Server monitoring software is essential in any network. It is a proactive measure of minimizing damages resulting from down time which have negative consequences for a business or an organization. Server monitors enable network administrators to keep track of changes on the servers. Service monitoring software is available commercially or as open source software. Server monitoring focuses on the following: HTTP, POP3, IMAP, DNS, TCP, PING, and IMAP among other protocols. This article reviews some of the free software monitoring tools available to inform you on which server monitoring software best suits your network profile.

• Netsaint

This software is expandable and comes with an impressive array of monitors. Netsaint monitors databases, and SNMP, among others. The advantage with this software is that it features a system handler that makes it possible to restart failed features without the need of human intervention.

• Big brother

The big brother software comes with three monitoring packages. The output is web based depending on the graphical browser. Big brother features a lot of animated GIFs. Big brother is comprehensive software in remote monitoring. The disadvantage big brother is that remote monitoring can be accessed by anyone who is able to connect to the appropriate port.

• MON

Mon is a general purpose monitoring software. This software is highly extensible and well competent. Some of the features offered by MON include parallel testing with hierarchical, support. It also comes with an output through the web console, pager software, or the email.

• NocMonitor

This software is designed to serve small networks. Its output is through the HTML. The software can be configured to send alerts through email or other configurable commands. NocMonitor does not support parallel checks or hierarchical growths.

• Sysmon

Sysmon is general purpose TCP-based tool supporting network hierarchy. It is not possible to have parallel checks, and to update the configurations you require updates.

• Zenoss

This software is written using the python language. This software supports Nagios plug-in format and a simple to use user interface.

• Servers alive

Servers alive perform among other services the following: pings the host, check on the disk space available on servers, and the NT/service processes.

• Nagios

Nagios is one of the best web servers monitoring software available. This software is complicated to install and thus favors experienced network administrators. Its features are unmatched by any website monitoring tool available in the market today.

for small networks

A traffic monitoring software is an essential component of any business aiming for success irrespective of whether the business is small or big. When a network fails, it fails everyone.

Communication becomes a problem and losses are bound to occur. A traffic monitoring software helps avoid such losses by making the business proactive by having real time monitoring all of the company network devices.

Network elements that need to be monitored

• Email servers- email servers are vital, without them email communication is not possible. Email servers need to be monitored for availability, size of mail received and mails waiting in the queue.
• WAN links- some of the factors considered when analyzing WAN links are the throughput, committed information rate, burst rate, response, and the congestion.
• Business applications- business applications that need to be monitored include servers, server logs, databases, websites and applications.

You can monitor traffic free of charge

It will interest you to know that open source platform has many programs and software’s are available free of charge including a traffic monitoring software. If you operate a small business that cannot afford the expensive traffic monitoring software available in the market, you can opt for the following. Although they are available for free, they are competent.

• Nagios-this is a host and service traffic monitoring software designed to help you troubleshoot network problems before you are informed by your clients and other end users. Nagios runs under the LINUX operating system.
• MRTG- the multi router traffic Grapher (MRTG) monitors traffic load in network links. It then generates live HTML pages having PNG images providing a live visual presentation of how the traffic looks like.
• Kismet- This software works on any wireless card that is able to support raw monitoring. Kismet identifies networks by passively collecting packets and detection of standard named networks.

Important

It is imperative to note that having the right traffic monitoring software is not an end to itself. Once you have the right software, you need to keep track of all installations, note when the licenses date is due to expire, and make sure that your computer network is protected by an anti virus that is up to date.

In addition, never forget to check on the hardware components. With the many free traffic monitoring software available, the onus is yours to select which best fits your business profile.

Traffic Monitoring Software

So, it’ll be your first day on a busy city’s traffic department and you were asked to report to work earlier than the others. You woke up at exactly 4 AM to be really early. You took a bath for 30 mins, put on your uniform and did your other morning rituals for another 15 mins.

Now, you’re off to work, smiling and excited about making a whooping record as an enforcer by catching hundreds of traffic violators a day. You’re filled with all these positive feelings while you’re driving your car out of your neighborhood and into the freeway. Little did you know that there’s something bad waiting for you at the freeway.

The irony of a proud rookie traffic enforcer getting stuck in traffic and the fact that it’s only 5:30 AM in your watch but there’s traffic already, make you want to forget about your sanity and punch whoever caused the traffic (even if his face isn’t already “tangible” if the cause is an accident). The sun is about to completely reach the top of the sky and you’re still in the freeway moping about getting laughed at in your headquarters and bringing a bad first impression to your boss and a salary deduction.

Now, this wouldn’t have happened if you have your own traffic monitoring software, just like the ones your department has. The next time you get your salary, just forget about getting some good dose of beer and buying new original DVDs. Save the extra amount for a car computer and the traffic monitoring software you’ll use with it. This wouldn’t be hard, just think about those bonuses if you always manage to arrive in your headquarters earlier than your colleagues.