Group Checks organize multiple checks to monitor systems, report on performance, and manage incident response. Designate contacts for a group check to receive alerts when the Group Down / Alert Conditions are met.
Group checks allow the nesting of numerous checks that may or may not comprise a single system, and can also be useful when systems are interdependent. Grouping checks allows you to receive alerts under customizable failure conditions.
Table of Contents
- Creating a Group Check
- Managing Group Checks
- Accessing Group Check Reports
- Use Cases for Group Checks
Creating a Group Check
To create your first group check, click on Monitoring>Checks or Monitoring>Group Checks, followed by the Add New button. It is also possible to create a group check or add to an existing one using bulk actions. Select several checks from your list of checks and then click Bulk Actions > Create Group Check or Add to Group Check.
You will find the Group Check nested beneath the Web subheading in the All Checks dropdown.
Setup and Check Selection
There are two methods to select checks:
- Manually select checks
- Auto-select checks by tag
Manual check selection allows you to add individual checks to a group from a list of your existing checks. Auto-selecting a check by tag will add all checks that have the selected tag(s) applied, including present and future checks added to this tag. You can find more detail about check tags here.
A single check of any type can exist in multiple groups, but group checks cannot contain other group checks. There is a maximum limit of 200 manually selected checks, but no such limit exists for checks auto-selected by tag. However, a single Group Check is allowed no more than 50 tags.
Group Check Alert Conditions
Group checks calculate a state change once every 30 seconds, and the state of the group (either UP or DOWN) is reflected at that time.
Group Checks do not include real-time analysis. Alerts will specify when Group Down / Alert Conditions are met, and will contain a brief listing of checks nested within the group that reported downtime.
Group Down / Alert Conditions
Define a condition that will bring the group down. The following options are available:
- Any assigned check is down
- 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 10 assigned checks are down
- 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 / 25 / 50 % of assigned checks are down
- All assigned checks are down
When the selected Group Down / Alert Conditions is met, the group check will issue an alert to any contact(s) associated with the group check. This group check alert will be in addition to any alerts issued by the individual checks within the group.
Uptime % calculation
This option determines how a group check’s Uptime % is calculated. The only selection currently available is to calculate uptime % dependent on the group check’s up or down state. More options will be available soon.
Managing Group Checks
A group check can contain multiple checks of any type, except for other group checks. Clicking any group check will display all checks nested within it.
Managing group checks does not affect the settings of individual checks nested within that group, and there are a few additional limitations. For example, group checks do not have a real-time analysis as they are available for the individual checks.
Group Checks Page
The Group Checks page shows all group checks configured for your account. Click into a given check to see a list of all assigned checks organized within that group check.
Adding and Removing Checks from a Group
To add or remove checks from an existing group, locate the group check from Monitoring>Group Checks, and selection Actions>Edit.
Note: Deleting a check from within a group deletes the check from your account but deleting a group check does not delete the individual checks within it.
If checks have been assigned to a group by tag, and you wish to remove them, you will need to navigate to the check(s) in question and click Actions>Edit to remove the check’s tag. This operation can be done in bulk.
Maintenance with Group Checks
Individual checks assigned to a group can be in maintenance mode, but the group check does not inherit this status from the nested children checks. To put a group check in maintenance mode, click Monitoring>Group Checks, select the check in question and click Actions>Edit. Click the Maintenance tab to set a maintenance window.
If an individual check under maintenance belongs to a group that is not under maintenance, and this check goes down, its downtime applies to the failure condition you have selected.
Accessing Group Check Reports
To access an Uptime report for a Group Check, select Actions>Report for that Group Check from the list of your group checks.
You can investigate a report for an individual check from the Group Check Details page when you click the name of the group check.
Group checks do not list a response time, but response time is available for any checks nested within a group.
Use Cases for Group Checks
Get Alerted to Widespread Outages
With large enough sites or monitored infrastructures, a single failed URL doesn’t always indicate a problem. If you’re monitoring dozens, or hundreds, of URLs, it may be more beneficial to think of your site’s uptime in terms of percentage of down URLs. Using the Uptime.com group check, you can monitor these URLs and set alerts when 1%, 3%, or even 10% of these URLs go down.
Cataloging all Checks for a Single System
Suppose “My System” contains 5 components, and more than one of those components can fail before the system will stop working. A group check set to fail if 2 of its 5 assigned checks fail will give your team first-alert capability that a critical system is potentially down.
Escalating to a System Owner
Building on the previous use case, Uptime.com normally recommends escalations to a system owner after X minutes of downtime have passed. Such practices lead to resolutions, and improve overall downtime response. Group checks can offer a more immediate and precise escalation to the system’s owner, with data on which systems are down to improve reaction and time to resolution.
Properly configured, alerts from a Group Check can provide real-time visibility on potentially critical system failures.
Track Important Product Pages
Group checks can monitor performance and uptime for a set of HTTP(S) checks aimed at your most trafficked landing pages. Group these checks together for reporting purposes to see how well these most important pages perform. Group Checks do not report on response time, but the individual checks nested within them do. Use Real User Monitoring to supercharge the data you collect with real-user session performance.
Load Balance Tracking
Group checks can be effective for monitoring a load balancer. Setup will require multiple HTTP(S) checks, one pointing directly to the domain and the remainder pointing to each load balance IP address using the HOST header. More details on check setup, with examples, are available here.
Group these HTTP(S) checks into a single group check and set failure conditions to either multiple URLs, or by percentage of URLs down for the most accurate representation into the state of your load balancing.