Cloud Probe deployment use cases

You can install directly onto a Windows or Linux OS to provide remote real end-user monitoring capabilities in environments where network taps or spanning ports are not accessible. By deploying a Cloud Probe, BMC Real End User Experience Monitoring can monitor applications that are deployed in a public cloud environment, such as Amazon EC2, a private data center, or a hybrid deployment.

The Cloud Probe sends information through the traffic recipient component (Real User Collector or Real User Monitor or APM Central). You must plan your distribution the recipient component and Real User Cloud Probes, so that you know to which  traffic recipient component you will connect each Cloud Probe. The Cloud Probe service can capture HTTP or HTTPS traffic destined for the system on which it is hosted; it cannot capture traffic going out of the system.

When planning your installation, consider the following deployment options, listed in order of recommendation by BMC:

Installation of Cloud Probe on a dedicated system

BMC recommends that you install the Cloud Probe on a dedicated Windows or Linux computer in which you have enabled Promiscuous Mode/Accept on the capture ports. As shown in the following illustration, this deployment option also requires a network tap.    

Dedicated system for deploying Real User Cloud Probe

Installation of Cloud Probe on a load-balancing system

When the recommended deployment option is not suitable for your environment, consider installing the Cloud Probe on the system that provides the load-balancing operations for the application. 

Load balancer as a deployment option for the Real User Cloud Probe

Installation of Cloud Probe on a web server

You can also install the Real User Cloud Probe on your web servers. This approach is not optimal as it consumes resources from the web server. If you adopt this option, you must install the Real User Cloud Probe on each web server. 

Web server as a deployment option for the Real User Cloud Probe

For information on preparing the network interface card (NIC) for traffic capture, see Setting up the monitored NIC for the Cloud Probe.

Related topics

Sizing considerations

Deployment use cases: High-volume traffic deployment

Deployment use cases: Multiple data center deployment

Deployment use cases: Segment-based deployment

Installing the Cloud Probe

BMC Application Performance Management as a Service system architecture