How to set up check locations and alerts in Centoculus

A single failed request is not an outage. Networks have short glitches, and one location can lose its route to your server while everyone else still reaches it. Centoculus therefore checks from several places and alerts only when the failure is confirmed. This page explains the settings that decide when you get an alert and where it goes.

Step by step

1. Choose the check locations

In the monitor form, under Check locations, tick the locations that check this monitor. Locations include Europe, Canada and Singapore. How many locations you can use per monitor depends on your plan.

2. Choose the main location and Smart Verify

With two or more locations you choose a main location. It checks at the chosen interval; ideally pick the location closest to your server. Once checks have run, the form suggests the location with the fastest answers.

With Smart Verify (depending on your plan), all other locations check at once when the main location fails. You are only alerted when your server is really unreachable. If one location still reaches it, a network problem is reported instead of an outage.

3. Or set the alert thresholds yourself

Without Smart Verify you set two thresholds. Failed checks before alert (1 to 3): how many checks in a row must fail. Locations before alert (1 to 3): at how many locations. You cannot require more locations than are selected. On some plans these values are fixed at 2 checks and 1 location.

4. Set up notification channels

Open Notifications and click Add channel. All active channels are notified at the same time. Click Send test to check a channel.

Notification channels

Each channel also has these options:

• Quiet hours: alerts during this time are held back until the quiet hours end.
• Alert only after: wait a number of minutes before this channel is notified, for example for a second escalation level.
• Also send recovery: a message when the monitor is up again.
• Applies to: all monitors or selected monitors.

Frequently asked questions

Why several locations?

Only when enough locations and checks see a failure are you alerted. Short network glitches on the way to one location therefore do not cause false alarms.

Which main location should I choose?

The one closest to your server. It gives the most representative response times. When you edit a monitor that has been running, the form suggests the location with the fastest answers.

What is the shortest check interval?

That depends on your plan. Shorter intervals are shown in the form but locked if your plan does not include them.

I got a "network problem" message. What does it mean?

With Smart Verify, the main location could not reach your server, but at least one other location could. The server is up; the problem lies on the network path to one location.

Do I get a message when it is fixed?

Yes, if Also send recovery is on for the channel. The incident on the monitor page shows start, end and duration.