Setup Overview

The tasks involved in the initial setup of Kentik v4 for your organization are covered in the following topics:

• About Setup Tasks
• Starting Your Trial
• Initial Setup Login
• Setup Tasks
• Performance Monitoring Setup
• Define Network Boundaries
• Invite Users

Notes:
- For setup tasks related to the initial onboarding of a device, see Device Setup.
- For tasks related to completing the setup of a partially onboarded device, see Setup in Multiple Sessions.
- For setup tasks related to onboarding cloud resources, see Cloud Setup.

Setup — a.k.a. "onboarding" — is the process of registering for the Kentik service so you can check out our flow telemetry (by sending flow data from at least one data source) or set up a test in Synthetics. While the setup UI is designed to efficiently get new customers (including trial customers) up and running, it's not designed for ongoing management of your organization's overall Kentik experience, which should be handled via the Settings section of the portal (see Settings Overview).

Because trial signup is a required prerequisite to onboarding, if you don't already have an account then your setup process will begin on the main Kentik website (see Starting Your Trial) rather than on the Kentik portal. After your organization's Kentik account is activated your first login takes you to the setup workflow in the portal. After gathering information about the types of data — flow telemetry, cloud metrics, synthetic testing — for which you'll initially be using Kentik, the rest of the workflow consists of a number of "setup tasks" that are initiated from the Welcome to Network Observability page.

You don't need to complete these tasks in one sitting; until the tasks are complete all Admin users in your organization will see a Setup Tasks section at the lower right of the main portal menu. The area will include a chart indicating the percent of tasks that have been completed, a list of incomplete tasks — each of which links to a setup page for that task — and a See all link that takes you to the Welcome page, where you can also see your remaining tasks. Once all the tasks are complete the menu will no longer show the Setup Tasks pane and all subsequent management of your portal settings will be handled via the Settings pages (click Settings in the list of featured modules at the upper left of the main menu).

Signup for a trail Kentik account is covered in the following topics:

• Sign Up for a Trial
• Account Activation

Before using Kentik you'll need to complete the trial signup process on the main Kentik website at https://www.kentik.com:

1. Click the Try Kentik button at the upper right.
2. Enter the following information into the resulting popup:
   - Name: Text fields for your first and last name.
   - Email: A text field for the email address to use for your Kentik account.
   - Company: A text field for the name of the organization for which you are opening an account.
   - Country: A dropdown to select your location.
   - Domain: A set of radio buttons that enable you to select either the US or EU Kentik portal.
3. To familiarize yourself with the specific terms of the trial, click the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use link at the lower left of the popup.
4. Click the Get Started button at the bottom.
5. When the notification of success appears, check your email for a message containing an activation link.

Once you've signed up for a trial on the Kentik website you'll be sent a confirmation email:

1. In the email, click the activation link.
2. On the resulting Account Activation page, enter a password for your account. For more information regarding password creation, see Account Activation UI.
3. When you're notified of successful activation, click the link to continue to the Kentik portal login page.
4. On the login page, enter the email address and password for your new account.
5. Upon successful log in you'll be taken to the portal.

The Account Activation page contains a form for you to set a password.

• Password: A text field to set a password.
  Note: Depending on your organization's Password Expiration Policy, passwords expire and must be reset every 90 days unless logging in via SSO or using any form of 2FA.
• Password Strength: A gauge that shows you the strength of your chosen password and advises how to increase the password security. Strength will be evaluated as one of the following levels:
  - Too Short (gray): Password is too short.
  - Weak (red): Password is not strong enough to use.
  - Fair (red): Password is better than weak, but still not strong enough to use.
  - Good (orange): Password could be stronger but Kentik will accept it.
  - Strong (green): Password is strong.
  Note: If your password is not accepted, use the provided information to improve it.
• Confirm Password: A text field to reenter your password.
• Show Password (eye icon): Located at the right of the password fields. Click to show/hide the entered text.
• Set Password: A button to complete password setup. This button is disabled until the password meets minimum standards for strength.

If you're the first user from your organization to log into the portal after Account Activation you'll see the notification shown in the screenshot below.

