Review: GFI Network Server Monitor

GFI Network Server Monitor 6.0, starting at $499 for 10 servers
GFI Software
Cary, North Carolina
(919) 379-3397 
http://www.gfi.com/nsm/

I expect not too many developers have as many computers piled up to keep an eye on as I do; between the ones on my desktop, and our network servers, and the kids' boxes, and the wife's business, and the ones we have out on the Internet, and various other odds and ends, as well as my inability to actually throw anything away, there are a few dozen of the darned things in my life right now. But it's not all that unusual for a developer to be responsible for a server or two these days, especially for those of us developers who persist in running our own networks. When you get this experience, you soon find out that servers are cantankerous beasts, which is why there's a big market for software to monitor their operations. GFI has recently released a new version of their own server-monitoring program, and they were kind enough to send me a copy for review.

As with the other GFI software that I've worked with, the setup here is superbly simple; you need to supply credentials for e-mail and for monitoring and that's about it. NSM uses an agentless architecture, which means that it sits on a central computer and does all monitoring from there, without requiring software to be installed on the servers that it's monitoring. On huge networks this can lead to quite a bit of traffic, but it's not generally a problem on the sort of networks I work with, and I like the security of knowing that I'm not dropping random libraries on my servers. Also nice is the Quick Start Wizard (you can see it in action in the movie below): answer a few questions about operating system and software, and it will set up appropriate monitors for a new server. This is much easier than the process that most monitor software forces you to use of setting up each individual monitor separately.

NSM works with both Windows and Linux monitors (NSM itself only installs on Windows, but it can monitor Linux servers) and it understands how to monitor a wide range of software, including Active Directory, Exchange, DNS, DHCP, SQL Server, Oracle, Web and FTP Servers, ISA Server, TCP/IP, and so on. It can even check Terminal Services by actually logging in to the server. If the built-in checks aren't enough, you can customize your own by using VBScript on Windows (with full access to WMI and ADSI) or SSH shell scripting on your Linux boxes. Some of the included checks already use scripting so you can get some idea of how it all fits together. The GFI Web site also has a bunch of samples to show how to use scripting with the product.

If anything goes wrong, NSM will alert you via e-mail, pager, SMS message, or network message. You can also set it up to take corrective action by restarting services, rebooting servers, or running programs or batch files. Obviously the latter gives you the opportunity to do whatever the heck you like in case of failure, though of course you need to be smart enough to program the actions you want taken.

There are two downloadable versions of NSM at the GFI Web site. First, there's a full evaluation version that runs for 60 days. Second, there's a freeware version that doesn't time out, but that only supports HTTP(S) and ping testing. The full evaluation degrades to the freeware version at the end of the evaluation period if you don't purchase it.

There are a batch of network monitoring applications on the market, and I've looked at many of them. NSM is definitely one of the top contenders. I like the agentless architecture, the easy setup, and the VBScript/WMI combination for customization. Adding Linux support in this version is a step forward as well. Another nice touch not found in many other products is that monitors can be organized hierarchically with inherited properties - so for example you can have everything within a particular folder notify a certain operator in case of trouble, and only have to change that e-mail address in one place if you change operators. If you're spending time trying to keep your own servers running and don't have automated help, take a look.

  Click for larger screenshot

  Click for animated movie (382 KB GIF made with DemoCharge 2004)