Windows monitoring

There are several ways by which you can monitor a Windows host:

• Retrieving data using SNMP
• Retrieving data using WMI
• Collecting data with Windows PowerShell commands (for example, using the remote SSH command execution method)

Let's look into the SNMP and WMI methods in more detail using a Windows 2008 R2 server.

Windows SNMP setup

On a new Windows Server 2012 R2 server, by default the SNMP service is not installed. In order for Cacti to poll this server, you will need to enable this feature.

Time for action - enabling the SNMP server feature

Let's go through the steps to enable the SNMP service on your Windows server:

1. Log on to your Windows system as an administrator.
2. Go to Control Panel then to Administrative Tools.

3. Start the Server Manager and click on the Add roles and features link:

4. In the new window on the feature step, select the SNMP features as shown in the next image. Depending on your installation type or system setup, it may already be installed:

5. Click on Next , then on...