Agent Client Collector release notes
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Summary of Agent Client Collector Release Notes Washington DC
The ServiceNow® Agent Client Collector application has been updated in the Washington DC release, enhancing the monitoring of service availability, performance, and infrastructure. Key improvements include enhanced system properties, metric connector enhancements, and expanded data collection capabilities.
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Key Features
- Enhanced System Properties: Monitor application behavior with improved settings for agent discovery, automatic MID Server selection, and error message logging.
- Metric Connector Enhancements: Utilize agent-less System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) connectors for effective performance integration.
- Kubernetes Resource Discovery: Continuous discovery of resources in Kubernetes clusters using Cloud Native Operations (CNO) for Visibility.
- MongoDB Metrics: Additional metrics for monitoring MongoDB resources, including metadata and memory usage.
- Security Enhancements: Increased security with allow-list verification for checks and support for self-signed certificates.
- Improved Monitoring Technology Dashboards: Enhanced dashboards for AWS, GCP, and Azure, providing more detailed insights into infrastructure.
Key Outcomes
With these enhancements, ServiceNow customers can expect improved monitoring accuracy and efficiency, better resource management in cloud environments, and heightened security measures. The updates facilitate easier integration and configuration, allowing for a more streamlined experience in managing IT operations.
The ServiceNow® Agent Client Collector application is a tool that enables you to monitor the service availability, performance, and infrastructure of your system. Agent Client Collector was enhanced and updated in the Washington DC release.
Agent Client Collector highlights for the Washington DC release
- Use the enhanced system properties for agent Discovery, automatic MID Server selection, and error message logging to monitor the Agent Client Collector policies and framework configuration.
- Use the configuration data files to provide the data from an instance directly to an agent.
- Retrieve the metrics for Azure policies in the cloud.
See Agent Client Collector for more information.
Important:
Agent Client Collector is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.
New in the Washington DC release
- Using metric connector enhancements
- Use agent-less System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) connectors for high-performance SCOM metric integration.
- Application patterns for the Agent Client Collector
- Run application patterns through the Agent Client Collector. Application patterns enable discovering details about applications running on an agent’s host.
- Enhanced system properties
- Monitor the behavior of the Agent Client Collector application with the enhanced Policy Calculation and Framework Configuration system properties, including the enhancements to agent Discovery, automatic MID Server selection, and error message logging.
- Configuration data files added to checks
- Provide the enhanced data collection in the Agent Client Collector application by communicating the instance data with the agent. The configuration data files are also sent to the agent’s associated MID Server.
- Mongo DB checks
- Monitor MongoDB resources with additional metrics that relate to the metadata, memory, and disk space.
- Continuously discover the resources in your Kubernetes clusters
- Continuously discover the resources in your Kubernetes clusters in Agent Client Collector for Visibility by using Cloud Native Operations (CNO) for Visibility. CNO for Visibility promptly reports changes in the resources to the instance and updates the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
- Retrieving the metrics for cloud resources
- Retrieve the high-performance metrics for virtual resources in the cloud by using VMware.
- Pull additional resources from Kubernetes clusters into the CMDB
- Starting in version 3.6.2, configure the Cloud Native Operations for Visibility Informer to pull additional resources from Kubernetes clusters into the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), besides the resources it sends to the database by default.
- Create a cmdb_ci_linux_server CI for each Kubernetes node
- Starting in version 3.6.2, configure if you want the CNO for Visibility Informer to create a cmdb_ci_linux_server CI for each Kubernetes node. By default, the Informer creates a cmdb_ci_linux_server CI for every Kubernetes node. If this CI is redundant or interferes with other flows in your organization, you can set the associated configuration parameter to false.
- Define include and exclude lists of Labels and Annotations
- Starting in version 3.6.2, define include and exclude lists of Labels and Annotations in Kubernetes resources that the CNO for Visibility Informer pulls into the CMDB.
- Display the Kubernetes cluster version in the CMDB
- Starting in version 3.6.2, make the CNO for Visibility Informer populate the field in the cmdb_ci_kubernetes_cluster CI that shows the Kubernetes cluster version.
- Add custom Labels and Annotations to Kubernetes resources
- Starting in version 3.6.2, CNO for Visibility enables you to add custom Labels and Annotations to all your resources deployed in the Kubernetes cluster.
- Secure check verification through the allow-list
- Starting in version 3.5.1, enhance your system's security by verifying checks only with the allow-list from your global configurations. An allow-list from installed plugins is not used.
- Add a self-signed certificate to your operating system's truststore
- Starting in version 3.5.1, enhance security by adding a self-signed certificate to your OS's trust store.
- Clear agent assets
- Starting in version 3.5.1, remove an agent's plugin files by selecting Clear Assets on the UI, instead of removing the plugins manually.
- New Linux and Windows checks supported
- Starting in version 3.5.1, Agent Client Collector supports additional Linux and Windows checks.
Changed in this release
- Automatic MID Server selection
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- Receive additional MID Server information to be used as alternative points of communication during automatic MID Server selection.
- Automatic MID Server selection is off by default.
- Metric rules
- Configure manual thresholds for generating metric alerts using the Metric Rules feature instead of the Static Thresholds UI.
- Retrieving the metrics for cloud resources
- Use Azure checks and policies to retrieve high-performance metrics for the virtual resources in the cloud.
- Monitoring Technology Dashboards
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- Filter metrics by the selected configuration item (CI) in the AWS and GCP Monitoring Technology Dashboards.
- Use the updated Monitoring Technology Dashboard for Azure. The dashboard contains additional tabs which provide more information on your Azure infrastructure.
- Viewing Monitoring Technology Dashboards requires the dashboard_admin role in addition to the existing agent_client_collector_admin role.
- Agent table cleaner
- Delete the agent records that have been disconnected or inactive for more than 30 days by using the Autoflush form.
- SNMP checks
- SNMP checks work by default with v3.
- Set the agent log level
- Starting in version 3.5.1, configure the agent log level through the ServiceNow® instance, without needing to access the acc.yml configuration file.
- Host system requirements for Agent Client Collector Monitoring
- Starting in version 3.5.1, utilize the updated minimum host system requirements when installing Agent Client Collector Monitoring.
- Import a script include to enable using the Instance scan
- Starting in version 3.5.1, import global.ACCInstanceScanUtil to enable using the Instance scan feature, as described in the KB1630132 knowledge base article.
Activation information
Agent Client Collector is available with activation of the Agent Client Collector Framework plugin (sn_agent) and the Agent Client Collector Monitoring plugin (sn_itmon) in an instance on which Event Management is installed.