Monitors: Applications, IT Services, and Databases

up.time monitors critical applications, databases, Web servers, network devices, and critical system-level services. Data center monitoring and business server monitoring is a simple task. You can choose from any of up.time's built-in monitors or quickly define your own custom probes in minutes. Built-in template monitors are easy to configure and include:

Application Server Monitors

Exchange Monitor

The Exchange Monitor is used to identify when the Microsoft Exchange performance counters that you care about exceed specific thresholds. For example, if the number of inbound connections surges, or the message queue length grows large (indications of SPAM, Denial of Service Attacks, or simply the inability to deliver mail), then up.time will notify you immediately. The following MS Exchange thresholds can be monitored:

  • WebMail Message Sends/sec
  • WebMail Authentications/sec
  • SMTP Bytes Sent/sec
  • SMTP Bytes Received/sec
  • SMTP Bytes Total/sec
  • SMTP Local Queue Length
  • SMTP Messages Sent/sec
  • SMTP Inbound Connections Current
  • SMTP Outbound Connections Current
  • SMTP Connection Error/sec

IIS Monitor

In addition to the HTTP Monitor described above, which indicates the availability of web services, the IIS Monitor is a powerful tool for being notified when Microsoft IIS performance counters exceed your thresholds. The following metrics can be monitored:

  • Bytes Sent/sec
  • Bytes Received/sec
  • Non-Anonymous Users/sec
  • Current Connections
  • Connection Attempts/sec
  • Logon Attempts/sec
  • GET Requests/sec
  • POST Requests/sec
  • CGI Requests/sec
  • ISAPI Requests/sec
  • Not Found Errors/sec

up.time Agent Monitor

This monitor quickly helps you verify that the up.time server agents are up and running. This way you can rest assured up.time itself is functioning properly and will always be there to monitor all of your servers and applications.

WebLogic Monitor

Use WebLogic monitoring to identify correlations between system performance and the J2EE application server, track end-user and database response times, and a number of other statistics for a WebLogic server. Using the data that the WebLogic monitor collects, you can determine the root cause of the issue by generating a report.

WebSphere Monitor

Stay on top of the performance and health of J2EE/Java applications that are running on a WebSphere server with WebSphere monitoring. Then, use the data that the WebSphere monitor collects to generate a report which gives you a historical view of problems that occur on a WebSphere server.

VMware ESX Workload Monitor

up.time can monitor and report on the workload of instances running on a VMware ESX server. Profile the ESX workloads with the VMware Workload and Virtual Infrastructure Density reports. Supported versions include ESX 3.x and ESXi on Virtual Infrastructure 3, and ESX 4 on vSphere 4. Use this monitor to determine which instances on an ESX server are using the most system and network resources. Then, use the data that that the ESX Workload monitor gathers to gain a longer-term perspective on the workload of an ESX system.

Host Services Monitors

Performance Check Monitor

Keep track of a system's CPU usage and swap space with the Performance Check monitor. Not only that, the information collected by this monitor can also help you keep an eye on network errors and collisions.

File System Capacity Monitor

Monitor all your critical files systems with the File System Capacity monitor. This powerful monitoring tool looks at all file systems on the monitored servers and compares their capacities to user specified warning and critical thresholds, thereby warning you of required action immediately. You can also include or exclude any file systems you wish.

Process Count Check Monitor

Keep a close eye on whether your mission-critical applications, databases and Web servers are spawning too many processes and bogging down your servers, or whether an application has run amok and is spawning processes continuously when it should not be. Also verify that specific critical processes are up and running, by specifying them by name and the time limit within which they must respond. This kind of activity which can cause rapid performance deterioration can be easily detected with the Process Count Check Monitor and give you the time you need to take corrective action.

 Microsoft Windows Monitors

Windows Event Log Scanner

Automatically scan your application, security and system event logs for critical conditions that you want to know about on a continual basis. With up.time's built-in Windows Event Log Scanner you can quickly template the messages you want to scan for and then instantly apply this check to all servers across your enterprise. In addition, you can let up.time initiate immediate and automatic recovery of your Windows services if they stop responding, by combining this powerful check with the Windows Service Check monitor.

Windows Service Check Monitor

A very powerful monitor that allows you to monitor all your critical Windows services and verify that they are operational on a continual basis. In addition, you can let up.time initiate immediate and automatic recovery of your Windows services if they stop responding. This is a simple yet powerful monitoring tool for Windows Service management that will reduce downtime and improve overall availability.