To complete the setup process:

1. Click the Get started button.
2. On the resulting How Can We Help page, you'll see cards for the areas in the following list. Each card includes a checkbox at the upper right. Check all checkboxes that apply to the reasons your organization might like to use Kentik (these choices will influence the initial selection of visualizations on your Observation Deck):
   - Improve User Experience
   - Troubleshoot Network Problems
   - Optimize Peering & Interconnection
   - Manage Cloud Networking
   - Stop DDoS Attacks
   - Manage WAN, SD-WAN
   
3. Click the Next button at the bottom of the screen.
4. On the resulting Which Data page, you'll see cards for the areas in the following list. Each card includes a checkbox at the upper right. Check all checkboxes that apply to how your organization might like to use Kentik:
   - Public Cloud (check the boxes for all cloud providers that you use)
   - Synthetic Performance Tests
   - Networking Infrastructure
   
5. Click the Next button at the bottom of the screen.
6. On the resulting Welcome screen (pictured at the start of this article), the Setup Tasks list at left will show a set of tasks based on what was checked on the Which Data page.

The Setup Tasks list on the Welcome screen includes the following tasks:

• Start Performance Monitoring: Use Kentik's Synthetics module (see Synthetics Overview) to do one of the following (see Performance Monitoring Setup):
  - Initiate continuous testing for a hostname, URL, or IP address (uses test credits, 5M of which are allocated free to each trial account).
  - See current performance to and from common SaaS services such as Zoom, GSuite, Office365, Salesforce, Dropbox, etc. on our State of the Internet (free).
• Connect a router: Start sending flow records to Kentik so you can perform analytics on your organization's actual telemetry data. For details, see Device Setup.
  Note: Connecting a router involves configuring the router itself to send flow data (NetFlow, sFlow, etc.) to Kentik.
• Define Network Boundaries: Enter the CIDRs used to and from your network (public or private) and optionally provide your ASNs to enable Kentik to determine which of your interfaces are externally facing and therefore which traffic comes into (ingress) or goes out of (egress) your own network (see Define Network Boundaries).
• Monitor Cloud Resources: The name of this task will vary depending on which cloud providers were checked on the Which Data page. For details, see Cloud Setup.
• Invite your team: Kentik doesn't charge your organization per seat; we encourage as many users as possible to use whichever aspects of Kentik they find helpful. To give colleagues in your team — or in other teams across your organization — the opportunity to experience Kentik, click the Invite Your Team button (see Invite Users).

To complete the Start Performance Monitoring setup task by monitoring a hostname or IP:

1. On the Welcome page, click Start Performance Monitoring.
2. In the left side of the main display area to the right of the list, enter a hostname of IP address to monitor.
3. Click the Start Monitoring button.
4. In the resulting Start Monitoring dialog, choose the Kentik global agents from which you'd like to monitor the performance of the host or IP. As each agent is checked you can see the effect on your free monthly credits in the Expected monthly credit usage indicator at the bottom of the dialog.
5. When you're done choosing agents, click the Start Monitoring button. The dialog will close and you'll be taken to Kentik's Synthetics Dashboard, where the test will be listed as "Pending" in the Recently Added Tests pane at the right of the page. Once the test is active you'll be able to see results on the test's details page in the Test Control Center.

The Define Network Boundaries setup task is an implementation of Network Classification, which uses source and destination information related to IPs and ASes to determine the direction of network traffic with respect to your network. To complete the task:

1. On the Welcome page, click Define Network Boundaries in the Setup Tasks list.
2. On the resulting Define Network Boundaries page:
   - In the IPs field, enter the CIDRs used to and from your network (public or private).
   - In the ASNs field (optional), provide your internal ASNs.
3. Click the Save button. You'll be returned to the Welcome page and see a notification that the network classification was successful.

The invite users task involves giving colleagues in your team — or in other teams across your organization — the opportunity to experience Kentik so everyone can work from a common understanding of the network — both on-prem and in the cloud — in areas such as availability, performance, and cost-efficiency. To invite others to try Kentik (we don't charge by the seat):

1. On the Welcome page, click Invite Your Team in the Setup Tasks list.
2. On the resulting Invite Users page:
   - In the Email field, enter the email address of the person you'd like to invite.
   - In the Name field, enter the name of the person you'd like to invite.
   - Click the drop-down User Level selector to set a level for the users. Admin users can both see data and make settings, while Member users are generally not able to make settings.
3. To add additional users, click the Add User button and fill in the form for each added user. To remove a user use the trash icon
4. When you're done choosing users to add, click the Send Invites button. You'll be returned to the Welcome page and see a notification that the invitation emails were sent.