Using service templates
Definition
A Template is a pre-configuration of settings of an object that could be used to configure it. The main advantage is to be able to define default values for certain objects to speed up the creation of similar objects.
The advantages are:
- Simplified element definition
- No duplication of data
- Facility of addition of new resources
- Predefined configurations assimilated to a “catalog of indicators”
- Templates can inherit from other templates.
Services Templates
Inheritance
A service or a service template can only inherit from a single service template (parent-child type inheritance).
Configuration
To add a Service Template:
Go into the Configuration > Services > Templates menu and click on Add.
Refer to the chapter covering configuration of services to configure a template because the form is identical.
By default, locked service templates are hidden. Check the "Locked elements" box to list all templates.
Best practice
Explanations
Good practice requires that services templates be associated with host's templates: on creation of a host, the services are generated automatically from host's templates. There are two advantages in linking services templates to hosts templates:
- The services generated automatically retain their granularity: it is possible to change the Attributes of a service without affecting the other services obtained from this template
- The creation of new hosts is speeded up greatly: you simply have to define the host and the host's templates associated with it
E.g.: We create the srvi-web-01 host according to the template below:
The host srvi-web-01 will automatically possess the following services:
- Load, CPU, Memory, disk-/ from services templates linked to the host template “Linux-Server-RedHat-5”
- Broken-jobs, hit-ratio, tablespaces, listener from services templates linked to the host template “DB-MySQL”
- Process and connection from services templates linked to the host template “Web-Server-Apache”
When the services of a host are generated from host's templates, it is possible that certain services generated are not checked by the monitoring tool. In this case, it is necessary to disable the services that are not used (but not to delete them). In case of deletion of services, regeneration of services of the host from host's templates will re-create the services deleted.
Configuration
The linking of services templates with host's templates takes place in the Relations tab of the services templates or hosts templates.