Cloud Deployment

When working within a cloud/virtualised environment, it is common to use a single standardised disk image for all your servers to boot from. Server Density allows you to use the same config file and agent for every server and it will detect when the server is actually different. It will automatically create a copy of the original server (which the agent key actually belongs to) along with its alerts so you don't need to do anything.

Recommended setup

Create a new server within Server Density and configure any alerts you want. These settings will be copied to any new server automatically detected.
Install the agent onto your server using our OS packages for Red Hat/Fedora or Debian/Ubuntu. These include init scripts so the agent starts on boot.
Configure the agent using the agent key (and any other settings you want) from the server you created in step 1.
Create your OS image.

Magic

When you launch a new instance from your image, the agent will automatically start and register itself as a copy of the server created in step 1. This will include any alerts and will start monitoring immediately.

Notes

The server in Server Density will be named the same as the hostname for the new server, although you can change this once the server has been added.
Detection of a new server with the same agent key is based on the hostname of the new server - it must be different from the old server.

Cloud Provider Support - Amazon EC2 and CloudWatch

Amazon provide their own basic monitoring called CloudWatch as part of their EC2 service. This monitors CPU utilization, disk reads and writes, and network traffic without the need for any agent. Server Density can pull this data in automatically, graph it, and allow you to configure alerts.

Simply enable CloudWatch for your instances and then go to Servers > Add Server and select the Add cloud server button from the right hand side cloud provider box. Server Density will pull your server list and you can choose which instances to add. Cloudwatch monitoring will start immediately.

Video demo - Amazon EC2

Cloud Provider Support - Others

In addition to EC2, Server Density is able to connect to a number of different cloud providers to automatically pull in your server list. Although you still need to install the agent on each server, this will save some time where you have a lot of servers.

Basic functionality

Pull in a list of all servers and choose which servers you want to import, automatically populating the fields within Server Density.
Keep track of the status of cloud servers so when they are terminated, they will automatically be marked for deletion within Server Density. You then have 24 hours to undo the deletion before the data is permanently removed as with a normal server.

Supported Providers

vCloud note

The hostname is defined by your vCloud provider. For example, for Terremark vCloud Express, the hostname is services.vcloudexpress.terremark.com.