Proactive Server and System Monitoring with FME: Using HTTP and System Callers for Efficient Issue Resolution
In today's fast-paced environment, proactive monitoring and quick response to server and system issues are essential to maintaining operational continuity. This talk will explore how FME's HTTP Caller and System Caller transformers can be leveraged to monitor and manage your servers and services more effectively. Attendees will learn practical approaches for using HTTP to monitor web services, interpret error responses, and initiate automated alerts. Additionally, we will cover the use of the System Caller transformer to monitor running services and handle errors, with the ultimate goal of enabling remote restarts of Windows services. By the end of this session, participants will be equipped with: Techniques for using HTTP to monitor web services and manage error responses. Methods for leveraging the System Caller to keep tabs on running services and trigger necessary alerts. The ability to allow authorized personnel to remotely restart Windows services, minimizing downtime. This session is ideal for system administrators, IT professionals, and FME users looking to enhance their monitoring capabilities.
Proactive Server and System Monitoring with FME: Using HTTP and System Callers for Efficient Issue Resolution
- 1. Proactive Server and System Monitoring with FME: Using HTTP and System Callers for Efficient Issue Resolution Snohomish County, Washington The Peak of Data and AI 2025
- 2. 2025 The Peak of Data and AI Agenda 1. Introduction 2. HTTP Monitoring 3. Systems Monitoring 4. Wrap Up
- 4. 2025 The Peak of Data and AI Donnie Owsley Applications Developer Snohomish County, Washington
- 5. 2025 The Peak of Data and AI Background ● Snohomish County ● Over 10 years with Snohomish County ○ Department Admin ○ Application Support ○ Application Developer
- 6. 2025 The Peak of Data and AI “Automate yourself out of a job.” — Unknown “Automate yourself out of your current job.”
- 7. Web page monitor Why: ● Don’t have access to other tools that can monitor ● Test more often than some tools allow ● Want to record downtime for troubleshooting purposes ● Monitor internal pages that other tools may not have access to ● Monitor 3rd party webpages
- 10. 2025 The Peak of Data and AI Common HTTP Status Codes ● 200 ○ Successful Response ● 404 ○ Page not found ● 403 ○ Access denied ● 502 ○ Bad gateway ● 418 ○ I’m a teapot ○ Any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot should result in the error code "418 I'm a teapot". The resulting entity body MAY be short and stout. ○ https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2324#section-2.3.2 ○ Added April 1, 1998
- 13. Systems Monitoring NOTE: The running account will need appropriate permissions What can you monitor: ● Running services ● Including stopping/starting/restarting ● Logged on users ● Disk Space ● Many others
- 14. System Caller – Multitool for systems ● Interact with Command Line ● Bash – Call scripts ● Robocopy – powerful copy and syncing tool ● telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl – Star Wars IV in ASCII ● Many applications have command line commands you can use ● PowerShell – Interact with other computers and systems
- 15. Service Monitoring and Remote Restarting ● Monitor running or stopped services ● Allows for automation restarting of services if stopped ● Allows for starting/restart of services remotely through FME Web App
- 17. PowerShell Commands ● Services Monitor ● SC '@Value(Server Name)’ query '@Value(Service Name)' ● Get-Service -ComputerName '@Value(Server Name)’ -Name '@Value(Service Name)' ● Logged on user ● query user /server:$(_ServerName) ● Disk Space ● PowerShell Get-CimInstance Win32_LogicalDisk -ComputerName @Value(Server) -Filter DriveType=3
- 18. Bonus Tip ● Call FME from Command Line ● Useful to automate if don’t have access to Flow ● “C:TempTesting.fmw“ --InputCSV “C:TempInput.csv” --OutputCSV “C:TempOutput.csv” ● “C:Program FilesFMEfme.exe" “C:TempTesting.fmw“ --InputCSV “C:TempInput.csv” --OutputCSV “C:TempOutput.csv”
- 19. 2025 The Peak of Data and AI Recap ● HTTP Monitoring ● Systems Monitoring ● Services ● Logged on user ● Disk Space ● Only limits are scripting capabilities and permissions