GFI Network Server Monitor

GFI Network Server Monitor consists of a network monitoring service and a separate management interface.

No agent software needs to be installed on machines you wish to monitor. The Network Monitor Engine is multi-threaded and can run up to 40 checks at a time. Our software architecture allows for high reliability and scalability to monitor both large and small networks.

Via the Quickstart wizard, you can create a series of checks which monitor all the important services on your network, including Exchange Server, IIS and others.

Critical Exchange services and performance counters (Information Store, mailboxes, SMTP service, etc.) are all monitored.

GFI Network Server Monitor will check the status of a terminal server by actually performing a complete login and checking to see that the session is established correctly. This monitoring method is superior to relying on the events that the terminal server generates (as Microsoft MOM does).

GFI Network Server Monitor can check the availability of all leading database applications. Out of the box, it will monitor Microsoft SQL Server via ADO. It supports other databases such as Access, FoxPro, Paradox, SyBase, Informix, IBM DB2 and many more via ODBC.

GFI Network Server Monitor includes extensive checks for monitoring Linux servers.

You can monitor CPU usage, printer availability, file existence, process running, folder size, file size, users and groups membership, disk partition check and disk space. Administrators can create any other check by creating an SSH script.

GFI has developed specialized checks which mimic administrator operations to verify that the services offered by various applications are running.

For example, we will log on to a service, perform a task and log off the service, without need for any administrative intervention. The monitoring functions that make use of such methodologies include: IMAP, POP3, SMTP Server and the email route check. Through the active use of such services one can guarantee that all aspects of these services are not only running but also are actually functioning.

After an unexpected condition has occurred, GFI Network Server Monitor can automatically move to correct the problem by restarting a service (or multiple services) upon failure; rebooting a server upon failure; or launching an executable, batch job or VBScript.

GFI Network Server Monitor includes a number of functions to make it easier and faster for you to check various aspects of your system, including:

• CPU usage function - ensure that a processor's usage does not go beyond a certain level
• Performance counter - monitor any internal operating system counter, including counters used by SQL Server and MSMQ
• Directory size function - ensure that a particular directory (for example, a user's home directory) does not take up more than 'x' amount of drive space
• Disk drive function - monitor the physical status of the disk
• Disk space function - check if sufficient disk space is available
• File existence function - monitor the existence of a particular file, for example, results of scheduled batch jobs
• File size function - monitor the size of particular files, for example, critical log files

GFI Network Server Monitor includes a number of functions to make it faster and easier for you to check various aspects of your Internet systems, including:

• HTTP function, checks availability of HTTP and HTTPS sites; passes credentials if required
• Website content checking, checks website content by specifying a text pattern
• FTP function, checks availability of an FTP server/site
• ICMP ping function, checks a remote host for availability
• IMAP server function, checks that the IMAP service is functioning by logging into the service and checking the count of the emails contained in a specific folder on the IMAP server
• DNS server function, checks DNS server by reading an 'A' record and verifying the result
• SMTP server function, checks mail server by establishing a connection and handshaking to verify SMTP protocol is working correctly
• POP3 server function, checks POP3 servers by establishing a connection and handshaking
• NNTP news server function, checks connection and does a handshake
• SNMP function, monitors specific variables on remote machines or devices via the SNMP GET message
• TCP port function, checks if a port is responding and checks its response
• NTP timeserver function, monitors status of timeservers
• Email route function, checks the health of email services by actually sending test emails and verifying their delivery at destination. This check is also useful for verifying performance of your mailing systems
• Daemon function, SSH-based check that verifies if particular daemons are running on target Linux/Unix computer/s.

When we detect a failure, GFI Network Server Monitor will send alerts via SMS, pager, email or a network message.

SMS (text) messages are sent either through an SMS service provider (SMSC) or directly through a connected GSM phone/modem. It is also possible to use the GFI FAXmaker email-to-SMS gateway service, Clickatell’s web email-to-SMS online gateway service or any third party email-to-SMS gateway. All notifications can be customized using variables. Recipients can be configured globally for all rules.

GFI Network Server Monitor allows you to store monitoring data to either an SQL Server or MS Access database backend.

SQL Server is more appropriate for users with higher monitoring level requirements and those who need to centralize the monitoring results of multiple GFI Network Server Monitor installations in one place. For example, for backups, remote accessing and report generation by third party tools such as Crystal Reports or MS Reporting Services.

You can check rule status from any location using GFI Network Server Monitor's remote web monitor.

The remote web monitor includes two types of web page views: One for a normal web browser and one optimized for viewing from a mobile phone or handheld device such as a BlackBerry or a Palm. A small footprint web server is included, although the feature can also be operated in conjunction with IIS.

GFI Network Server Monitor can scan Windows event logs on local or remote computers and look for specific event sources, categories, event IDs and patterns in the description of the event. In addition, it can look for multiple events occurring in a specific time interval, for example, a McAfee or Norton virus alert posted in the last 30 minutes.

GFI Network Server Monitor enables you to check critical processes and services on local and remote computers.

You can also monitor the CPU usage of a machine and any performance counter accessible through perfmon.msc. This way you can ensure that virtually any application is running properly.

Although GFI Network Server Monitor includes an extensive set of default monitoring functions, you can build your own custom checks by writing a VBScript (Windows) or an SSH shell script (Linux). From VBScript, you can use both WMI and ADSI. WMI is an interface to a broad range of hardware/software/OS-related properties of a computer, allowing you to perform almost any check. Using ADSI, you can interface to Active Directory.

Although GFI Network Server Monitor includes an extensive set of default monitoring functions, you can build your own custom checks by writing a VBScript (Windows) or an SSH shell script (Linux). From VBScript, you can use both WMI and ADSI. WMI is an interface to a broad range of hardware/software/OS-related properties of a computer, allowing you to perform almost any check. Using ADSI, you can interface to Active Directory.

Use GFI Network Server Monitor to monitor directory information.

For example, monitor group membership of the domain admins group. You can also check user accounts, for example ones that are locked out or disabled, and more; computer accounts, groups, group membership, organizational units, and so on.

It is possible to organize folders in a nested folder format that provides better support for more complex monitoring needs such as that of consultants or enterprises with more granular server distribution.

Network monitoring/management products are traditionally rather expensive. By contrast, GFI Network Server Monitor costs just USD 1,950 to monitor up to 50 IPs and USD 990 to monitor up to 10 IPs.

By contrast, GFI Network Server Monitor costs just USD 1,950 to monitor up to 50 IPs and USD 990 to monitor up to 10 IPs.

Organizations that are currently using or plan to use virtualization on their network can still install and use a range of GFI products with confidence.

GFI Network Server Monitor supports and runs on the most common virtualization technologies in use, namely VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Hyper-V.