Creating Monitors

FortiBlox Monitor makes it easy to create comprehensive monitoring setups for your websites, APIs, servers, and services. This guide covers everything you need to know about setting up effective monitoring.

Monitor Types

HTTP/HTTPS Monitoring

Website Monitoring

• URL Monitoring: Monitor any website or web application
• Custom Headers: Include authentication headers and custom values
• Response Validation: Check for specific content in responses
• SSL Certificate Monitoring: Monitor certificate expiry and validity

Configuration Options

HTTP Monitor Setup:
├── URL: https://your-website.com
├── Method: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
├── Headers: Custom authentication headers
├── Body: Request payload for POST/PUT
├── Timeout: 30 seconds (configurable)
└── Follow Redirects: Yes/No

Advanced Features

• Content Matching: Search for specific text in responses
• Response Time Thresholds: Alert on slow response times
• Status Code Validation: Expected vs. actual status codes
• Geographic Testing: Test from multiple global locations

API Endpoint Monitoring

REST API Monitoring

• Endpoint Health Checks: Monitor API availability
• Authentication Support: API keys, OAuth, bearer tokens
• Response Validation: JSON schema validation
• Performance Monitoring: Track API response times

API Test Configuration

API Monitor Example:
├── Endpoint: https://api.example.com/health
├── Method: GET
├── Authentication: Bearer token
├── Expected Status: 200
├── Response Check: JSON contains "status": "ok"
└── Timeout: 15 seconds

Monitor Configuration

Basic Settings

Essential Configuration

• Monitor Name: Descriptive name for easy identification
• URL/Target: What you want to monitor
• Check Frequency: How often to run checks (30 seconds to 24 hours)
• Timeout Settings: Maximum wait time for responses

Monitoring Locations

Global Locations:
├── North America: 12 locations
├── Europe: 15 locations
├── Asia Pacific: 10 locations
├── South America: 3 locations
└── Other Regions: 5 locations

Advanced Configuration

Performance Thresholds

• Response Time Limits: Alert when responses are too slow
• Uptime Targets: Set SLA requirements (99.9%, 99.95%, etc.)
• Error Rate Thresholds: Alert on high error rates
• Availability Windows: Define business hours for monitoring

Content Validation

• Text Matching: Ensure specific content is present
• RegEx Patterns: Advanced pattern matching
• JSON Path Validation: Validate JSON response structure
• XML/HTML Parsing: Check specific elements or attributes

Alert Configuration

Alert Rules

Trigger Conditions

Alert Triggers:
├── Down Detection: Site unreachable
├── Response Time: > 5 seconds
├── Status Code: Not 2xx range
├── Content Missing: Expected text not found
└── SSL Issues: Certificate problems

Escalation Settings

• Immediate Alerts: Instant notifications on failure
• Delayed Alerts: Wait for confirmation from multiple checks
• Escalation Chains: Progressive notifications to different teams
• Business Hours: Different alert rules for different times

Notification Channels

Supported Channels

• Email: Standard email notifications
• SMS: Text message alerts
• Slack: Team chat notifications
• Discord: Community notifications
• Webhooks: Custom HTTP callbacks
• PagerDuty: Incident management integration

Channel Configuration

Notification Setup:
├── Primary: Email to [email protected]
├── Secondary: SMS to on-call engineer
├── Escalation: Slack #incidents channel
└── Webhook: POST to incident system

Monitor Categories

Website Monitoring

E-commerce Sites

• Checkout Process: Monitor critical purchase flows
• Product Pages: Ensure catalog pages load correctly
• Search Functionality: Test search and filtering
• Payment Systems: Monitor payment gateway health

Content Sites

• Homepage Monitoring: Track main site availability
• Content Delivery: Monitor CDN performance
• Media Files: Check image and video accessibility
• Dynamic Content: Validate personalized content

Application Monitoring

Web Applications

• Login Systems: Monitor authentication flows
• Dashboard Pages: Check application interfaces
• API Endpoints: Monitor backend services
• Database Connections: Test data layer health

SaaS Applications

• User Portals: Monitor customer-facing interfaces
• Admin Panels: Check management interfaces
• Integration APIs: Monitor third-party integrations
• Service Status: Overall application health

Best Practices

Monitoring Strategy

Comprehensive Coverage

Monitoring Checklist:
├── Homepage: Primary site entrance
├── Critical Pages: Key user journeys
├── APIs: Backend service health
├── Dependencies: Third-party services
└── Infrastructure: Server and network health

Frequency Optimization

• Critical Services: Every 30-60 seconds
• Standard Pages: Every 2-5 minutes
• Less Critical: Every 10-30 minutes
• Development Sites: Every hour or as needed

Alert Management

Alert Optimization

• Meaningful Names: Clear, descriptive alert names
• Context Information: Include relevant details in alerts
• Severity Levels: Appropriate urgency for different issues
• Alert Grouping: Group related alerts to reduce noise

False Positive Reduction

• Multiple Location Checks: Confirm outages from multiple points
• Retry Logic: Automatic retries before alerting
• Maintenance Windows: Pause alerts during planned maintenance
• Smart Filtering: Filter out known temporary issues

Maintenance and Optimization

Monitor Maintenance

Regular Reviews

• Performance Analysis: Review monitor performance monthly
• Threshold Adjustments: Update alert thresholds as needed
• Location Optimization: Adjust monitoring locations
• Cleanup: Remove outdated or unused monitors

Configuration Updates

• URL Changes: Update monitors when sites change
• Authentication Updates: Refresh API keys and tokens
• Alert Contact Updates: Keep notification lists current
• Business Hour Adjustments: Update monitoring schedules

Performance Optimization

Monitoring Efficiency

Optimization Tips:
├── Right Frequency: Don't over-monitor
├── Location Selection: Choose relevant locations
├── Timeout Tuning: Balance speed vs accuracy
├── Content Checks: Only check what matters
└── Alert Tuning: Reduce false positives

Next Steps