Windows File Shares (SMB) Monitor

Monitor your Samba or Windows file servers effectively with this monitor. The SMB probe can be executed to determine whether file shares are available in general and/or whether specific file shares are available, and then trigger alerts accordingly.

 Database Monitors

MySQL (Basic Checks) Monitor

Monitor all instances of MySQL for availability easily. Quickly determine if a MySQL database is available and that the service is available on your system. Determine if you can log into a MySQL database and execute some test queries to ensure your databases are running properly.

MySQL (Advanced Metrics) Monitor

Drill deep into your MySQL database instances with the MySQL (Advanced Metrics) Monitor. This MySQL monitor attempts to connect to your database instances with user specified userid, password, port and database parameters. Trigger alerts and take corrective action when your MySQL databases are down or responding too slowly.

  • Bytes Sent and Received
  • Maximum Used Connections
  • Threads Cached, Connected and Running
  • Open Files and Streams
  • Delayed Errors

Oracle (Basic Checks) Monitor

Monitor all your Oracle database instances for availability quickly and easily. Quickly determine if a host running an Oracle database is available, if an Oracle service is running on a system, if you can log into an Oracle database and/or execute some test SQL*Plus queries to ensure that your Oracle databases are alive and well.

Oracle (Advanced Metrics) Monitor

Drill deep into all your Oracle database instances with the Oracle (Advanced Metrics) Monitor and perform in-depth service checks against any number of Oracle performance metrics, to ensure the Oracle will meet the performance demands of your mission-critical applications:

  • Table Space Usage
  • Buffer Cache Hit Ratio
  • Data Dictionary Cache Hit Ratio
  • Library Cache Hit Ratio
  • Redo Log Space Request Rate
  • Disk Sort Rate
  • Active Sessions
  • Blocking Sessions
  • Idle Sessions

Oracle Tablespace Check Monitor

Using the Oracle Tablespace Check, you can monitor the size of individual tablespaces within Oracle database instances. The Oracle Tablespace Check monitors the percentage size of all tablespaces and alerts you when a tablespace when your instance exceeds defined thresholds. Get proactive and ensure that up.time lets you know well ahead of time if your Oracle databases are going to hit a performance crunch.

SQL Server (Basic Checks) Monitor

Monitor all your Microsoft SQL databases with this powerful service monitor. The monitor allows you to check if the SQL instance is responding on the standard communication port; and send custom SQL Server scripts to the database for processing. Look for the responses you need to ensure your SQL databases are functioning properly and take corrective action when they do not respond within the time limits you set.

SQL Server (Advanced) Monitor

Drill deep into your Microsoft SQL databases with this monitor which is designed to generate alerts based on SQL servers exceeding critical performance counter thresholds including:

  • Tablespace Check
  • Lock Waits/sec
  • Lock Requests/sec
  • Average Lock Wait Time (ms)
  • User Connections
  • Total Transactions/sec
  • Total Data File Size (KB)
  • Total Latch Wait Time (ms)
  • Latch Waits/sec
  • Average Latch Wait Time (ms)
  • Maximum Workspace Memory (KB)
  • Connection Memory (KB)
  • Granted Workspace Memory (KB)
  • SQL Cache Memory (KB)
  • Total Server Memory (KB)

SQL Server Tablespace Check Monitor

The SQL Server Tablespace Check monitor evaluates the size of data files in SQL Server file groups and associated log files within SQL Server databases. up.time gathers information from all the databases across all instances on a system and aggregates this information in the metrics that it returns. This monitor also reports whether or not any of the data files in a file group or any log file in any database in the instance exceeds warning and critical thresholds.

Sybase Monitor

Monitor all your Sybase databases using this powerful probe to validate whether your Sybase instances are responding on their standard communication ports; and also send Sybase/Transact-SQL scripts to Sybase for processing to verify that Sybase is not only alive but also responding correctly.

Network Service Monitors

DNS Monitor

DNS (Domain Name Server) is a distributed database that links various host names to specific Internet addresses. You can use the DNS Monitor to determine the IP addresses of external and internal host names. You can, for example, use the DNS monitor to ensure that your audience can access your Web site or portal by making sure that a selected address can be resolved or identify instances in your network environment where resources have had their IP addresses changed, and now the resource is no longer available.

FTP Monitor

This monitor attempts to open an FTP connection to a server listening on a specified port and lets you know if it is up and running. You can define the exact time limit or threshold to complete the FTP request and then trigger the appropriate Warning/Critical alerts.

