History of Communication Technology

EMCO Ping Monitor ($49) checks the availability of systems on a network by sending pings at regular intervals and analyzing the responses from each machine. Administrators monitoring multiple servers and concerned about uptime often write shell scripts to keep track of these statistics. Ping Monitor performs the same task in an easy-to-use graphical interface but doesn?t really offer any advanced features or capabilities.

IT administrators use the application in an ?autopilot? mode to supervise network connections to critical equipment. The scheduling feature allows administrators to schedule times when certain machines don?t need to be monitored, such as during scheduled maintenance windows or when they are powered off on weekends, without having to stop the monitoring process for other machines.

While the software needs to be installed on a Windows machine (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Server), Ping Monitor can monitor any machine regardless of the operating system, provided it can respond to ping (ICMP echo) requests. Ping Monitor is available in a free version as well as a Professional version. The free version is limited to tracking up to five machines while the Professional version is unlimited. A 30-day evaluation of Ping Monitor Professional is available online.

Using Ping Monitor
A Windows host monitoring tool, Ping Monitor tracks connections to multiple network hosts by simultaneously sending pings (ICMP echo requests) to all the machines in its “to watch” list. It detects changes in machine status and analyzes responses to calculate connection statistics, such as high, low, and average response times, response time deviation, uptime, and other values to evaluate connection quality and stability. The monitoring interface displays all scanned IP addresses with the associated information in a long list.

If a host doesn’t respond to multiple requests, Ping Monitor flags the machine and sends out notifications about the outage. The message can be sent by email, displayed in the Windows system tray, or an audio alert. The non-responding machine is also highlighted in red in the interface.

The main interface feels a little crammed, as it displays the IP addresses being monitored, Application Log, details about the host, and actions to take when a machine doesn’t respond, all in one single view. It’s possible to turn off the log and host details pane, or rearrange them. Double-clicking on an IP address opens up an edit window to modify notification and monitoring rules.

Ping Monitor allows users to enter individual IP addresses, hostnames, or IP ranges that need to be monitored. Network administrators can then customize the notification messages on a per-host or per-event basis. For example, administrators can configure Ping Monitor to change who would be alerted by email depending on which host encountered the issue. Or send an email message first, and then follow up with an SMS notification if the computer remains offline.

The monitoring results can also be formatted to use outside the tool. The tool supports XML and CSV formats.

Setting Up Ping Monitor
To get started, all I had to do was enter the IP addresses of the servers and desktops running on my test network in to the tool. Ping Monitor supports a list of IP addresses, an IP range, or even hostnames. Once I entered the list of machines, I hit the Start button on the application?s toolbar. Ping Monitor pinged systems at regularly spaced intervals and displayed basic statistics, such as how long the tool had been monitoring that address, the machine?s uptime, and the average response time. If the server is not available, the tool displays that address in red.

I turned on a few machines while the tool was already running. Before I turned them on, I noticed the corresponding IP addresses were highlighted in red within the interface. As soon as the machine was online, the screen reflected the change automatically by removing the red highlight.

I could tweak most of the settings, such as configuring the ping itself, including its timeout period, packet size, and time to live (TTL) value. I could create a schedule to specify which days of the week (and time of day) the machines should be pinged. I could also design a customized list defining what the machine should do when it didn’t respond to a ping request, who to contact in case of an outage, and how to send out the notifications. In the Professional version, every single one of these settings can be customized for each host.

Monitoring host connectivity can be handled easily with a shell script. Ping Monitor doesn’t have any advanced features to differentiate it from a script. If the network is complicated or has machines that are regularly offline for maintenance reasons, network administrators would find the ability to automate when the machines are being monitored and for how long a true time-saver.

Ping Monitor Under the Hood
Network administrators can customize the scripts that take into account scheduled maintenance windows and rules for each host and automate the entire process. For managers monitoring multiple machines, Ping Monitor is handy for monitoring what machines are online and notifying appropriate users when something goes wrong. For environments where machines don’t need to be monitored on different schedules and simpler networks, Ping Monitor seems a little redundant since a shell script and a cron job would accomplish the task just as well.

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