Network managers or administrators who have installed a network monitoring kit, particularly to monitor Windows NT disk activity, will know that NT`s Performance Monitor can drain up to 15% to system resources.
NetIQ`s AppManager offers a solution, says Dave Terespolsky, MD of NT software specialist Server Tools. AppManager is a tool that can centrally monitor remote services, but it also reduces the number of hits on many other server/workstation activities down to around 2-3% per monitored process.
AppManager is becoming increasingly popular for monitoring the disk-heavy MS Exchange Server. AppManager 3.0 can monitor a wide range of applications, including Microsoft Windows 2000; HPNetServer SNMP Agents; CitrixWinFrame Server; OracleRDBMS Server; MicrosoftTerminal Server and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0.
AppManager has several other benefits. All NetIQ services can be run as normal user accounts in addition to the system account and an Exchange mailbox and profile can be created without the Exchange client. It can already install SQLServer temporarily, to store logged events.
You can divide and conquer server management and place the repositories for collected information locally. These events can be viewed from multiple AppManagers through a distributed event console, which can be launched independently of the main AppManager console.
Behind the host monitoring agents are the knowledge scripts rule sets that control how the agents on each host collect data and monitor events. They can trigger AppManager to flag an alert or e-mail you if a pre-set threshold is crossed. And you can set up and manage all this through the GUI Operator Console.
Alternatively, you can use a Web-based version of the console.
Much of AppManager`s utility comes from its predefined knowledge scripts, reports and GUI. Communication between agents has been refined to the point where you can watch the process you`re monitoring clearly. NetIQ`s GUI simplifies everything from setting up a monitoring job to dragging the icon for a chosen knowledge script on to one or more computers with the ability to run the service you want to monitor.
AppManager can be used to run regular monitoring jobs. Setting them up is a case of choosing one of the supplied jobs or knowledge scripts, and using the GUI to set up the scheduling and reporting rules.
The GUI`s TreeView of computers on the network shows which computers are running the services relating to a particular knowledge script. You can choose to monitor either a single object, by dropping the script on to the object, or al of the object in a group by dropping the script on to the object representing the group.
Your monitoring strategy will range from regular tracking of vital processes: disk space on e-mail and file servers, or processor speeds and memory on any machines that are crawling. As you discover problems or have unexpected ones reported to you, you can set up jobs such as the supplied NT-TopCPUProcs script to identify which processes are causing processor loads. This facility promises an end to problems such as the accounts department hogging the servers on the day before payday.
For specialised jobs or more specific problem monitoring, you can write your own scripts.
NetIQ has also produced a developer`s guide for companies wishing to extend AppManager. Server Tools is a subsidiary of Dimension Data.
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