Auto-Balanced Collector Groups

Last updated - 08 May, 2026

Resource assignment in LogicMonitor has traditionally followed a one-to-many structure, where a single Collector monitors multiple resources, but each resource can only be assigned to one Collector. While practical, this model can complicate resource management, load distribution, and scalability.

Auto-Balanced Collector Groups (ABCGs) address these challenges by assigning resources to multiple Collectors within a group. ABCGs provide the following benefits:

• Dynamic load balancing—Automatically reassigns resources from overloaded Collectors to others within the group, preventing oversubscription
• Improved failover handling—Redistribution of resources among the remaining Collectors when a Collector in an ABCG goes down
• Simplified capacity management—Streamlines the process of adding resources and managing load across multiple Collectors

In addition to the rebalancing threshold for instances, LogicMonitor ensures that resources with matching property values are grouped together and monitored by a Collector in ABCG. The Property Based Balancing feature distributes resources based on the value of the specified property. This reduces duplicate API calls when resources are discovered using Enhanced Script NetScan. For example, Meraki Wireless Networks makes one API call per network (site) every 15 minutes. If resources from the same site are distributed to a Collector, then the Collector makes one API call collectively for all the resources it is monitoring.

You can enable property based balancing for ABCGs that monitor Cisco Meraki, Catalyst Center, Catalyst SD-WAN, Ruckus One, and Juniper Mist environments. To mitigate API rate limiting, the default property auto.collector.site.affinity.id  is applied to avoid duplicate API calls per network ID or site ID by keeping resources with matching property values (that is, network ID or site ID) on the same Collector.

ABCG monitoring thresholds are based on raw instance counts and not current load or weighted instances. Every 30 minutes, LogicMonitor reviews the instance counts per Collector in the group.

If a Collector exceeds its monitoring threshold, the following rebalancing actions take place:

• LogicMonitor rebalances the load by moving resources with the highest instance counts from the overloaded Collector to the Collector with the lowest load in the ABCG.
• If moving a resource would cause the recipient Collector to exceed its threshold, the next largest resource is considered.
• If the Property Based Balancing switch is enabled, some resources with same property values are moved to other Collector depending on the load across Collectors in ABCG.
• This process continues until the overloaded Collector is within its threshold or all resources have been evaluated.

In an ABCG group, two or multiple Collectors can have the same IP address. However, their Preferred Collector must not be the same and must not be set to Auto Balanced. The following table describes scenarios:

Scenario	Collector A	Collector B	Conclusion
Collectors with similar IP address	IP address—127.0.0.1 Preferred collector—Auto Balanced	IP address—127.0.0.1 Preferred collector—Collector B	Collector A and B cannot be part of the same ABCG because they have similar IP address.
Collector with similar IP address and Preferred collector	IP address—127.0.0.1 Preferred collector—Collector B	IP address—127.0.0.1 Preferred collector—Collector B	Collector A and B cannot be part of the same ABCG because they have similar IP address and Preferred collector.
Collector with unique Preferred collectors and are not set to Auto Balanced	IP address—127.0.0.1 Preferred collector—Collector A	IP address—127.0.0.1 Preferred collector—Collector B	Collector A and B can be part of the same ABCG because they have unique Preferred collectors and none of them is set to Auto Balanced.

Instance Threshold Limits for Auto-Balanced Collector Group

The instance count threshold of a Collector in an ABCG is automatically calculated based on the configured threshold value of the ABCG and the available RAM on the Collector. By default, the threshold is set to 10,000 instances, reflecting the capacity of a medium-size Collector with 2 GB RAM. The following table shows how you can adjust the threshold value in configuration for ABCG:

The number of instances a Collector can handle is determined using the following formula:

Number of instances = (Target_Collector_mem/Medium_mem)^1/2 * Medium_Threshold

For example, if a user sets a threshold for a medium-size (2 GB) Collector to 10,000, for a large-size (4 GB) Collector, the threshold will be scaled to:

14140 instances = (4/2)^1/2*10000 

Weighted Balancing for Collector Load Management

The default ABCG rebalance strategy relies on instance count to determine if a Collector is overloaded. In this approach, the level of performance overhead varies based on the data collection types that a Collector supports. For example, SNMP collections are relatively lightweight, whereas WMI and BatchScript collections consume significantly more resources.

