Have a look at Nagios. www.nagios.org Sounds like it will do a lot of what you are looking for and the best part....tis free!
Cheers, Cameron On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Michael Leone <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm investigating server monitoring solutions for my enterprise. What > I'm interested in is real world experiences and recommendations, not > just sales pitches and product sheets that I can get from Google. > > The way I see it, I need 2 basic functions: I need to be able to > monitor various aspects of a server (CPU usage, free disk space, is a > service running, does the web service return a web page in a timely > manner, is the switch at that site being overloaded, etc - the usual > things you'd want to know from a server, I think) and then alert me > when certain triggers or thresholds are crossed; and also to provide > historical reports, showing trends over time. At a previous job, I > used to ServersAlive!, which suited my needs there. But now I am at a > place that has over 100 servers and switches, across multiple sites. > And so I think I'd need something with more heft, perhaps. > > We're an HP shop, and I am looking at HP's SIM (Insight Manager) > software, but that doesn't seem to monitor all the sorts of functions > I want, nor does it seem to present it in a timely manner. > > I'm also looking at PacketTraps PT 360 tool suite (which is free), and > that seems to show me some of what I need, but doesn't seem to have a > lot in the way of reporting, nor have I found a way (yet) for it to > alert me to configurable settings. > > I've also downloaded SpiceWorks, on the recommendation of a colleague, > but haven't had a chance to investigate it yet. > > We're a gov't agency, so I don't have a whole lot of money. But I have > a need, and at the moment, nothing in place to fill it. Getting an > alert email that tells me that my mail server CPU has been up over 80% > for more than xx seconds would be a good thing, so I don't have to get > phone calls from users, asking why mail is so slow, and that's the > first I've heard of it. I'm sure you get the idea. And the boss wants > reports over time, for capacity planning and the like. > > So any recommendations would be welcome, as would anything I've > forgotten. We're almost exclusively a Windows shop, but with 10 VMware > ESX hosts, a number of MS SQL servers (2000, 2005), and a number of > Cisco switches (and a couple Nortel ones scattered here and there). No > Exchange (we're a Notes shop). > > TIA > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
