Configuring Windows to send metrics

After you provision an instance of the IBM Cloud Monitoring service in the IBM Cloud, you can use the Windows Prometheus Bundle to collect the metrics from a Windows system.

The Windows Prometheus Bundle is a comprehensive package that installs and configures a Prometheus Agent and the Windows Exporter allowing you to send metrics to your IBM Cloud Monitoring instance.

Key features of the Windows Prometheus Bundle

The Windows Prometheus Bundle provides you the following features:

A visual installation wizard.
Interactive enabling of collectors.
A Prometheus Agent and Windows Exporter that run as Windows services.
Metrics enriched with the Windows domain and instance host name for easy identification in IBM Cloud Monitoring.
Dashboards and alerts provided by default for Windows Host Overview, Windows IIS and Windows SQL Server.

Default Collectors

If you accept all defaults when installing using the wizard, the following collectors will be enabled:

Table 1. Default collectors
Collector	Description
`cpu`	CPU metrics
`cs`	Computer system metrics
`logical_disk`	Disk metrics
`os`	Operating System metrics
`system`	System metrics
`net`	Network interface metrics

If you are using Microsoft ISS or Microsoft MSSQL, you can enable collectors for these in the wizard or in the command line during the installation. All collectors that can be configured can be found in the Prometheus exporter documentation.

Configuring

To begin monitoring your Windows systems, do the following:

Download the Windows Prometheus Bundle binary installer from the latest project release.
Run the installer on your Windows system.
Configure the ingestion endpoints for remote write and your Monitor API token in the wizard.
Click Next.
For the Host Configuration do not change the port or IP values. Specify any additional CLI flags or remote IP addresses required for your Windows Firewall.
Click Next.
Select the collectors that you want to enable to generate metrics.

Figure 1. Windows Exporter selections

The most commonly used metrics can be selected. Additional Windows Exporter metrics can be added as a comma separated list.
Metrics in Promethus format can be written by other processes to a file on the system. These metrics can be exported and sent to IBM Cloud Monitoring by selecting Prometheus metrics from files then indicating the directory where the metrics are located.
Click Install then Finish to complete the installation.
Go to your IBM Cloud Monitoring instance and start using the Microsoft Windows dashboards and alerts

You can use the default dashboard Windows Host Overview to view the Windows metrics. This default dashboard is located in the Dashboards > Applications section. The Windows Process Overview dashboard is available when you have process metrics enabled. The Windows Services Overview dashboard is available when you have service metrics enabled. You can also search the Alerts > Library for Windows for available default alerts.

Figure 1. Example of a Windows metrics dashboard

Installing using a command line

You can automate the installation of the Windows Prometheus Bundle across multiple machines using the command line or PowerShell. For example, you can use this command:

msiexec /i windows_exporter-1.0.0-x64.msi ENABLED_COLLECTORS=cpu,os SYSDIG_URL="https://eu-gb.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com/prometheus/remote/write" SYSDIG_TOKEN="yyyyyyy-zzzz-zzzz-zzzz-xxxxxxxx" /qn

This command will install the Windows Prometheus Bundle with cpu and os collectors.

Comand line options

The following command line options are available:

ENABLED_COLLECTORS: A comma separated list of collectors.
SYSDIG_URL: The Prometheus endpoint of your IBM Cloud Monitoring region in the form https://eu-gb.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com/prometheus/remote/write.
COMPUTER_NAME: (Optional) Overrides the label instance in metrics generated by the Windows Exporter with a custom value. The default value is the computer name stored in the COMPUTERNAME Windows environment variable.
PROMETHEUS_PORT: (Optional) The Prometheus port. The default value is 9090.
WINDOWS_EXPORTER_LISTEN_ADDR: (Optional) The Windows Exporter IP address. The default value is 0.0.0.0.
WINDOWS_EXPORTER_LISTEN_PORT: (Optional) The Windows Exporter port. The default value is 9182.
WINDOWS_EXPORTER_EXTRA_FLAGS: (Optional): Windows Exporter additional CLI flags. The default value is an empty string.
WINDOWS_EXPORTER_FIREWALL_REMOTE_ADDR: (Optional): A comma separated list of remote IP addresses for the Windows Firewall exception list (allowlist). The default value is an empty string which will allow any remote address.
TEXTFILE_DIR: The local folder where the textfile collector will look for files. This is only used when the textfile collector is enabled.

Updating the configuration

If you need to add or remove configured metrics collectors, you can run the wizard, select the Change option, and make your required changes.

Optionally, you can edit the config.yml file in the C:\Program Files\windows_exporter directory. After saving your changes you will need to restart the windows_exporter.exe service.

Removing the bundle

Use the following command to uninstall the Windows Prometheus Bundle from a Windows system:

msiexec /x windows_exporter-1.0.0-x64.msi /qn

You can also uninstall the Windows Prometheus Bundle by running the wizard and selecting the Remove option.