Insight: Machine Groups
Overview
Use this page to onboard machines into machine groups and manage group settings. A machine group is a named collection of monitored machines that share infrastructure-monitoring configuration, letting you organize agents by environment, application, or team instead of managing each machine individually.
Before a machine can be assigned to a group, LoadGen must detect it reporting into Insight; newly detected machines first appear in the Needs Onboarding panel until you place them in a group. Once grouped, the monitoring data these machines report feeds Insight: Dashboard, where their metrics and status roll up by group.
On this page you can create new machine groups, search for existing ones by name, drag newly detected machines out of Needs Onboarding into a group, turn a group's monitoring on or off, and edit, duplicate, or delete groups as your infrastructure changes.
Key concepts
- Machine group - A named collection of monitored machines that share infrastructure-monitoring settings, such as enabled state and the WMI counters collected from them. (related: Insight: Dashboard)
- Needs Onboarding - A virtual group that holds machines LoadGen has detected but that have not yet been assigned to a machine group; it is not a configurable group itself.
- WMI - Windows Management Instrumentation, the counter type LoadGen reads from monitored machines; the count on a group card is the number of WMI counters configured across its machines. (related: Configuration: Insight: Machines)
- Enabled - Whether a machine group is actively monitored. Switching it off pauses monitoring for every machine in the group without removing its configuration or machine assignments.
When to use it
- A new machine starts reporting to Insight and you need to assign it to the right monitoring group.
- You're setting up monitoring for a new environment or application and need a dedicated group.
- You want to pause monitoring for a set of machines temporarily, for example during planned maintenance, without deleting its configuration.
- You need another group with the same monitoring configuration as an existing one.
- You're auditing which machines are assigned, online, or still awaiting onboarding.
Before you begin
- A LoadGen agent must be installed and reporting on each machine you want to monitor; detected machines appear automatically in the Needs Onboarding panel.
- Per-machine monitoring settings, such as WMI counters, are configured under Configuration: Insight: Machines before they are meaningful inside a group.
- Any credentials the monitored machines rely on must be valid; expiring or expired tokens are reissued under Configuration: Credential Profiles.
- You need permission to manage Insight machine groups if you plan to create, edit, or delete groups rather than just view the list.
Common workflows
Onboard a newly detected machine into a machine group
Persona: load-test operator or admin
- Locate the machine you want to onboard in the Needs Onboarding card.
- Expect: The machine appears as a chip inside the dashed Needs Onboarding drop zone, labeled with its machine name.
- Drag the machine chip onto the target machine group card.
- Expect: The chip moves into the target group's machine list, the group's machine count chip increments, and Needs Onboarding shows 0 machines once no machines remain unassigned.
Verify: The machine now appears under the target group's card with a status dot, and the Needs Onboarding panel reports no machines awaiting onboarding.
Create a new machine group
Persona: admin
- Select New Machine Group in the page header.
- Expect: A dialog opens prompting for a name in the New machine group name field.
- Type a unique name and confirm the dialog.
- Expect: The dialog closes and a new card for the group appears in the list, enabled by default with 0 machines.
Verify: The new group's name appears as a card title in the list and is available as a drop target for onboarding machines.
Steps
Step 1
Open Machine Groups from the Insight navigation section.
Expected result: The page loads showing the Needs Onboarding panel (0 machines, no machines awaiting onboarding) and one existing group, LoadGen Demo, with its Enabled toggle on, one machine chip (LOADGEN-W22-01, shown online), 12 WMI monitors, and a last-updated date of Jul 3, 2026. A Credentials expiring banner also appears, warning that the Orders API token expires in 4 days.
This gives you the current state of every machine group before you onboard new machines or change settings.
- Search machine groups filters the cards below by name.
- The Needs Onboarding panel is a drop zone for machines not yet assigned to a group.
- The green status dot on LOADGEN-W22-01 indicates it is online.
Step 2
Select Refresh in the page header.
Expected result: The machine group cards and the Needs Onboarding panel reload; the Credentials expiring banner that was covering the header is no longer shown, exposing the Refresh and New Machine Group buttons, and Needs Onboarding again reports no machines awaiting onboarding.
Refreshing confirms the list reflects the latest onboarding and configuration state before you drag in a newly detected machine or change a group.
- New Machine Group opens the dialog to create a group.
-
Refresh re-fetches the current cards without navigating away from the page.
