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TOPPER for NT Server Management
Topper
for NT Server Management can conduct round the
clock monitoring of your NT server network and
alert you to any abnormal situations that arise.
includes 4 basic types of testing that help to
ensure the proper and timely functioning of your
NT Server network.
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Performance Objects
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Topper can
monitor the overall health of any NT
performance object (a performance counter
registered with NT by either the
operating system or any software/hardware
vendor).
TOPPER enables you
to set up continuous monitoring of these
objects tailored for your own
environment. Each performance object is
configured such in a fashion that makes
sense (i.e., for disk space, an absolute
set of thresholds are configured whereas
for CPU utilization, thresholds would be
specified over time (see
example). This unique
configuration scheme helps ensure that
alerts make sense and eliminates the
possibility of false alerts. As with
other TOPPER testing, once an alert
situation is uncovered, a notification is
sent to the appropriate staff.
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NT Services - Topper
has the ability to monitor each critical
service on your server and alert when the
service is not running.
Performance Sets
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Performance sets are pre-configured
groups of performance objects that may be
copied and used to monitor multiple
servers with a common set of monitoring
points. Performance sets may be built by
the Administrator or by using the
performance sets provided with the TOPPER
software. Currently, TOPPER comes with
two pre-defined sets,
Microsoft
Exchange
and
Server
General Monitoring,
Other pre-defined performance sets for
Notes, SQL and other applications will be
added in future releases. These
performance sets allow for rapid
configuration and customization for your
environment. Here is an example of the
performance set configuration
for Exchange monitoring.
NT Event Log
Filtering -
Topper can
filter NT Event Log
events in real-time to help uncover
problems as they occur. The NT Event Logs
store individual status records about
processes and services running on NT
workstations and servers. An Event is
actually a status record written by some
process running on the PC providing
status and diagnostic information.
On an NT 4.0
computer there are three event logs:
Windows 2000 has added
three additional Event Logs:
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Directory
Services
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DNS
Server Log
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File
Replication Service Log
Each of these logs can be
filtered against two types of criteria:
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Each
event in the logs has been categorized by the
providing vendor and classified as either a
Warning
or Error. These can be
automatically captured by Topper and mapped
to Topper's Minor and Major error conditions,
and alert notification rules can be
established for each. Additionally, TOPPER
provides the ability to exclude certain of
these conditions, that for your enterprise,
are not considered as important conditions to
monitor against. This capability allows you
to
configure
filtering
in
a matter of seconds.
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Secondly,
for specific errors not flagged by the
vendor, a text string entry can be configured
that TOPPER will use to filter against the
event logs. When a record contains the text
string, an notification will be made to the
appropriate staff.
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Generic Log File Filtering
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TOPPER can
perform real-time monitoring of any log files created by
applications of services running on your servers. These log
files must be ASCII sequential files. TOPPER will filter the
records as they come in to the log. If there is a match
between a filter entry and the log record, then TOPPER will
display that as an alert in the severity defined in the
filter entry. If desired, TOPPER can notify the appropriate
staff of the problem.
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