Features - Monitoring

Agentless monitoring

MonitorMagic's unique architecture enables remote monitoring
without the need to install an agent directly on the
target computer. Without losing functionality, you can
use all available monitoring capabilities using this
concept.

n-tier agent deployment

Agent deployement, database placement and configuration
is 100% flexible. You can choose to run an agent on a
non-critical server and use it to monitor and manage
10 other critical servers remotely without installing
any other software. You can also connect to local and
remote databases from one or more MonitorMagic agents.

Built-in monitor policy editor

MonitorMagic features a built-in policy editor to edit
monitor, rule and alarm definitions in an easy-to-use
tree concept. All monitors can be grouped into policies
for easy deployment and reconfiguration later on.

Drag-and-drop policy deployment

Policies containing one or more monitor, rule and alarm
action definitions can be applied simply by dragging
them onto a target computer in the network browse tree.
A selectable MonitorMagic agent will then host and perform
the monitoring on the destination computer.

Control center for easy agent browsing

The control center displays a list of all currently
and previously connected MonitorMagic agents and their
statistics, such as licensing mode, database configuration,
computer name, # of alarm actions executed and more.
Using the control center, you can quickly locate, assess
and configure all MonitorMagic agents in your network.

Pre-configured policies for popular applications

MonitorMagic includes a collection of ready-to-use
policies for popular business applications and hardware
devices. All policies include pre-defined thresholds
and common performance and error characteristics. More
information on deploying MonitorMagic. Look
here for new and updated MonitorMagic policies.

Active Directory	BrightStor ARCServe 9	CPU Performance
Exchange 2000	Exchange 5.5	IIS 5.0
Internal Memory Health	ISA Server 2000	McAfee NetShield 4.5
Network Services Health	Norton AntiVirus Corporate 7.6	Printer Spooler
Report policy	Security - Policy Change	Security - Service Logon failure
Security - User Logon Failure	SNMP examples	SQL Server 2000
SQL Server 7.0	Veritas Backup Exec 8.x	Veritas Backup Exec 9
Windows 2000 Terminal Services	Citrix MetaFrame

Customizable network browse tree

MonitorMagic includes its own network browse tree to
quickly locate computers in your network for agent configuration
or monitoring, both in NETBIOS and Active Directory environments.
This tree can be modified to add computers using their
IP address or NETBIOS name. This enables monitoring computers
which have their browsing service disabled.

Extensive scheduling per monitor

Each monitor object can be scheduling independently
of another. Also, each scheduling option can be tested
to see if the schedule is correct for the future. You
can also add exclusions to the standard monitor scheduling.

Event log messages

Monitoring support for standard Windows event logs
such as the application, system and security log. This
monitor type is able to crawl through event logs and
filter by using event ID, severity, source, ID or message
contents.

Monitor criteria:
Category	Description	Event
Severity	Source	Time

Disk, share and directory information

Monitoring logical disk space and capacity is handled
by the disk monitor. This monitor type can access all
logical disks and retrieve disk space information, such
as % free space, % used space and total capacity per
disk. Share and directory monitoring, including file
statistics such as the number of compressed or hidden
files is handled by the integrated T4eDirSize
plug-in.

Monitor criteria (disk):
Capacity (MB)	Directory name	Disk name
Free space (%)	Free space (MB)	Used space (%)
Used space (MB)

Monitor criteria (share and directory plugin):
Total file size (bytes)	Total file size (KB)	Total file size (MB)
Total number of files	Total numer of directories	Total disk size (bytes)
Total disk size (MB)	Total disk free size (bytes)	Total disk free size (MB)
Archive file/directory count	Compressed file/directory count	Encrypted file/directory count
Hidden file/directory count	Offline file/directory count	Read-only file/directory count
System file/directory count	Temporary file/directory count	Search time
Error count

Performance counters

Performance counter sets are application specific.
Popular business applications, such as SQL Server and
Exchange, install their own set of performance counters.
Therefore, performance counters will reveal vital performance
and
availability information for both hardware and software
components. The performance counter monitor can access
any performance counter and get the value regardless
of its type.

Monitor criteria:
Instance	Object	Object-counter-instance
Suffix	Value	Value (text)

Service state information

Windows services are critical components for applications
such as Anti-Virus and Backup solutions. If these applications'
services are not running or do not respond correctly,
the general performance and security of the entire network
is in danger. The service monitor will detect malfunctioning
services and restart them in a specific order if necessary.
This is particularly useful when running Exchange, since
its services have to be terminated and restarted in a
specific order to get Exchange running again.

Monitor criteria:
Executable	Internal name	Service name
Service state	Startup account	Startup type
State change	Type

System processes

All applications spawn processes into the computer's
memory. By checking these processes, MonitorMagic can
determine if an application is actually running and if
its performance is on par. The process monitor can detect
running processes and optionally delete them automatically,
for instance if end-user applications such as KaZaA are
not allowed to run on company desktops.

