Application templates for processes and application service groups

An application template is a definition for application processes and ApplicationServiceGroup instances. As of the 9.3 release and later, an application template is used for both discovery and monitoring of processes and application service groups.
Application templates that are created by using the console persist in the ESM server repository. The templates created from the console are also saved to the BASEDIR/smarts/local/conf/applications/apps-userdefined.xml file whenever you use the console to create a new template, replace an existing template, or delete it.
Application templates that are created by using an editor are saved in an .xml file. Multiple application templates can be saved in one .xml file. For example, the template for VMware ESX server Version 5.5 and the template for VMware ESX server 5.0 are defined in the BASEDIR/smarts/conf/applications/apps-emc-vmware.xml file. If the file is modified, the sm_edit utility saves the modified version of the file to the BASEDIR/smarts/local/conf/applications directory.
Templates are associated with hosts. The same template can be associated with multiple hosts. A discovery filter is required, because it determines the order in which individual processes in a template are discovered and, ultimately, monitored.
Types of application templates
Type of template
Description
Method of creation
Should a discovery filter be created?
Specify login credentials?
Template (user-defined)
New template created by an administrator using the console.
It is saved in the ESM server repository and in the apps-userdefined.xml file.
Console
Yes, administrator needs to create the filter.
  • Yes, login credentials are needed for WMI discovery.
  • Yes, SNMP community string only for SNMP discovery.
Prebuilt
Templates that provided by VMware in the following files:
  • apps-emc-avamar.xml
  • apps-emc-datadomain.xml
  • apps-emc-isilon.xml
  • apps-emc-smarts.xml
  • apps-misc.xml
Edit the .xml file
Yes, administrator needs to create the filter.
  • Yes, login credentials are needed for WMI discovery.
  • Yes, SNMP community string only for SNMP discovery.
AutoApply
A subset of prebuilt templates:
  • apps-emc-atmos.xml
    Atmos-Service
  • apps-emc-vmware.xml
    ESX-Service-5.5
    ESX-Service
    VirtualCenter-Service-5.5-Linux
    VirtualCenter-Service-5.5-Windows
    VirtualCenter-Service
Edit the .xml file
No user action is required. The filter is automatically applied.
Workflow: Process monitoring and application discovery on page 221
describes the tasks that you need to perform to implement discovery and monitoring for processes and application groups.
Additional template tasks on page 229
provides instructions on how to delete templates, modify existing user-defined templates, enable automatic process monitoring, and so on.