Data Collector Overview

A data collector is a software 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.

Data collectors are ControlUp Agents that run on monitored Windows machines to gather status information whenever they are running. For non-Windows data sources, data collectors running on other machines retrieve status information by means of APIs.

To learn how to deploy a data collector, watch our video.

Benefits of Using a Data Collector

In the image on the left, two consoles and one monitor are connected to the vCenter without a data collector. Each component is initiating its own API query to vCenter to gather data. With this configuration, the API receives three queries per interval. In large environments, the traffic can be significant.

In the image on the right, a data collector is deployed. The data collector is the only entity to perform the API query, and it saves the data locally on the machine's memory buffer. The consoles and 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.
• OS can be either a client or a server.
• Machine with the ControlUp Agent installed on it.
• .Net Framework v4.5
• Depending on the type of port connection, you should enable ports 80/443/9440.
• For high availability needs, a pair of data collectors can be deployed. In the event of a failure of the data collector, a backup data collector assumes this role until the primary data collector is brought back online.
• You must deploy SDKs from Citrix to the data collector to connect to the XenDesktop Delivery Controllers. You can download the required Snapins here.

Data Collector Configuration

We recommend the following steps to ensure the optimal performance of ControlUp connections to the console and monitor. It is a best practice to designate one or more machines in your ControlUp organization to act as a data collector for hypervisors.

You should perform the steps below either while you add your hypervisors/EUC environments or after you have already added them. You must connect the data collector to every hypervisor/EUC environment in your environment.

To learn how to define a data collector, watch our videos for CVAD, XenServer, Netscaler, or VMware Vsphare.

To configure a dedicated data collector:

1. Add a managed machine to the console that will function as the data collector and will later be defined as the primary 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, you designate data collectors in the Connection Options section. For EUC environments, use the Data Collectors tab.

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

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 and click OK.
   Your data collector is now configured for this connection.

6. Repeat for each hypervisor/EUC environment as required.

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