Laptops & Desktops monitoring using Agent

Monitor the availability, performance, and health of all laptops and desktop computers managed by Cloudmon agents. Track CPU, memory, disk, battery, and network metrics in real time, even when devices go offline.

Overview

Laptops and desktops are the most unpredictable devices in any IT environment. They move between networks, go offline during travel, run on battery, and are used by employees who may not report issues until performance has already degraded. Cloudmon addresses this by installing a lightweight agent directly on each device, giving IT teams continuous visibility into the health and behaviour of every managed endpoint.

The agent collects performance data locally and stores it in an offline database for a configurable period of time. When the device reconnects to the network, all locally stored data is automatically uploaded and processed, ensuring there are no gaps in your monitoring history even when devices are away from the office or temporarily disconnected.

Navigate to Agents → Laptops & Desktops to access this view. The summary bar shows Total devices, Down, Critical, In Charging, Poor Battery Health, and Low Battery counts, giving you an immediate fleet-wide health snapshot. Distribution charts break down devices by State, OS, Vendor, and Location. The Top 5 charts highlight the devices under the heaviest CPU, Memory, and Disk load.

Device List

The device list shows all discovered laptops and desktops with the following details:

Device Overview

Selecting a device opens its detail page. The overview shows key identity and status information, including the hostname, IP address, group, customer, state, and status. It also shows availability percentage, total downtime, battery level, WiFi connectivity, current system time, and whether the device clock is in sync.

Hardware details include the processor, memory, partitions, disk, WiFi adapter, battery, operating system, and chassis, among other configuration information. Public IP details show the ISP, country, timezone, and organisation, helpful for confirming where a remote device is currently connected from.

Installed Software

Lists all software installed on the device, showing the application name, version, publisher, and installation date. This is useful for auditing software across your laptop fleet, identifying devices running outdated application versions, unlicensed software, or applications that should not be present on managed devices.

Processes and Services

Displays real-time CPU and memory usage across all running processes, alongside a list of monitored system services and their current state. For laptops and desktops specifically, this view is most useful for:

• Identifying a browser or application consuming excessive memory, causing the device to slow down for the end user.
• Detecting a background update process or antivirus scan spiking CPU and affecting user productivity.
• Spotting unauthorised or unexpected applications running on a managed device.
• Confirming that critical endpoint services such as VPN clients, endpoint protection agents, or backup software are running and healthy.
• Correlating a user-reported performance complaint with a specific process consuming disproportionate resources at that time.

Enabling Process Monitoring

All running processes are listed under this tab but are not individually monitored by default. To monitor a specific process and track its resource usage over time:

1. Navigate to Agents and select the laptop or desktop you want to configure.
2. Open the Processes and Services tab.
3. Click All Processes to view every process currently running on the device.
4. Click the Monitor icon next to any process you want to track. The process is added to the Monitored Processes table and Cloudmon begins collecting detailed CPU usage, memory usage, instance count, PID, and installation path for it.

The process list refreshes automatically at every reporting interval. Clicking the alarm icon next to a monitored process enables a Critical alarm if that process becomes inactive.

Enabling Service Monitoring

Services are not monitored by default. To monitor specific services and receive alerts when they stop, you need to enable monitoring for each service individually:

1. Navigate to Agents and select the laptop or desktop you want to configure.
2. Open the Processes and Services tab.
3. Click All Services to view every service currently running on the device.
4. Click the Monitor icon next to any service you want to track. The service is added to the Monitored Services table and Cloudmon begins tracking its state continuously.

The service list refreshes automatically at every reporting interval. For each monitored service you can see its running state, start mode (manual or automatic), CPU usage, memory usage, instance count, and virtual memory size.

Enabling Process and Service Alarms

Cloudmon can raise a Critical alarm automatically when a monitored process or service becomes inactive. There are two ways to enable this:

Option 1 — Enable the alarm directly from the service list. When viewing the Monitored Services table, click the alarm icon next to a process or service to toggle its alarm on. When the icon is active, a Critical alarm is raised if that service or process stops. Clicking the icon again disables the alarm without removing the service or process from monitoring.

Option 2 — Configure an alarm rule at the device or group level. For applying consistent service and process alarm policies across multiple devices, refer to Alarm Rule Configuration for full details.

System Metrics

Displays time-series charts for key performance metrics collected from the device. For laptops and desktops, particularly relevant metrics include CPU Utilisation, Memory Utilisation, Disk Usage, WiFi Stats, and Battery Level, among other hardware and performance indicators. Battery Level trends over time can help identify devices with degrading batteries before they become a problem for the user. WiFi Stats can surface persistent connectivity issues for remote workers that would otherwise go unreported.

Troubleshooting