May I suggest an excellent network monitoring program that I've used at several companies in the past, including my current employer?
It's called Big Brother Network Monitor. There are both free and professional editions (The main difference between the two versions are professional support contracts with the latter), the free edition is available here: http://www.bb4.org/ While it was purchased by Quest Software (allowing for the advent of the professional supported version) a few years ago, the program has been under development for many years. I first began using it in 1997, I believe. The core Unix software is written in shell script for portability across a tremendous number of platforms, and native server and client packages are available for Windows, too (that install via a simple Installshield installer). It uses a client server architecture, scales very well to large networks, and provides support for email alerts, paging, monitoring arbitrary services, etc. A paging matrix can be set up, so that the correct person or group of people is notified (via email or pager) should a problem arise. Clients running on each monitored machine supply the server software with stats about CPU load, disk usage, can monitor essential processes to see if they have died, look for warning messages in the event log, etc. Communication is done via port 1984, unsurprisingly. You can also monitor upstream routers to alert you of an ISP failure, integrate via SNMP, etc. Lastly, it provides an easy to understand, color coded view of your network health, that internal staff and (if you choose) the public can use to see the status of the network. A change in network status of any monitored component will change the background color of the page (yellow for a warning, such as low disk space, red for a page-level event, such as a dead server), and allow users to drill down to see the extent and duration of the problem. When a customer wonders why their Squeezebox can't connect, they can visit a single webpage and very easily see if there's currently a known problem with the network. If everything's OK, they know the problem is likely local to them. Ideally, BB will allow your support personnel to know of any problem long before a customer notices it. It might very well lighten the load on your support personnel, and make customers feel much more informed. You could compare it to HP's Tivoli, but without all the overhead and crap. It's not technically an open source project, due to the license, but source is available and able to be modified for the Unix server and client. A qualified IT professional could have the system researched and up and running on a small testbed of platforms with half a day's work. All that's required is a BBDISPLAY host (that requires a webserver and provides the web based view of the network's health), a BBPAGER host (that sends out alerts via email or via modem to pagers, and can be the same host as the BBDISPLAY host), and a monitored system (which can either be monitored solely from the outside with connection based tests, or in combination with the client software, to monitor information only available locally, such as CPU load or full disk conditions). I should note I have no connection to Quest Software, I'm simply a very satisfied and long time user of Big Brother Network Monitor. Best regards, Nick -- Drel ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Drel's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3329 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=19784 _______________________________________________ squeezenetwork mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/squeezenetwork
