locations in your IdP.
   10. Under Sign Request, click the certificate link to download the trust certificate for SOLVE and save it in a location that your IdP can access. 
       

Now you can return to your chosen IdP and create an endpoint for SOLVE using the values provided and the downloaded certificate. 

Use Case Example - Active Directory Federated Service (ADFS)

Read here to get the basic details of how to configure secure SAML authentication if your Identity Provider (IdP) is ADFS. 

1. Open your ADFS interface.
2. Under the Service folder, click Certificates. Copy one of the certificates to a location accessible to the user configuring the SAML settings for SOLVE. 
   
   This is step 1 of the procedure above, and you upload this certificate in step 7 above.
3. In the ADFS interface, select Relying Party Trusts. Right-click to open the Properties dialog.
   
4. In the Properties dialog, select the Endpoints tab and click Add SAML... The Edit Endpoint dialog opens.
5. Under the Trusted URL field, copy the Assertion URL you retrieved from the SOLVE Settings page in step 9 of the procedure above.
   
   Ensure that:
   Endpoint type is SAML Assertion Consumer
   Binding is POST
6. Click OK and this Endpoint is added.
   
7. In the same Properties dialog, select the Signature tab, click Add and upload the SOLVE certificate you downloaded in step 10 of the procedure above.
   
8. In the same Properties dialog, select the Identifiers tab, and under the Relying party identifier: field, enter the Relying Party Trust Identifier value you retrieved from the SOLVE Settings page in step 9 of the above procedure. Click Add next to the field and you'll see the URN added to the list of Relying party identifiers in the dialog.
   

Your SOLVE users should now be able to authenticate through your ADFS identity provider.

You can view historical trend data directly within the SOLVE interface. When you see a metric you want to investigate further, you can select to view historical data for the past several days.

In this first phase of development, historical data is available for metrics that are related to:

• Machines that have the ControlUp agent installed
• Host metrics

You can select to view historical trends for:

• Single entities in the grid of the Discovery view 
• Multiple entities in the grid of the Discovery view 
• Dashboard widgets in the Dashboard view or the Discovery view

Single Entity

Let's say you have a machine that is showing over 90% percent CPU usage and you want to know for how long it has been performing at that state. You can drilldown to view the history of that metric over a period of the most previous 24, 48 or 72 hours. 

To view the historical trend for a single entity:

1. In the Discovery view in the entity grid, Hover over one of the entity's columns that are related to machine or host metrics. You'll see the clock icon in that column next to the metric.
   
2. Click the clock icon to open an overlay displaying the metrics for the past 24 hours. You can also select to view 48 or 72 hours.
   

Machine Trends

Let's say you see a real problem with the machine you are viewing and you want to see further metrics but you don't want to have to start navigating to different dashboards or grid columns. Right in the history overlay you can see the following Machine Trends for the single machine:

• CPU Utilization
• Memory Utilization
• I/O Utilization
• Network Usage

To see Machine Trends for the same machine you are viewing:

Expand the overlay for a single machine by clicking the arrow icon next to the hours selection.

The Machine Trends window opens displaying the 4 relevant metrics. You can select to view the graphs in boxes or in a row. You can also select to view the data for the most recent 24, 48 or 72 hours.

Note: If you click the clock icon  next to one of the entities selected, even if multiple entities are checked as selected, the historical trend view opens for just that entity. You must click the Machine Trends icon at the top of the grid to get the multiple machines view.

Multiple Entities - Machine Trends

You can view these same 4 metrics as the expanded Machine Trends view for up to 10 machines in the Discovery view grid. This is useful if you want to see a comparison between the metrics for several machines over time. 

To view the historical trend for multiple entities:

1. Hover over the area of the grid to the immediate left of the machine's name and click to select that machine.
   
2. Repeat for all the machines you want to select for this historical trend view.
3. Once you have made all your selections (of only up to 10 machines), click the icon at the top of the grid.
   
   The Machine Trends window opens displaying the metrics for all the selected machines, represented by different colors for each machine in each graph.

   

Dashboard Widgets

The relevant Dashboard Widgets in both SOLVE's Dashboard view and Discovery view include the ability to view historical trends. The widget's data has to be mapped to the monitoring information for machines or hosts. The relevant dashboards widgets include Machines Average CPU Usage, Machines Total Network Throughput, Hosts Average RAM Usage and more.

You can identify a relevant widget if you see the clock icon in the right side of the widget. 

When you click the clock icon, the widget flips over to the historical trend view where you can select from the most previous 24, 48 or 72 hours. To return to the real-time view, click the open triangle to the right of the hour selection.

The internal auditing feature documents all actions executed by ControlUp users and any changes in the product configuration.

For complete information about the scope of the audit log's function, limitations, and settings, see here.

Audit Log Report

The Audit Log report is available to users with the Manage SOLVE permission.

To view the Audit Log, right-click the cogwheel in the lower-left corner and select Audit Log and the Audit log appears.

Filtering and Sorting

The information displayed in the Audit Log can be filtered and sorted by any column. Some columns can be filtered based on a list of values with multiple selections and other columns can be searched using the free text search as described below.

The magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the screen allows you to search for a specific log entry. 

To view information regarding a specific folder path of the target object, use the dropdown menu in the upper left corner of the Audit log screen, and select a folder. By default, the entire organization is displayed.

Use the filter buttons next to the column names to filter the report according to the column details. By clicking on a filter, a popup appears enabling you to search for items with specific values by entering the value and clicking Apply. 

You can clear the filters individually by hovering over a column name and click Clear, or universally by clicking Clear All Filters in the upper right corner of the screen.

Time Period

To view information from a different time period, click the calendar icon in the upper right corner of the Audit log screen and select a different time period.

Free-text Search

Using the magnifying glass in the upper right corner, you can search all columns of the audit log for any pattern, keyword, etc.

• ozone layer - retrieves ozone and layer appearing in the text.

• "ozone layer" - retrieves the term "ozone layer" appearing together 

• ozone layer 
• ozone + layer
• ozone AND layer

• ozone OR layer

• ozone NOT layer
• ozone ! layer

• ((greenhouse OR carbon) AND emissions) - retrieves occurrences of 'greenhouse emissions' OR 'carbon emissions'.

• la?er - single character wildcard ? retrieves all occurrences of 'layer' and 'later' for example.
• lay* - multiple character wildcard * retrieves all occurrences of 'lay', 'lays', 'layer', 'layers' for example.