Field reference
| Field | Purpose | Format / Validation | Required | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search machine groups | Filters the group cards shown below to those whose name contains the typed text; use it to jump to a specific group instead of scrolling the full list. | free text | No | - |
| New machine group name | Names the group you are creating or duplicating. Choose a name that identifies the environment, application, or team the group monitors, since it is the only label shown on the card. | free text | Yes | - |
| Enabled toggle | Turns the machine group's monitoring on or off. Leave it on so the group's machines keep reporting; turn it off to pause monitoring for every machine in the group without deleting the group or its machine assignments. | on/off toggle | - | On |
Column reference
| Column | What it shows | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Machine count chip | Shows how many machines currently belong to the group, or on the Needs Onboarding panel, how many are waiting to be assigned. | A higher number means more machines are organized under that group; 0 machines on Needs Onboarding means every detected machine is already assigned. |
| Monitor type count | Shows how many WMI monitors are configured across the group's machines. | A higher count means more performance counters are being collected per machine in that group; compare it against what you expect from the machines' Insight configuration. |
| Updated date | Shows the date the group's configuration or membership last changed. | An old date on a group you expect to be actively managed may mean no one has reviewed its membership recently. |
| Machine chip | Lists each machine assigned to the group along with its current connection status. | A green dot means the machine is online and reporting; check Configuration: Insight: Machines if a machine you expect to see is missing or not reporting. |
Controls reference
Search machine groups
Filters the visible machine group cards to those whose name matches the typed text.
When to use: Use it when you manage many groups and need to find one by name quickly.
Side effects: Read-only: narrows the displayed cards without changing stored data. If nothing matches, the page shows No Matching Machine Groups along with Clear Search.
New Machine Group
Opens a dialog to create a new machine group by typing a name.
When to use: Use it when you need a new category to organize machines, such as a new environment or application tier.
Side effects: Mutating: confirming the dialog creates a new group card, enabled by default, with 0 machines, visible immediately in the list.
Refresh
Reloads the machine group cards and the Needs Onboarding panel from the server.
When to use: Use it after another operator changes group membership or settings, or after a new agent starts reporting, to see the current state without reloading the whole page.
Side effects: Read-only: re-fetches and redisplays current data; makes no changes itself.
Enabled toggle
Turns infrastructure monitoring on or off for every machine in the group.
When to use: Turn it off to pause monitoring for a group, for example during planned maintenance, without losing its configuration or machine assignments; turn it back on to resume.
Side effects: Mutating: immediately changes the group's active state; stays off until you toggle it back on.
Edit
Opens the selected machine group's settings for editing.
When to use: Use it to rename the group or change its monitoring configuration.
Side effects: Opens an edit view; changes are only saved if you confirm them inside that view.
Duplicate
Opens a dialog to create a copy of the selected machine group under a new name.
When to use: Use it when you need another group with the same monitoring configuration, for example a second environment with identical counter settings.
Side effects: Mutating: confirming Duplicate creates a new group card with the source group's configuration; it shows Failed to duplicate if the operation errors.
Delete
Opens a Delete Machine Group confirmation dialog for the selected group.
When to use: Use it to remove a group you no longer need.
Side effects: Mutating: confirming the dialog permanently removes the group; machines that belonged to it are no longer organized under it.
Cancel
Closes the Duplicate Machine Group dialog without creating a copy.
When to use: Use it if you opened Duplicate by mistake or change your mind about the name.
Side effects: Read-only: discards the dialog input; no group is created.
Clear Search
Clears the text in Search machine groups and restores the full list of cards.
When to use: Use it after a search returns No Matching Machine Groups and you want to see every group again.
Side effects: Read-only: resets the search field; does not change any group data.
Try again
When to use: Use it if the page fails to load machine groups, for example due to a temporary connection issue.
Side effects: Read-only: re-attempts the data fetch; makes no changes to groups.
Create Machine Group
Opens the same create dialog as New Machine Group, shown when no groups exist yet.
When to use: Use it the first time you set up Insight monitoring, before any group has been created.
Side effects: Mutating: confirming creates the first machine group card.
Verify the result
When a machine is organized correctly, its chip and green status dot appear on the group card you assigned it to, that card's machine count has incremented, and the machine no longer appears in the Needs Onboarding panel. The Needs Onboarding panel shows no machines awaiting onboarding once every detected machine has a group. If a group's data looks stale or a machine is missing from where you expect, select Refresh and confirm the group's Enabled toggle is on before investigating further.
Troubleshooting
- Symptom: A new machine never appears in Needs Onboarding. Fix: Confirm the LoadGen agent on that machine is installed and reporting; machines only surface here once Insight detects them.
- Symptom: New Machine Group or Create Machine Group returns 'Name is required.' Fix: Type a name before confirming; the field cannot be blank.
- Symptom: Creating or duplicating a group fails with 'A machine group with this name already exists.' Fix: Choose a different, unique name for the group.
- Symptom: A group's monitoring data looks outdated. Fix: Check that its Enabled toggle is on, then select Refresh to reload the current state.
- Symptom: A Credentials expiring banner covers the page header and controls. Fix: Reissue the expiring token under Configuration: Credential Profiles to clear the banner and reveal Refresh and New Machine Group.
- Symptom: Duplicating a group fails with 'Failed to duplicate.' Fix: Select Refresh to confirm the source group still exists, then retry Duplicate.
Related articles
- Next step: Insight: Dashboard - monitoring data collected from the machines in these groups is displayed there
- Prerequisite: Configuration: Insight: Machines - per-machine monitoring settings such as WMI counters are configured there before grouping
- See also: Configuration: Credential Profiles - expiring credentials used by monitored machines are reissued there
- See also: Main: Insight - parent overview of the Insight module this page belongs to