Monitoring data from Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

You can define a data source to collect data from Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on the system where the agent runs or on a remote system. A data source monitors a single WMI class and places all values from this class into the data set that it produces. If the class provides several instances, the data set has multiple rows; you can filter by instance name to ensure the data set has one row.

Before you begin

If your agent collects data from a remote system by using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), it requires permissions to access WMI data on the remote system. The agent can access WMI data on a remote system when you provide credentials of an account with permissions to access WMI data on the system. The Administrator account has the required permissions. In the procedure that follows you can either provide the Administrator credentials or the credentials of another user with the required permissions. For more information about creating a user account with permissions to browse WMI data, see Creating a user with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) permissions.

To collect metrics through the Windows APIs, the agent must be hosted on a Windows operating system. Remote registry administration must be enabled on the remote systems.

Procedure

  1. On the Agent Initial Data Source page or the Data Source Location page, click Data from a server in the Monitoring Data Categories area.
  2. In the Data Sources area, click WMI.
  3. Click Next.
  4. On the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Information page, complete one of the following steps:
    • Type a name for the WMI namespace and a name for the WMI class name in the fields. Then go to step 9
    • Click Browse to see all of the WMI classes on the system.

      To browse a remote system, select a system from the list (if one is defined). Alternatively click Add to add the host name of a Windows system. Provide the credentials of a user account with permissions to access WMI data on the remote system, or provide Administrator credentials for the remote system. The page is updated with the information for the remote system. Browsing is available only when the Agent Builder is run on a Windows system, and can browse only Windows systems.

  5. Click the plus sign (+) next to a class to expand the class and show the attributes.
  6. From the list, select the class with its associated attributes that you want to specify, and click OK.
    Note: You can click the Search (binoculars) icon to find your selection in the list. Type a phrase in the Search phrase field; specify your preference by clicking either the Search by name, Search by class description, or Search by class properties fields; and click OK. If you find the item for which you are searching, select it and click OK.
    The WMI Information page of the wizard opens again, showing the selected WMI class information.
  7. Optional: You can test this attribute group by clicking Test. For more information about testing, see Testing WMI attribute groups
  8. Optional: You can create a filter to limit the data that is returned by this attribute group by clicking Advanced. For more information about filtering data from an attribute group, see Filtering attribute groups
  9. Click Next.
    Note: If you typed the WMI Namespace and WMI class name manually you are brought to the Attribute Information page, where you can complete attribute information. On the Attribute Information page, you can select Add additional attributes if you want to add more attributes. Click Finish to complete.
  10. On the Select key attributes page, select key attributes or indicate that this data source produces only one data row. For more information, see (Selecting key attributes).
  11. Do one of the following steps:
    • If you are using the Agent wizard, click Next.
    • Click Finish to save the data source and open the Agent Editor.
  12. You can add attributes and supply the information for them. For more information, see Creating attributes.
    In addition to fields that are applicable to all data sources (Table 1), the Attribute Information page for the WMI data source has the following field:
    Metric name
    Property name from the class you want to collect
  13. If you want to set global options for the data source, click Global Options.

    Select the Include remote Windows configuration properties check box if you want to include this option, and click OK.

    For information about Windows remote connection configuration for Windows data sources, see (Configuring a Windows remote connection).