Monitor criteria:
% Processor time	Memory usage (KB)	Process ID
Process name	Running status	Thread count
Time running

TCP/IP devices/ports

MonitorMagic can check the state of all network TCP/IP
connected devices using the ping method. Besides pinging,
MonitorMagic is able to get response information from
specific ports to see if the web or mailserver is still
responding correctly.

Monitor criteria (ping):
DNS name	Error code	Host
IP address	NETBIOS name	Packet size
Ping time-out	Pings failed	Pings received
Pings sent	Response time	Total pings failed

Monitor criteria (port):
Host	Connection time	Connected host
Connected port	Error code	Error text

SQL query response

Using the integrated T4eSQL
plug-in, you can connect
to any ODBC compliant database, execute a custom query
on any table and report back on its outcome and contents.
You can process any SQL-statement (SELECT, UPDATE,
REPLACE, etc.) including
stored procedures. The result of the SQL-statement
is send to standard output and can be captured by MonitorMagic.
The statement also returns execution duration which
can be used to monitor database response times.

Monitor criteria:

See Command line plug-in support

URL response time and header check

To verify the performance and availability of critical
internet/intranet services, MonitorMagic can grab the
contents of every URL (HTML/ASP/or any other server side
scripting language) using custom parameters to determine
if scripts or webpages are working correctly. MonitorMagic
will return a response time to verify if customer can
still access their pages on your server, and the header
response code, to see if pages are missing (404) or contain
script errors (500).

Monitor criteria:
Header status code	Page byte count (bytes)	Response time (ms)

REXEC remote command execution

With Rexec it is possible
to send every command to the standard rexec daemon running
on Unix machines. The commands from Rexec are sent to
the rexec-daemon running in the Unix environment. The
rexec-daemon is a standard Unix process and can execute
any Unix command. Output of the executed Unix command
is sent to standard output and can be captured and parsed
by MonitorMagic.

Using rexec is extremely powerful. You can run any
command, search for strings in log files, query available
disk space, start/stop processes, shutdown/restart
remote computers, etc.

Monitor criteria:

See Command line plug-in support

SNMP Get

By supporting the universal cross-platform SNMP protocol,
MonitorMagic dramatically widens the range of supported
devices and applications. Virtually every operating system
and network connected device can be monitored, ranging
from Cisco routers and switches to UNIX, Novell, AS400
and much more.

Monitor criteria:
Data calculated interval	Data calculated value	Data calculation mode
Data object 1 to 8	Description object 1 to 8	Host agent
Object count	Object identifier 1 to 8	Retry count
SNMP community	Timeout (ms)

SNMP Trap

By supporting the universal cross-platform SNMP protocol,
MonitorMagic dramatically widens the range of supported
devices and applications. Virtually every operating system
and network connected device can be monitored, ranging
from Cisco routers and switches to UNIX, Novell, AS400
and much more.

Monitor criteria:
Agent address	Community	Enterprise
Generic trap type	Last trap time	Source address
Specific trap type	Trap agent time reference	Trap data object 1 to 8
Trap data oid 1 to 8	Trap text data

File analysis and characteristics

Lots of popular applications such as backup and web
server software use clear-text files to store log messages.
These log messages can contain vital information related
to application performance and stability. The file monitor
can check all file types for size, contents, attributes,
timestamps and more.

Monitor criteria:
Age most recent file (sec)	Age oldest file (sec)	Content
File access time	File accessed	File attributes
File changed	File count (wildcards)	File creation time
File name(s)	File size (bytes)	File path(s)

Cluster resources

An industry standard solution for improving performance
and stability of computer systems is to cluster them
together. MonitorMagic can extend clustering techniques
by accessing both the cluster as a single computer or
individually monitor the cluster's nodes.

Monitor criteria:
Cluster	Group	Node
Resource	Resource moved	Resource state
Resource type

Command line plug-in support

The ultimate achievement in flexibility. Are you using
batch files, scripts or other small utilities for a specific
monitoring purpose? Continue using these tools, and,
even better, add scheduling and database storage by integrating
them into MonitorMagic. The command-line monitor can
take any command as input and grab its results from the
screen. MonitorMagic comes with 2 free commands, t4ePortping
(TCP/IP port monitoring) and t4eWebping (see if URL's
are responding correctly).

Monitor criteria:
Arguments	Command	Commt in (option)
Default text	Exit code	Output
Output (limited)	Output analysis flags	Output character count limit
Output value (number)	Output value (text)	Reference text
Reference text offset position	Runtime (ms)	Runtime (sec)
Standard execution flags	Start in	Text position
Timeout (sec)