Performance Trigger
Description
Triggers the task when a system or process threshold (such as CPU utilization and memory usage) is met. The Performance trigger is ideal for monitoring servers in a "back office" environment. For example, if available memory is too low, a task can automatically restart the entire system or specific processes using the Restart computer or Start process activity. In the above scenarios, the entire process is automated, eliminating the need for human intervention. Additionally, this trigger has the capability to monitor system performance on a remote computer as long as that computer resides on the same network as the computer where Automate Desktop is installed. Specifying the remote system to monitor is as easy as entering the remote machine’s Host name or IP Address.
Practical usage
Used to monitor a server or workstation for certain performance characteristics or thresholds. This trigger is ideal for monitoring servers in a "back office" environment.
Example 1: Using the Performance Watcher trigger, if available memory is to low - the entire system or specific processes could be automatically be restarted.
Example 2: If disk space is too low, a notification message could be sent to the system administrator.
The Performance trigger generally uses the same powerful and intelligent system performance detection capabilities and gathers the same comprehensive hardware and system information used by Windows Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe), whereas, system performance is based mainly on performance counters, which are essentially measurements of system state and/or activity. They can be included in the operating system or can be part of individual applications.
Parameters
General
| Property | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Use Local Computer | --- | If enabled, the trigger will monitor performance on the local machine (enabled by default). |
| Use Remote Computer | --- | If enabled, the trigger will monitor performance on a remote machine (disabled by default). To specify the remote machine, enter its Hostname or IP Address in the field provided. If this parameter is enabled, the Use Local Computer parameter is ignored. |
| Category | Text | The system category in which to monitor (for example, Processor, Memory, Paging File, etc.). A category catalogues performance counters in a logical unit. |
| Counter | Number | The counter related to the category in which to monitor. Performance counters are combined together under categories. They are used to measure various aspects of performance, such as transfer rates for disks or, for processors, the amount of processor time consumed. Specific counters are populated in this section depending on the system performance category selected. |
| Instance | Text | The instance related to the category in which to monitor. A performance counter can be divided into instances such as processes, threads, or physical units. |
| Trigger when | Text | Specifies the performance threshold and duration to monitor as it relates to the Category, Counter, and/or Instance values selected. |
| Show Description | Yes/No | If selected, a detailed description will appear for each selection. If disabled, a description will not be shown. |
Behavior
| Property | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enable trigger | Yes/No | If selected, the trigger will immediately be active upon creation. If disabled, the trigger will stay inactive until it is manually enabled. This parameter is selected by default. |
| Trigger on startup if condition is true | Yes/No | If selected, the system will act upon conditions that already exist upon startup of the current trigger. For example, if this trigger is set to launch a task when memory reaches a specific threshold, if that threshold is already reached upon startup, this trigger will launch the task as a result. If disabled, this trigger will ignore the current threshold value upon startup and instead, act on the next instance the threshold is met. This parameter is disabled by default. |
| Trigger after the condition has been met 'X' times. | Yes/No | If selected, specifies how many times the trigger condition must be met before the task is started. For example, if this trigger is set to launch a task when memory reaches a specific threshold, and the value of this parameter is set to 3, the threshold must be reached 3 separate times in order for the task to launch. This parameter is disabled by default. |
Additional notes
AMTrigger
When this trigger is activated, it automatically passes the AMTrigger object to the task. AMTrigger is a standard Automate Desktop dataset and can be used much like the datasets created by the Database - SQL query activity and Email action. The fields of AMTrigger can be used within a task to determine specific values, such as whether or not the task was started by a trigger, which trigger started the task, when the trigger was activated and other properties. AMTrigger populates a unique set of field–value pairs for each Automate Desktop trigger. The following table lists the ones specific to this trigger. For more details about a specific AMTrigger field–value pair, click the associated link.
| Name | Data Type | Return Value |
|---|---|---|
| AMTrigger.ProcessID | Number | Returns the unique ID of the process that caused the trigger to activate. |
| AMTrigger.ThreadID | Number | Returns the unique ID of the thread that caused the trigger to activate. This is dependent on if the trigger is monitoring for a specific thread threshold (for example, thread state). |
| AMTrigger.Value | String | Returns the value of the parameter that caused the trigger to activate. |