Add service templates

Use service templates to group and pre-configure services. After setting up a service template, you can use it across all of your customers allowing you to standardize how you monitor applications or network devices.

If you have just created an SNMP-based Custom Service using Asset Data, adding the service template will fail the first time and display the error No Asset Data Available. When the Discovery is complete, re-apply the service template for the changes to take effect.

  1. Click Configuration > Monitoring > Service Templates and click Add.
  2. Enter a Name and Description for the service template.
  3. Select a Device Class to display the related services that you can add to the template.
  4. From the Service drop-down list box select a service and click Add Service.
  5. The service information window appears. Configure the service Details, Thresholds and Self-Healing parameters specific for the service in this template.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Set the Action for the new service template and enable Automatically add new instances.
  8. Click Save.

The new service template appears in the list and N-able N-central applies the service templates to the selected device class.

Set the service template action

The action you set for a device instructs N-able N-central what to do with the service in the service template, if there is already a similar service on a device.

At the time a template is applied to a device and before an action is performed, N-able N-central evaluates the service and other parameters of the service and compares them to existing services on a device. After the system has verified whether or not there is a match, it checks to see what action has been selected, and performs that action.

Click the pencil icon to define the Action associated with the service when the service template is applied to a device. The options are:

  • Add - N-able N-central adds the service or a new instance of the service to the device.
  • Add or Modify - If the service or service instance does not exist on the device, N-able N-central will add it. If the service or service instance exists, N-able N-central modifies it to the configuration selected for this template.
  • Modify - If the service or service instance exists,N-able N-central modifies it to the configuration selected for this template.
  • Remove - N-able N-central removes the service or an instance of the service from the device. If the service has the Use Asset Info check box selected, then all instances of that service will be removed. If you indicated a specific instance, N-able N-central removes only that instance.

Remove is an exclusive action. If you choose Remove as the action, all other services in the template must also have Remove as their action.

Automatically add new instances

Click Automatically add new instances so that subsequent discovery jobs that find new asset information automatically associate a new instance of the service. For example, when a new drive is added to a device and the Disk service is in the service template, N-able N-central adds a new instance of the service for the new drive.

When the agent reaches the maximum number of instances for a service, the N-able N-central passes the service monitoring to the probe.

This option will also enable N-able N-central to add services to a device that have not already been associated with it. For example, a service template can include services that are not initially associated with a device because the device does not fit the criteria to have the services added. If the device subsequently changes to meet those criteria and a discovery job discovers the new configuration, new services that are part of the template can now be automatically associated with the device.