POLL: POWERSHELL VS. GUI - DO YOU WANT TO BE A DEVOP OR AN ADMIN?
Poll: Are you currently using a monitoring solution?
In this poll, I'd like to find out what role monitoring plays in your network and the kind of tools you are using.
By Michael Pietroforte - g+ - Tue, January 17, 2012 - 12 comments Michael Pietroforte is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with more than 28 years of experience in system administration.
I don’t want to say much more about this poll at the moment because I somehow think that I influence readers with my introductory articles. I think, the questions speak for themselves. So, be a worthy 4sysops citizen and fulfill your voting obligations. 
Note that you can select more than one answer. Feel free to tell us what monitoring solution you are using in a comment below.
12 Comments - Leave a Reply
===Leave a Comment===
No, but it’s on the (long) ToDo list.
Woodstone.nu has a great product called servers alive. I’m monitoring several different city’s with teams of response persons and even the shifts they respond to. Very flexible and can easily be customized. I sleep much better knowing that Servers Alive is watching the shop for me.
We use up.time from uptimesoftware.com. It is ok and has some nice features, but our current envirment is a little too big for it.
Currently using Xymon/Hobbit/BBWin client, but I really like the look and functionality of PRTG so that’s on the roadmap for the next year.
Nagios
Nagios – with this on a big screen in mission control:
http://dingleberry.me/2009/11/nagios-operations-dashboard/
Nagios (NSClient++ for windows boxes http://www.nsclient.org/nscp/downloads ).
Thanks for the comments! It seems Nagios is more popular in the Windows world than I thought. I guess most of the 32% who have voted for a Open Source product work with Nagios. I wonder if you run the server on a Linux box or on Windows?
I manage a wide variety of shops so I guess the “trend” would be “all the above”. MS Operations Manager for big all-MS shops (but requires nearly a dedicated engineer) all the way to http://mon.itor.us free for client public websites. I was actually so frustrated at the lack of attention to monitoring by my clients and lack of their money/time in small/med networks that I’ve founded a Internet startup to hopefully fill that gap: http://winsitter.com with a freemium Windows Server solution for on-premius/hosted server monitoring that goes beyond ping but doesn’t require setup or management time for the sysadmin like the big self-hosted apps.
We at present are running several packages at present HP Sim, Hostmon & PRTG. I’ve been tasked with the project of looking at what we have to see if there is better options. I’ve drawn up a list and several mentioned already not on my list. Will have to go and take another look at the runners and riders!
Bret, if you are looking for a free monitoring solution you might want to check this out. My favorite free monitoring tools are EvenSentry Light and The Dude.
Paul, so what tools are on your list now?
We are running Nagios on a CentOS box. This then monitors Windows machines, switches and printers.
Bit of a learning curve to get started but not so bad.
The option of add downtime for when you need to reboot a server or replace a port on the switches is great.
We are now going to be add this http://dingleberry.me/2010/04/our-new-dashboard/ to the mix with a nice monitor.
Should impress the boss!