Monitoring the Health of Altium Concord Pro

An Altium Concord Pro installation includes a comprehensive Altium Concord Pro Health Monitor tool that allows Administrators to quickly ascertain and analyze the condition, or ‘health’ of a local Concord Pro server. Provided as a stand-alone, independent application, the Health Monitor delivers a visual summary of the state of the host machine, and the Concord Pro server's configuration and Services.

The tool also includes context related hints, information and paths to important locations and log files, which allows administrators to preemptively detect and resolve any issues that may affect Concord Pro users. Since it operates as an independent entity that queries the Concord Pro server and its host system, the Health Monitor will deliver crucial data and information even in the unlikely event that the server is not fully functioning.

The Health Monitor presents Concord Pro status information via a simple GUI, and in general terms, covers the following critical areas:

• Concord Pro Environment – the state of the hosts PC’s hardware, such as its hard disks, memory, CPU and the adequacy of its performance.
• Concord Pro Server Backend – the state of the server’s supporting database, file storage and repository.
• Concord Pro Services – the state the server’s range of services, hosted as IIS Application Pools, such as the Identity, Authorization and License Manager services.

Using the Tool

In a default installation of Altium Concord Pro, the Health Monitor tool can be found in the \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium Concord Pro\Tools\HealthMonitor folder as the avhealth.exe executable. Note that the folder also includes a simplified command-line tool: avConsoleHealth.exe. The installation will also add a Health Monitor shortcut ( ) to the system Desktop.

When the GUI Health Monitor tool (avhealth.exe) is run, the program immediately interrogates the Concord Pro server and its hosting systems to populate the main Health Monitor Dashboard screen – as selected (by default) in the upper tabs. Click the Refresh button () in the top title bar to retrigger the process and update the screen.

The Health Monitor Dashboard GUI provides an instant view of the server's status and that of its support infrastructure, plus links to more information.

Errors and Warnings

The status of each item in the Dashboard is indicated by a message and associated icon:

• OK  – the detected metrics are within an acceptable range or condition.
• Warning  – the Concord Pro server and its supporting infrastructure is functioning correctly, but a change is recommended to resolve a potential or future issue.
• Error  – part of the Concord Pro server or its supporting infrastructure is not functioning correctly and requires immediate attention.

Hover the mouse over an item’s status for more information. For an Error or Warning that is shown in the Dashboard, further details are (in most cases) available by clicking the status entry for that item. The following image demonstrates a failure of the server's Acquisition service, while all other services are OK.

Hover over a status entry to access more detailed information.

Responsive links

Many of the Error/Warning conditions detected by the Concord Pro Health Monitor offer links intended to help resolve the situation. These are included in the item’s detailed information, available when clicking on its status entry.

Where common event issues occur, the associated information provides further details and links to help resolve the condition of concern.

In the above example screen on the left, the Health Monitor has detected that Concord Pro data has not been backed up. The associated information provides a link to documentation that will help to resolve the situation.

The example screen on the right (above) indicates that the server's default admin/admin sign in credentials still exists, which poses a significant security risk. The Fix It link in the associated information directly accesses the server's sign-in page through the browser interface. Once signed in, this default Administrator User profile can be corrected.

Log Browser

The Health Monitor’s Log Browser screen, accessed by the Log Browser tab, presents Error and Warning entries from all of the server’s available Log files – normally located in the C:\ProgramData\Altium\ConcordProData\logs folder. To view details about a specific event entry click its associated ellipsis icon (•••). To view the log file that contains the event entry, select the Open file link or simply double-click on the entry itself.

The cumulative event entries in the list are sectioned by date and will include all Error/Warning events that are available from all log files. To find specific events, choose a time period from the Show logs drop down menu, and/or use the dynamic filter field () to search for key words within the Subsystem and Message columns.

The Log Browser interface allows you to zero in on events of interest using a selectable time period and keyword filtering.

Select the button to remove the accumulated log entries from the Log Browser list – this will archive then delete all existing log files.

Status Report

The Health Monitor’s Status Report screen, accessed by the Status Report tab, is used to generate and display Concord Pro status report files. The generated reports collate all the event debug information in a single Zip archive (*.zip) that can be sent, if necessary, to Altium Developers.

To create a report, select an appropriate event time period from the Include Logs drop down menu, enter your contact details and select the sharing agreement, and then initiate the process with the button.

Use the Status Report screen to generate collated Log report files for debug purposes.