GroundWork Monitor 6.3 in the Amazon Cloud (EC2)

Last updated: December 20^th 2010
GroundWork Monitor 6.3 Enterprise is available as a ready-to-run Amazon Machine Image (AMI) running on CentOS

Quick-start information

If you're an experienced EC2 users this the information you'll need:
AMI name: ami-2144b348 in the US-East region.
Minimum instance size: Small
Recommended instance size: Medium
Administer your instance using the web interface:e.g. http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com/
The instance uses EBS for persistent storage. Amazon EBS I/O and storage charges apply in addition to CPU time.
Application login user name/password: admin/admin
Operator login user name/password: operator/operator
MySQL Root password: groundwork

Getting Started With GroundWork Monitor 6 and Amazon EC2 Cloud

This guide walks through getting started with GroundWork Monitor 6 in the Amazon EC2 cloud. This enables you to evaluate Groundwork Monitor 6 in a completely hosted, private copy.
If you have already created an account on Amazon's EC2 service please do so now. Amazon will charge your account for the resources you consume on their service; GWOS does not receive any of this money.
You can sign up for a new account at:
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
To gain access to the Enterprise AMI please email [email protected] with your GroudnWork Order number and Amazon Account Number (xxxx-xxxx-xxxx) This is not a public ami - you must be granted access. Once you do gain access, you can, of course, launch it, modify it, and bundle it into your own copy.

The instance has been left essentially as a clean, patched install of GWMEE 6.3. The Network Notification service is ON, and will submit anonymous usage data back to GroundWork when launched. A valid license is required for use, and will be needed on first login. The groundwork instance has not been logged into, or set up with a license, however a small amount of default logs have been generated. The database has been purged of these entries, but a few rrd files and log entries remain from the initial install on November 19th, 2010. These files will not cause any operational issues. As will all EC2 instances, this one should be launched with your keys, which will give you root access to the console. See Amazon documentation for key setup.

Locating the GroundWork 6 AMI

1. Login to the Amazon EC2 console and select "AMIs" in the left navigation.

1. Search for available GroundWork images by entering "gwos" in the search box:

Select ami-2144b348 and click launch.

1. Configure the instance to be created:

In particular the following choices are recommended:

• Create a single instance
• Instance type is high-CPU, medium-sized
• Configuring your SSH keys is highly recommended but not required
• Configuring the security group so that SSH (port 22) and HTTP (port 80) are open is required.

4. Press the "Launch" button
5. Click on "My instances" to check the instance creation process:
After a few minutes the status will change from "starting" to "running" The GroundWork application will then launch for the first time, this process takes approximately 4-5 minutes after the instance begins running.
6. Access the GroundWork Monitor application by opening a new browser tab at the "public DNS" address of the newly created instance.

If you receive a "Service Temporarily Unavailable" message please wait 2-3 minutes for the system to complete initialization and try again.
7. Login using the default administrator credentials: Username: admin
Password: admin
Note: changing the default passwords is highly recommended (Administration -> User Management)
At this point copy and paste the license key for your GroundWork installation. Your license key was emailed shortly after your purchase.

8. Once the license key has been entered the main monitoring performance dashboard is displayed:

9. You're now ready to explore GroundWork Monitor. You will see a messages about missing the localhost device in the Views screen until the database is populated, but this is normal. This is due to the fact that the database was purged of all messages after installation. As soon as you perform a Configuration > Control > Commit, these messages will clear.

Be sure to change the password for the admin user, and to either disable or change the other default web accounts (User and Operator). You can now proceed to configure monitoring of your cloud and web resources, or any hosts or applications reachable from your EC2 instance.

The ami we produced is set for the most popular zone, on the Eastern seaboard of the United States. We applied the timezone adjustment to PHP referred to in technical bulletin 6.3-3 Timezone for php must be set in 6.3 so that the ami will work when launched in the Eastern US availability zones, but you will need to adjust this parameter for whatever time zone you launch the AMI in. Follow the instructions in the technical bulletin if you need to launch the ami in another time zone.

Learning about GroundWork Monitor

One seat in the "Getting Started with GroundWork Monitior" training course is included with your Quickstart subscription.
60-days of email support is included; starting from your purchase date. You must complete the GWOS exam to receive support. Consult www.gwos.com/support for more information.
Check out the "GroundWork in An Hour" series of short technical videos on different topics available here: http://www.groundworkopensource.com/resources/gwh/
Need to justify a monitoring investment? Try our whitepapers: http://www.groundworkopensource.com/resources/whitepapers/