HTTP (Web Services) Monitor

Monitor all your Web servers and Web services via HTTP requests and take appropriate action if web servers are down or not responding within your required time limits. Perform basic checks with this monitor or more sophisticated monitoring such as authenticating against web application servers such as WebLogic or WebSphere, requesting specific URLs and then validating the response received back from your application servers.

IMAP (email Retrieval) Monitor

Use the IMAP (Email Retrieval) monitor to determine if your IMAP servers are listening to specific ports, up and running of a specific server or on groups of servers. Let up.time do the work for you and let you know when your mail services are running into trouble.

LDAP Monitor

The LDAP monitor allows you to query LDAP databases and check for specific responses to validate that the directory services are alive and responding properly within specified time limits.

NFS Monitor

This monitor executes the showmount -e command against the monitored servers and extracts the exact number of NFS file systems that are exported. If the check fails then alerts are generated so you can initiate the appropriate recovery activity.

NIS / YP Monitor

Monitor all your NIS servers for specific domains to ensure they are responding, or go a step further and test to see they are functioning properly by requesting a specific key from an NIS table. Generate alerts and take immediate action when a problem is detected.

NNTP (Network News) Monitor

Monitor your news services using this probe, which issues a query against a news server on a specified port. If the news server does not respond in the given warning or critical time thresholds then alerts are generated.

PING Monitor

The PING Monitor is a simple yet effective way to verify whether your servers are up and responding. This probe sends a configurable number of ICMP ping packets to the monitored server and waits for a specific number of packets to return. You can define the packets and the wait time.

POP Monitor

Monitor all your standard POP mail servers for availability with this probe, and take appropriate recovery action when your mail servers do not respond within user specified time limits.

SMTP (Email Delivery) Monitor

Monitor your SMTP mail servers using this probe which tests for the return of a standard mail response header. If an SMTP mail server does not respond in the user specified warning or critical time limits, then alerts are generated to let you know your mail servers need attention.

SNMP Monitor

The SNMP Monitor allows you to query all your SNMP devices for specific OID (enterprise identification id) parameters, and then compare the response to a specific pattern. The SNMP monitor also supports Net-SNMP. Net-SNMP is a suite of command line and graphical applications that interact in the following ways with SNMP agents that are installed on other systems:

  • Request information from SNMP agents
  • Set information on SNMP agents
  • Generate and handle SNMP traps

SSH (Secure Shell) Monitor

The SSH monitor tests to see if all SSH processes are responding on their ports. Alerts are immediately generated if the tests fail so you can take recovery action.

TCP Monitor

The TCP monitor check is a powerful tool for verifying that virtually any system service or application is alive and responding. It allows you to specify a port to be checked and timed for response within user specified time limits.

Advanced Monitors

Custom Monitor [User Definable]

For situations where the basic built-in up.time monitors are not adequate to monitor special systems, applications and proprietary devices, the Custom Monitor allows you to execute custom scripts that you develop which then trigger specific alerts. A powerful monitor to ensure up.time is monitoring everything critical in your enterprise. Just tell the Custom Monitor where your scripts are located and up.time will execute them for you at the frequency you specify.

Custom with Retained Data Monitor [User Definable]

Works just like the standard Custom Monitor for monitoring any specific custom application or service, with the additional feature of being able to import and store up to 10 data items per probe in the up.time database for historical graphing and reporting. This is a powerful tool for tracking and reporting any metrics in your enterprise that matter to you.

External Check Monitor

Monitoring applications for critical error messages, or any other asynchronous events, and then taking recovery action is easy with the External Monitor. These messages or events are sent to up.time which then triggers the appropriate alerts.

Expand up.time with these Easy Plug-in Monitors

  • Expand up.time's standard capabilities - add new service monitors to report on servers, services, and devices
  • Implement specialized solutions - plug-in monitor capabilities go beyond those provided by the script-based custom monitors; you can fully integrate plug-in monitors into the up.time UI, defining options that will be used when creating an instance
  • Share resources with other customers - all plug-in monitors, whether released by up.time or developed by other up.time customers, will be available on the plug-in monitors portal

Please note: to leverage up.time's plug-in monitors, you must have up.time 5 installed. If you have a current support contact, up.time 5  is free. Existing customers can log in to the uptime Support Portal to access the latest version of up.time.

Available Plug-in Monitors include:

 

New users can download a free trial of up.time 5.

Please Note: You require up.time 5 to leverage the above - and future - plug-in monitors.