1. What I am really after here is a feature similar to Nagios where once a problem has been detected, the system will automatically perform the check more frequently. This mimics what a person would do. When everything is running OK, we don't check it so much, but when something bad is happening, we check it quite frequently until it is again OK. This is currently not possible in Servers Alive. 2. I would like to have my roughly 500 checks run around every 10 minutes. I came across an instance last week where I would really like to be checking up on one service very frequently, but didn't want to install a second instance of Servers Alive or tinker with scheduled tasks and batch files. 3. I bet you are right as I have no idea what the command line parameters are doing in your default RRD creation script. 4. I don't really care where the configuration is stored, so long as it is easy to make modifications. I suspect the real issue for many users is the sheer number of mouse clicks required to do anything in Servers Alive. 5. I would want permanent links to the template. I'd like to set up a default server ping check to perform a ping check on %h, email me on 1st down and back up, email the help desk on 2nd down and back up (to eliminate pesky false alarms), create a support ticket on 2nd down and send an email to our on-call cell phone on 2nd down. All ping checks should be 24x7 for checking and alerting, be included in a list of html pages, and output the response time to RRD graphs. Down the road when we change how we interact with the support ticketing system, I'd like to change one template for all ping checks rather than 100. I'd like to also be able to say that for ping check x that it should additionally email team x when 2nd down and back up. 6. The server being used for Servers Alive is not currently on a domain. The last time I tried running Servers Alive as a service and having to do authentication on each check, I was seeing authentication delays of up to 30 seconds per check. Perhaps this problem has been resolved, but I haven't seen anything that would indicate that it has. However, that isn't really the point. The checking engine and configuration interface should be separated simply for performance reasons. It is very frustrating trying to work in the GUI while a check cycle is going on.
Regards, Brett Hanson -----Original Message----- From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dirk Bulinckx Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 10:48 AM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: RE: [SA-list] Next version 1. I see this as a possible option as alert, but then you'll have to "play" with the "When to check (priority)" of an entry. 2. That's already possible by using the "when to check (priority)" option. 3. That's due to the fact that when you create the RRD database you have to tell it how often it will get updates. You can change this by manualy editing the CREATE bat file and change the RRDTool command line options for that specific database. 4. This is something that comes back a lot, but more and more people are against it too...that's why I don't know if this is realy a good idea. 5. The idea of a template already exists, EXCEPT that it's only used at creation time. While you want it (if I understand it correctly) to be linked all the time to the template and IF the template changes that the linked entries will also change? 6. SA can run as a service, not sure why you're running it as app.... Dirk Bulinckx. Network Monitoring by Servers Alive - http://www.woodstone.nu DNS Hosting with ipv4 and ipv6 on http://www.stellardns.com -----Original Message----- From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hanson, Brett Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 4:31 PM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: RE: [SA-list] Next version I'd like to see the following: 1. The ability to increase frequency of checking on checks that have reported down (or checks dependent upon the one that reported down). 2. The ability to specify the frequency of checking on specific checks. For instance, I have an Oracle database that is crashing periodically. Just prior to the crash, the number of connected users takes a large jump. I'd like to start polling the database at a greater frequency and run some tests on the application responsible to gather additional data once the number of connections begins its jump. 3. When I monitor disk space and provide the results to RRDTool, I'd like to reduce the number of times per day I check the disk space. I have tried setting it to 1 in 100 checks, but you then get gaps in the data reported in RRDTool and can't make a meaningful graph from it. 4. Database configured checks. It is cumbersome to make changes to many checks with the current user interface. I'd really appreciate a way to make changes via SQL. I know you've heard this many times before, but this is definitely high on my list. 5. As an alternative to #4, templates for checks could be handy. Most checks are very similar, with only the host or credentials changed. If I could modify the template and the change applies to all 100+ entries based on the template that could save many hours of configuration. 6. Complete separation of the checking engine and the configuration user interface. I see that there should be two processes for Servers Alive, one that performs the checks, and one that interacts with the user. The one that interacts with the user would not necessarily need to run all the time. The checking engine should have no user interface and should run as a service. Due to the way our environment is setup right now, Servers Alive runs simply as a process on a server. We have to be very careful to remember to RDP in to the console to prevent multiple instances of Servers Alive running on the machine at the same time. Thanks, Brett Hanson Systems Analyst Agrium Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dirk Bulinckx Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 7:16 AM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: [SA-list] Next version I would like to get some feedback on what you would like to see in the next (major)version of Servers Alive...so be creative and let me/us know .... Dirk Bulinckx. Network Monitoring by Servers Alive - http://www.woodstone.nu DNS Hosting with ipv4 and ipv6 on http://www.stellardns.com To unsubscribe send a message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line to [email protected] If you use auto-responders (like out-of-the-office messages), make sure that they are not sent to the list nor to individual members. Doing so will cause you to be automatically removed from the list. IMPORTANT NOTICE ! 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