Architecture
Last updated
Last updated
All VirtualMetric components work on the Windows platform and use Microsoft technologies that you are already familiar with.
All VirtualMetric components utilize the VirtualMetric API to communicate with the VirtualMetric database. The API also has an additional authentication layer called OWIN. All performance and inventory queries, authentication, dashboard, and monitoring operations are processed through this API which uses Microsoft IIS Server for the web server role.
You can access the API from your web browser. The default port for the API is 8080.
If the API stops, all operations, including Dashboard logins and monitoring, will fail. However, the notification system will continue to function directly from the VirtualMetric Database through VirtualMetric SQL Jobs. Even when the API is offline, you will continue to receive notifications. To address issues with the API, you can refer to the Maintenance section for troubleshooting.
You can change the default API port during set up. Please check the Installation section for details. You can also read the Maintenance section for information on changing the port later.
VirtualMetric Dashboard serves as the HTML-based web interface for accessing VirtualMetric. It enables server configuration, notification setup, monitoring result review, and report creation. This interface offers high interactivity, leveraging Javascript to deliver a powerful and user-friendly experience. When logged in, the VirtualMetric Dashboard continuously refreshes data on the screen (via Ajax calls) to display real-time monitoring results (with a customizable refresh interval). For its web server role, the dashboard utilizes Microsoft IIS Server. The default port is 80.
VirtualMetric Database is the main datastore holding all inventory and monitoring data. VirtualMetric Database is the most critical component of the system. If it becomes unresponsive, you will not be able to send queries via the API. The database uses Clickhouse as its data store.
VirtualMetric Triggers are the main components connecting servers, clusters, and managers for monitoring and inventory collection. These components open the required TCP connections to initialize the collector processes, and therefore are also referred to as Collectors. You can install multiple VirtualMetric Triggers to monitor the servers in isolated networks like NAT, NVGRE, Virtual Networks, etc.
VirtualMetric Observer is the notification component of the system. This component connects to the API to process active notification queues and execute notification actions.
