In the present scenario where network is the backbone of
any large enterprise, can you afford a network slowdown? In order to have a
proper network functionality you need to be told as and when there is any
problem with an application, and that's precisely what Application Manager
does. It is meant for the large enterprises to provide efficient manageability
and monitoring of the applications and services over the network.
Price: Rs 26,775 (10 monitors, single user) |
Meant For: Network administrators |
Key Specs: SNMP and script-based monitoring, supports all the major applications and services monitoring |
Pros: Detailed drill-down options, root cause analysis reports |
Cons: High price for limited monitor usage |
Contact: Microsoft, Gurgaon.Tel: 5158000.E-mail: support@microsoft.com |
You can see the recent alerts, drill-down options for each monitor typeand graphical representation for the monitor group |
Application Manager lets you monitor the performance and
availability for the application servers, Web transaction, database servers,
servers, websites, Web services, mail servers and services. In addition to that,
it monitors user applications that are managed through SNMP and JMX, AdventNet
QEngine script and custom script. In the application server, monitoring is done
for the .NET, WebLogic, WebSphere, Tomcat, etc. It monitors all Web transactions
starting from the URL to SQL, and supports monitoring of MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2
and MS SQL database servers. Host-resource monitoring is done for Windows,
Linux, Solaris, HP Unix, IBM AIX and FreeBSD servers. Besides this, service
monitoring is available for FTP, Telnet, RMI adaptor, TCP port, etc. Apart from
the mail server, it monitors Web services such as Apache, IIS and PHP. The
performance of the monitored application can be had in the form of graphs and
charts for easy verification.
We found that the application is easy with remote
administration through a Web browser so that you are never out of control. We
installed the application on one of our servers and monitored the network. The
main page showed grouped applications as well as color-coded to draw our
attention. The graphs and charts provided, help us in different sections for
visual analysis. You will see various sections like Home, Reports, Support,
Admin, etc. On the dashboard of the Home section, you will see the graphical as
well as the grouped representation for critical processes which can be mapped
down further to reveal the fault. In the bottom pane of the Home section, you
have the latest alarms generated. Under the Monitor section we checked all
the monitors in different displays (like the one that would list all the
applications or services, discrete or grouped and so on) for customization. You
can save all the alert reports in either CSV or PDF formats for later reference.
Another functionality is the Reporting feature that helps
prepare reports of the critical process that hamper the performance of the
network. You can also set the alerts for a particular application and define the
criteria like setting the alert for the server CPU and/or memory usage. And if
the CPU and the memory usage cross the threshold value defined by you, the
application manager will alert you. The alerts can be sent to your cellphone as
SMS or to your e-mail account. You can also provide a path to execute a
program in the event of an alert. So, if you have a program to take care of any
event and that can be turned on, please do so, to save the trouble for
manually executing it. With the licensed version, you get the support for the
software to solve your queries in case of any problem. You can even post a topic
on the AdventNet forum and discuss it with other Application Manager users. The
Administrator section of the software lets you assign new monitor groups,
threshold levels for the different alerts, scheduling monitors, database
retention, etc. But to use all the above mentioned things you have to first
discover the network in Network Discovery under the Administrator section.
Bottom Line: It's a good tool for network
manageability to keep your applications and services running smoothly.
Anubhav Verma