Abstract: Monitoring configurations for monitoring systems are automatically created for cloud server instances by polling the cloud controller to detect creation of each new instance, obtaining the image ID for the new instance from the cloud controller, and using a monitoring configuration template associated with the image ID to create the monitoring configuration. If a monitoring configuration template is not available for the image ID, a new template is created, either manually and/or automatically, and added to the template database. Automated template creation can include polling and analyzing instance ports and/or detecting and interrogating embedded monitoring agents such as WMI or SNMP. Monitor packs including detection criteria and interrogation checks can be used to detect monitoring agents and construct appropriate templates.