IPHost: reliable remote monitoring system
IPHost Network Monitor proved it’s bulletproof stable: it can work for years without a single crash. Its modest system requirements permit to run IPHost on average desktop computer, without need in server-grade computers.
One of monitoring tasks is to ensure software and hardware reliability of networks in general and all its components (network devices, such as computers, network printers and so on). Remote monitoring system reliability becomes crucial; if you can assume it’s running, outages within network being monitored will not get unnoticed: alerts will be sent to notify system administrator promptly.
To improve IPHost reliability, you can make use of additional precautions.
Watch hardware reliability
Every piece of hardware can fail in course of time; computer where IPHost is running is not an exception. To ensure you will notice signs of possible hardware problems, you can use several built-in hardware monitors.
Create disk space monitor for computer running IPHost to ensure the program doesn’t run out of disk space. IPHost makes use of a database engine; there should always be disk space to ensure monitoring system is working smoothly and can write its logs. Check there are at least few gigabytes of free space on disk C: (or wherever IPHost is installed).
The same relates to RAM available – create available RAM monitor; if memory usage is next to 100%, monitoring system can be slowed down, as swapping becomes, and false alarms can be generated under certain circumstances.
Make also sure CPU usage is not 100% all the time: this is another reason for monitoring getting slow in general. If possible, avoid running resource-intensive applications on computer where IPHost is running: remote monitoring system shouldn’t get low of resources required for its functioning.
Finally, you can perform program monitoring (using IPHost process monitoring – over WMI, SNMP or SSH) – to make sure important pieces of software are running on the computer (imagine antivirus software or firewall going down for some reason).
Alerting system reliability: don’t depend on Internet
What happens if entire Internet connectivity breaks down in the network where IPHost is running? Majority of alerts rely on Internet availability. No Internet access – no alerts passing through. Your entire networks monitoring system can get isolated and become unreliable, unless you use multiple Internet provider connections, and computer running IPHost has access to them all.
The solution could be installing GSM modem and set up SMS over GSM modem alerts just in case Internet connection fails. That will indicate at once your other alerts might be unable to pass. That allows enhancing overall system reliability by eliminating single point of failure.
Back up remote monitoring software
Monitoring is one means to ensure problems will not become really big, making backup copies is another. IPHost uses database; if the latter is damaged for some reason, whole monitoring setup might go awry or halt entirely. Software reliability depends on all its components working flawlessly.
IPHost Network Monitor does a daily backup of its monitoring database, but since the backup is single and located on the same disk drive, it doesn’t prevent most problems. We recommend backing up IPHost monitoring database elsewhere, at least on daily basis, to still minimize risk of disrupting your monitoring facility.
Monitoring requires program monitoring
Finally, you need some protection against crashing IPHost itself. If its monitoring service stops for some reason, there will be no alerts altogether.
The problem looks severe, but it has a simple solution. Set up another IPHost Network Monitor installation onto another computer, with single purpose of performing monitoring of the master IPHost installation. Thus, you can get alerted if IPHost stops working for some reason. Note that you can also install IPHost Network Monitor outside your network and use Remote Network Agent to watch the health of primary installation.
Similarly, master IPHost installation can monitor auxiliary IPHost installation(s), thus still lowering chance of losing any clue on how your monitoring system is working.
IPHost Network Monitor 5.4 build 14614 of November 05, 2024. File size: 112MB
