Table of Contents
Introduction
Many companies that provide IoT or device management solutions need help building an in-house monitoring solution. Managing devices for your clients is challenging enough—building a monitoring system is not everyone's wheelhouse and takes time to set up.
In this article, we will review some of the most common use cases for device management companies and discuss how these businesses can use MetricFire to save time and money on their monitoring.
At MetricFire, we have many real customers with use cases just like the ones listed below. If one of these use cases sounds like a pain you may be facing, please reach out! We'd love to chat!
How device management companies help businesses
Device management companies are B2B businesses that provide administrative support and maintenance for their customer's devices, such as phones, computers, VMs, and more.
They help keep companies' devices secure and policies enforced. They are essential for ensuring that the company uses devices appropriately.
Device management companies vary in the types of solutions they provide. Some offer cloud-based solutions, while others offer on-prem or hardware-based solutions. Many have some form of IoT solution that communicates with devices via a messaging protocol, such as MQTT. More on that later!
Top Monitoring Use Cases for Device Management Companies
Device management companies need a monitoring system in place for many reasons. They need to monitor their internal use cases and ensure their client's devices are functioning properly. Here are major use cases that many device management companies have for monitoring:
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Device Performance Monitoring
Device management companies must track CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O, and network traffic to ensure devices function optimally. Monitoring device performance enables these companies to identify performance bottlenecks and allows proactive maintenance before problems occur.
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Security Monitoring
With security monitoring in place, these companies can track unusual device behavior, unauthorized access, unexpected software changes, and more. They can also improve device security by detecting threats like hacking attempts or malware infections.
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User Experience Monitoring
Monitoring how users interact with devices, including latency, crashes, and errors, helps businesses improve user experience within their applications.
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Compliance Monitoring
Many businesses use a device management solution to monitor device configurations and behaviors. All devices must comply with industry regulations (e.g., HIPAA for healthcare devices), and monitoring this keeps everything up to date and reduces the risks of penalties.
Now that we've reviewed some of the most common device management monitoring use cases let's discuss how they can set up monitoring.
Using MQTT and Telegraf to monitor devices
Many device management companies use software that can communicate with the devices via a messaging protocol, like MQTT. Here's how it works.
First, you need to run an MQTT broker. We will connect this to Telegraf, a plugin-driven server agent built on InfluxDB that collects and sends metrics/events from databases, systems, processes, devices, and applications.
After you have installed Telegraf, you then must configure an output. You can configure Telegraf to output to various sources, such as Graphite, Kafka, InfluxDB, SQL, NoSQL, and more.
Last, you'll need to configure Telegraf's MQTT consumer plugin. All you need to do is search for the inputs.mqtt_consumer section in your telegraf.conf file, uncomment the [[inputs.mqtt_consumer]] line, and uncomment the server line (default is localhost at port 1883).
This blog explains how to do this in more detail. It walks you through the step-by-step process of configuring MQTT with Telegraf. Check out the official GitHub repository for additional configuration options for the mqtt_consumer plugin.
3rd party MQTT Brokers
Several MQTT brokers exist; to highlight one, HiveMQ integrates with MetricFire. To learn how this works, see the integrations page.
Getting Started with MetricFire
Setting up device management monitoring is easy when you use MetricFire. MetricFire integrates with MQTT, Telegraf, and more, so businesses can collect data from devices and visualize it in real time.
Conclusion
When you sign up for a free trial with MetricFire, you're getting a powerful monitoring solution and a reliable support system. Our support team is always here for you, ready to assist with any configuration or integration needs, whether Telegraf setup or third-party MQTT broker integration.
Don't let monitoring challenges hinder your progress. Start using MetricFire today and experience how we can help your business save time and resources while providing top-notch monitoring solutions for your clients. With MetricFire, you can streamline your monitoring process, improve efficiency, and enhance your client service.