To accommodate this variation, the weighted balancing approach uses the weight of instances to determine if a Collector is within capacity or overloaded. The Collector dynamically identifies the current usage. For accurate load management, the weight of an instance is calculated for each Collector based on the Collector size, supported data collection types, total Collector capacity, current instance count, and maximum instances supported for each data collection type per Collector size. The system calculates the total weight of instances across all data collection types and determines whether a Collector is within capacity or overloaded. This process runs automatically without requiring manual input or threshold configuration.

If the total weight exceeds the Collector capacity (that is, 100% capacity), the Collector is considered overloaded and automatically offloads resources to another Collector within the ABCG. This process occurs automatically without requiring manual input or threshold configuration.

You can enable either the Weighted Balancing switch or the Property Based Balancing switch. Enabling one switch hides the other switch.

Collector Requirements for Inclusion in Auto-Balanced Collector Groups

All Collectors in an ABCG must meet the following requirements:

• Monitor themselves. For more information, see Monitoring your Collectors.
• Have the same network access to resources monitored by the ABCG.
• Use the same operating system to ensure the continuity of metrics and similar monitoring capabilities.
• Use the same collector version.
• To map with the auto.collector.site.affinity.id property on resources, depending on your environment, you must import one of the following PropertySources:
  • Version 1.26.0 of addCategory_Cisco_Meraki_Device
  • Version 1.11.0 of addCategory_Cisco_Catalyst_Center_Device
  • Version 1.6.0 of addCategory_Cisco_Catalyst_SDWAN
  • Version 1.9.0 of addCategory_Juniper_Mist_Device 
  • Version 1.0 of addCategory_Ruckus_One_AP

Setting Up an Auto-Balanced Collector Group

1. In LogicMonitor, navigate to Settings > Collector.
2. Select and then select Add Collector Group from the Add Collector Options dropdown menu.
   
3. Toggle the Auto Balanced Collector Group switch to enable auto balancing for the Collector group.
4. In the Name field, enter a unique name for the Collector group.
5. In the Description field, enter enough details to describe the new group.
6. In the Properties section, define the key and value pair to add properties on your Collector that can then be tokenized in Collector-related alert messages.
7. To distribute resources for monitoring, select one of the following options:
   • To distribute resources for monitoring based on the weight of instances, toggle the Weighted Balancing switch.
     The Property Based Balancing switch and the Rebalance Threshold – Instance Count field remain hidden.
     
   • To distribute resources for monitoring based on the property value, toggle the Property Based Balancing switch.
     The Property Name field with default auto.collector.site.affinity.id property displays.
     
     1. In the Property Name field, you can enter a different property name to enable Collectors in ABCG to balance resources based on instances count.
     2. In the Rebalance Threshold – Instance Count field, adjust the threshold instance count.
8. Select Save.

The ABCG is created and added to the All Collectors page.

• If you have enabled the Property Based Balancing switch, the switch and the Property Name field are disabled for 24 hours.
• If you have enabled the Weighted Balancing switch, on the Collector Status page of that Collector, you can view the collection types and their corresponding current instance count in the Weighted ABCG Balancing Status section.
• Since weighted balancing does not require threshold configuration, the Calculated Threshold column is not available on the Collectors page for Collectors with Weighted Balancing switch enabled.

Assigning Resources to Auto-Balanced Collector Group

1. In LogicMonitor, navigate to Resource Tree > Resources > and select an existing resource.
2. Select   Manage at the top-right corner.
3. In the Collector Group field, select an auto-balanced collector group.
   The Preferred Collector field automatically updates to Auto Balanced.
   

4. Select Save.
   The auto-balancing is enabled for the resource.