NETWORK WORLD JAMES E. GASKIN'S SMALL BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY 11/04/04 Today's focus: Your first network monitor
Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED], In this issue: * Watch your systems with free or cheap tools * Links related to Small Business Technology * Featured reader resource _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by SBC Gimme Shelter! Converged Services Spell Relief For Beleaguered Network Managers Switched IP networks are rapidly becoming the corporate communications architecture of choice. By converging voice, data and video onto IP telephony platforms and Virtual Private Networks, enterprises can supply bandwidth when and where end users need it, while significantly lowering administrative and equipment costs. Click here to download this Whitepaper now http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=85989 _______________________________________________________________ WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO GET AHEAD? An IT recruiter outlines the actions you should take to advance your career. Learn how you can gather the enduring respect of colleagues, clients and business associates without coming off as pompous or self-serving. Click here to find out what you need to do to get ahead: http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=86113 _______________________________________________________________ Today's focus: Your first network monitor By James E. Gaskin A watched pot may never boil, but an unwatched computer will certainly crash. Once your systems outgrow your desk, you need some automated way to watch them. Big companies spend big bucks on network monitoring software so a handful of network administrators can manage hundreds of computers. But your e-mail and Web servers are important enough to watch, too. The question is how to do it affordably. Ipswitch scaled down its enterprise WhatsUp network monitoring application for small businesses back in May. WhatsUp Small Business costs $295, which includes a year of free technical support and upgrades ($79 per year thereafter). If you only have a few computers scattered around your small office, you don't need this. If you have local servers, important printers and hosted Web servers selling products, the sooner you know about a problem, the more time and money you save. Like other monitoring tools, WhatsUp leverages the management features built into networking protocols, primarily ping. Named after the sound an underwater sonar makes, ping uses packets rather than sound waves. A ping goes out, hits the target, and you receive a response. One server will have multiple services running that respond to pings, so WhatsUp lets you ping e-mail, Web, FTP and addressing services on any computer. This works on local or remote devices, so one WhatsUp station can track your local server, your e-mail server at one service provider, and your Web server at another. As long as the providers allow services to be pinged (some turn that off for security), you can check that the services are still up and running. My hosting provider regularly clobbers my e-mail server, and the only way I know is the lack of spam (talk about good news being bad news). The sooner you can alert your provider to a down service, the sooner it will reappear. To that end, WhatsUp notifies you about device problems via pop-ups on local machines and/or through e-mail messages. Of course, this brings up the circular stupidity of sending an e-mail announcing your e-mail server has disappeared. You might want to send e-mail to a second account (like the one at your ISP) rather than your main business account and the server you're monitoring. Every minute, WhatsUp sends a ping to as many as 10 devices (the limit with the SMB edition). If a device doesn't respond, the display turns from green to yellow. If the device doesn't respond for 5 minutes, the icon turns red, and notifications go out. You can set the threshold from between 5 and 20 minutes. Ipswitch says many dealers install WhatsUp for customers such as doctors and lawyers. The notification goes back to the dealer who can then fix a problem even before the customer knows about it. Many large companies buy WhatsUp SMB for pilot and departmental projects. The available icons include devices like Xbox, Playstation, and GameCube. Home monitoring, anyone? Is WhatsUp SMB perfect? Not yet. Ipswitch relies on Microsoft SQL Desktop Edition (MSDE) software, which I hate. It wouldn't install it on my Windows XP Home system, but I did install it on a Windows 2000 box. I refused to put MSDE on my main XP Pro PC because of the overhead and security flaws it brings. I also wish you could assign different notification methods per device, but that's what upgrades are for. Ipswitch will happily bump you to WhatsUp Gold or Professional and their larger feature sets. Want to test network monitoring? WhatsUp has a free 30-day trial. Also check out FREEping from Tools4ever.com, and shareware from A1monitor.com and Big Brother aka ADNM Lite from LogicDevelopment.net. RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS FREEping http://www.tools4ever.com/products/free/freeping/ A1 Network Monitor http://www.a1monitor.com/ Active Directory Network Manager Lite LogicDevelopment http://www.logicdevelopment.net/ADNMLite.php _______________________________________________________________ To contact: James E. Gaskin Gaskin writes books (13 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area. He has been helping small and midsize businesses use technology intelligently since 1986. He can be reached at <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter is sponsored by SBC Gimme Shelter! Converged Services Spell Relief For Beleaguered Network Managers Switched IP networks are rapidly becoming the corporate communications architecture of choice. By converging voice, data and video onto IP telephony platforms and Virtual Private Networks, enterprises can supply bandwidth when and where end users need it, while significantly lowering administrative and equipment costs. Click here to download this Whitepaper now http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=85988 _______________________________________________________________ ARCHIVE LINKS Archive of the Small Business Technology newsletter: http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/columnists/gaskin.html Breaking telework and SMB news: http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/ _______________________________________________________________ FEATURED READER RESOURCE NEW! Website dedicated to Networking for Small Business now available The editors of NW Fusion and PC World have combined all their expert advice, authority, and know-how into a powerful new tool for small businesses, the new Networking for Small Business website. Get news, how-to's, product reviews, and expert advice specifically tailored to your small business needs. Find help with Security, Broadband, Networking, Hardware, Software, and Wireless & Mobile technology at: <http://www.networkingsmallbusiness.com/> _______________________________________________________________ May We Send You a Free Print Subscription? You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered at your fingertips each day. Now, extend your knowledge by receiving 51 FREE issues to our print publication. 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