OpManager Network Management Software

A Web-based operations management tool with complete real-time monitoring and reporting for all types of SNMP-enabled devices on your network

Thursday, March 09, 2006

OpManager from AdventNet is a great network monitoring software for mid-sized organizations. It gives all the information for each of the components connected to the network, including servers, routers, switches, printers and desktops.

The application is quite easy to install and use. It has a single interface, which opens in a Web browser so the administrator can view and manage the network remotely. The application gives all information about the IP address, machine status, services running on the system, etc. For instance, it'll show how and which of the ports are down on any switch on your network. For network printers, it gives their ink status, paper-tray status, whether there's a paper jam, or the printer requires servicing. If the device supports SNMP, the OpManager can display even more information. In case of a server, you can get information such as the CPU utilization, memory usage and services running on them.

Its earlier version was meant for networks using static IP addresses for all devices. This limitation has been removed now, so you can use your DHCP server that assigns IP addresses to the client. Additional features include scheduling reports, customer support portal, CPU/memory diagnostics and custom fields. The customer support feature lets you sort queries by sending them to experts. This service is for registered users. The MapMaker tool, another new feature, helps in creating business views in the application, replacing the thick Java-based application client. Scheduled report feature can be used to generate reports on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, which can be automatically sent to the configured person as e-mail. Performance monitoring updates you on the performance of connected machines with functionalities like real-time graphs, availability, response time, etc. In case any device or service fails, you can write your own self-healing scripts with OpManager. While you can take backup or restore your database whenever you want, but for the database configuration you have to take the MS SQL add-on license. The router monitoring feature offers monitoring of the links for availability with the analysis of utilization, analysis and error statistics. UPS monitoring provides the load status and battery status of the UPS connected to the network.

OpManager's Home section displays all grouped devices, with alarms for the critical units

The minimum hardware requirement of the OpManager is a Pentium III 800 GHz processor with 512MB RAM, 200MB of disk space. It supports Win XP, 2000, 2003 and RedHat Linux 7.2 or higher.

For using the application, you have to just activate the discovery process in the Admin section. It will start the discovery of all connected machines in the network. If the machines are categorized incorrectly, you can manually select the menu. The Home menu displays the dashboards and recent alarms. In the dashboard section, you can have the information for connected devices in groups. So if any device has some problem, it can be displayed with the error icon against the group. Clicking on the groups will give you all the components falling under that group. With that you can have a look at how long the devices have been idle for, or all the monitors set by the administrator. Recent alarms are shown for all devices are in trouble, with the alarm message stating the nature of the problem.

Bottom Line: Overall, the new OpManager is definitely a must have for any mid-sized     organization.

Anubhav Verma

Page(s)   1