How to Capture a Web Application Recording in Operations Manager 2007

Applies To: Operations Manager 2007 R2, Operations Manager 2007 SP1

Use the Web Application Editor to capture navigation through one or more Web sites. In the Web Application Editor, you can interactively record a sequence of actions on a Web site or you can manually create a set of requests that monitor the Web site. The capture Web site navigation feature intercepts traffic between Internet Explorer and the Web site and captures all HTTP request data, such as headers and body. This feature also sets defaults for monitoring criteria to match the captured data. For instance, if during capture a Web server reports status code 404 for a request, the MP Configuration Wizard defaults to expecting a 404 status code for that request. These defaults can be changed by editing the object.

You can add recordings to existing Web Application objects or you can create a recording immediately after creating a new Web Application object. If you add a recording to an existing object, the captured requests can be inserted in between other requests that you have already created or recorded.

To create a new Web Application object that contains a recording

  1. Open the Authoring pane.

  2. Expand Management Pack Templates and click Web Application.

  3. In the Actions pane, click Record a browser session.

  4. In the Web Application Editor dialog box, do the following:

    1. Type a name and optionally a description of the recording.

    2. Select a management pack where your Web Application object will be saved.

    3. Click OK.

  5. Click Start capture. Internet explorer opens. If you see an error message about third party extensions being disabled for Internet Explorer, follow these steps:

    1. Click Tools->Internet Options.

    2. Click the Advanced tab.

    3. Under Browsing, select Enable third party browser extensions (requires restart).

  6. In the browser window, follow the actions you want to be monitored. For example, you might click some links or add a product to a shopping cart.

  7. When you have completed the recording, click Stop in the left pane of Internet Explorer.

  8. Optionally click Run Test in the Actions pane to immediately run the synthetic transaction and see the results. At this point, you might encounter the following errors:

    • If the Web application requires authentication, running a test of the web application may fail. While running the test, credentials that have been configured for this Web application will not be used. If the site you are testing does not explicitly require authentication, the test may still succeed. You can click Configure Settings under Web Application for any Web site to select authentication settings.

    • If you see an error message that the server name or address cannot be resolved, but you can access the Web application through Internet Explorer while not recording a session, you might need to configure your proxy settings. The Run Test tool uses the proxy configuration that is set with the proxycfg tool instead of the proxy configuration in Internet Explorer. To resolve this issue, run the following command on the root management server:

      proxycfg -p <proxyname>:<portnumber>

  9. Optionally add requests or edit captured requests by using the Insert request or Properties feature. For more information, see How To Set Health Criteria for a Request in Operations Manager 2007.

To add a recording to an existing Web Application object

  1. Open the Authoring pane.

  2. Expand Management Pack Templates and click Web Application.

  3. Select the object to which you want to add a recording.

  4. On the Actions pane, click Edit web application settings.

  5. Select the request from the list where you want the recording to be inserted. Recordings are inserted after the request you select.

  6. On the Actions pane, click Start capture. Internet explorer opens. If you see an error message about third party extensions being disabled for Internet Explorer, follow these steps:

    1. Click Tools->Internet Options.

    2. Click the Advanced tab.

    3. Under Browsing, select Enable third party browser extensions (requires restart).

    4. Close Internet Explorer, and then click Start capture to start the browser again.

  7. In the browser window, follow the actions you want to be monitored. For example, you might click some links or add a product to a shopping cart.

  8. When you have completed the recording, click Stop in the left pane of Internet Explorer.

  9. Optionally click Run Test in the Actions pane to immediately run the synthetic transaction and see the results.

    Important

    If the Web application requires authentication, running a test of the Web application may fail. While running the test, credentials that have been configured for this Web application will not be used. If the site you are testing does not explicitly require authentication, the test may still succeed.

  10. Optionally add requests or edit captured requests by using the Insert request or Properties feature. For additional information, see How To Set Health Criteria for a Request in Operations Manager 2007.

See Also

Tasks

How To Set Health Criteria for a Request in Operations Manager 2007
How to Create a Web Application Monitor