Hello Folks,

customer case:

  • Customer writes his own Software in high-level-language (Java, C#)
  • The software commands and benchmarks several parameter of a maschine
  • Customer wants to monitor and plot values from this Software (different values of the commanded maschine)

What would be the best type of interface for communicating this Software with a probe? I had several Ideas, but not sure, what´s the "best" way:

  • implement a full-blown-snmp-stack in software: --> oversized
  • monitor the software via running a command on the software with different parameters: --> undersized?
  • implement a HTTP/XML-interface: perhapps hard to manage?

What do you think?

Thanks and regards Ruediger

Article Comments

The software that you have needs to generate some output - this can be archived either using e.g. files the software write too and you then grab them and process them or the software directly writes to a e.g. XML sensor - pushing the data.

It really depends on details.. since you mention a machine - I recently was part of a team that started monitoring a machine and we did write up a proof of concept about it.. Paessler should publish this soon in their blog - if I am not mistaken... In any case - we used the HTTP Push Data Advanced sensor to accomplish the communication from the machine monitoring software to PRTG. Some of the data then was further calculated via the Sensor Factory Sensor and we implemented nice maps with gauges that as of today constantly monitored by management - no more going down to the production floor..

Hope that points you in the right direction.. it depends on details though..

Florian Rossmark

www.it-admins.com


Feb, 2019 - Permalink

Hi Ruediger,

I would go for implementing a REST API (HTTP/XML or JSON).
Exchanging data file based is a risky path as in some point of time one process wants to write to a file that is opened by the other process.

Sensors | Multi Channel Sensors | Tools | Notifications

Kind regards,

[[http://prtgtoolsfamily.com]] PRTGToolsFamily


Feb, 2019 - Permalink

Yes, the HTTP Push Data sensors (either the standard or the advanced version) would allow quick integration and does not require execute code remotely.

If you have a web server running anyway, you could publish the results as JSON and use the Rest Custom sensor to read the data by PRTG.


Feb, 2019 - Permalink