Overview
Infrastructure monitoring provides visibility into your entire IT environment, including cloud-hosted and on-prem servers, through many integrations. Use the Host monitor to stay informed on which hosts are or are not submitting data to ensure continuous visibility.
Every Datadog Agent reports a service check called datadog.agent.up with the status OK. You can monitor this check across one or more hosts by using a host monitor.
AIX Agents do not report the datadog.agent.up service check. You can use the metric datadog.agent.running to monitor the uptime of an AIX Agent. The metric emits a value of 1 if the Agent is reporting to Datadog.
Monitor creation
To create a host monitor in Datadog, use the main navigation: Monitors –> New Monitor –> Host.
Pick hosts by name or tag
Select the hosts to monitor by choosing host names, tags, or choose All Monitored Hosts. If you need to exclude certain hosts, use the second field to list names or tags.
- The include field uses
AND logic. All listed names and tags must be present on a host for it to be included. - The exclude field uses
OR logic. Any host with a listed name or tag is excluded.
Examples
| Monitor | Include | Exclude |
|---|
Include all hosts with the tag env:prod | env:prod | leave empty |
Include all hosts except hosts with the tag env:test | All Monitored Hosts | env:test |
Set alert conditions
In this section, choose between a Check Alert or Cluster Alert:
A check alert tracks if a host stops reporting for a given amount of time. Too much time following a check run can be a sign of problems with data submission from the host.
Enter the number of minutes to check for missing data. The default value is 2 minutes.
If datadog.agent.up stops reporting an OK status for more than the minutes specified, an alert is triggered.
A cluster alert tracks if some percentage of hosts have stopped reporting for a given amount of time.
To set up a cluster alert:
- Decide whether or not to group your hosts according to a tag.
Ungrouped calculates the status percentage across all included hosts. Grouped calculates the status percentage on a per group basis. - Select the percentage for alert and warn thresholds. Only one setting (alert or warn) is required.
- Enter the number of minutes to check for missing data. The default value is 2 minutes.
If datadog.agent.up stops reporting an OK status for more than the minutes specified and the percentage threshold is reached, an alert is triggered.
Advanced alert conditions
For detailed instructions on the advanced alert options (auto resolve, new group delay, etc.), see the Monitor Configuration page.
Notifications
For detailed instructions on the Configure notifications and automations section, see the Notifications page.
Further Reading
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:
