This discussion comes up every couple of months and my first response is always is Servers Alive the right tool for your organization? I recommend SA to a lot of people but not everyone because it doesn't fully meet their needs. Dirk and Woodstone put out a great product at an amazing price that is really targeted at the small to medium business. He has been extremely helpful in adding features that allowed me to use it in my large environment.
However, using it has meant that I have needed to deal with the trade-offs. I saved a lot of money compared to what the likes of Concord, Aprisma, and even Whats Up was going to cost us but that meant more work for me to create the reports, host databases, and other items to tie it all together. It worked for us and provided me with the flexibility to create what we felt was needed from the data provided. Was it as pretty as the others or able to do ad-hoc reports? No. Did provide the necessary info? Yes. I know I've said this before in a previous discussion when the SQL topic has been brought up - I think storing the config in a DB is overkill for most SA installations and creates an extra layer of complexity that isn't needed. For some of us it would be helpful and may be something that the Enterprise version could have as an option. It really sounds like your environment has grown beyond SA as the central tool for your organization. In my current position we are evaluating our monitoring tools and seeing what fits(SA would be a point product here, mostly for admin use) and what if anything should be improved. -Kevin Servers Alive Discussion List wrote: > Your method of creating HTML on the fly is VERY unique when you look at > all of the software in use in the enterprise environment. That means, > that I (in the singular, me) have to code ALL reports, for all > conceivable requests of my Sr. Management, and there is little ability > to have a method of my up chain being able to ad-hoc browse through how > tests are being done with out risk of injuring the setup. Also, have you > tried to print an HTML page that's more than a page long? It looks like > crud compared to the reports my managers are used to seeing from all of > our other systems which typically use Crystal Reports for both text > reporting and charting. On the other hand, if it was in a database, I > can hand to any of a dozen people a table schema and say "write XYZ > report" and actually have the report experts do their thing, rather than > myself fumbling through it. > > A true enterprise solution has to have it's configuration data and > historical data stored on a standardized data platform, preferably a > DBMS such as MS SQL, DB2, Oracle, etc., so that the data can be > protected and managed at the enterprise level through clustering, load > balancing and Disaster Recovery techniques. This would mean that SA > should not load any data internally or on the host PC running SA, but > all would be in a DB server repository. Each check cycle would > dynamically load each check's config from the DB server, and write back > to the server the ongoing status of the check cycle. It sounds like this > is going to be database intensive, but at the level I play at it's not. > We have several systems that routinely write millions of data changes to > our servers over the course of a 'light' day, and I suspect that's small > compared to a lot of enterprises using a standard DBMS. > > Servers Alive and it's output is becoming incredibly tied to our > contractual obligations to our customers, and it is becoming harder to > defend a product developed at such a "personal" level. I can't WAIT > until our customer charges us for server down time, and I can't prove > him wrong because SA wiped out the uptime data during a server re-boot. > > You mostly see in the list where it's a dedicated individual who has > chosen SA, but I also get the sense that it's hard for them to get > others at their organization to work on it. Possibly because it is a > unique product both in function and organizational concept. > > Don't get me wrong, I LOVE what you do, it's the how that I would like > to see brought up to a true enterprise level. > > Michael D. Shook > Technical Analyst > Saddle Creek Corporation > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 863 668 4477 (work) > 863 860 4070 (cell) > 863 665 1261 (fax) > www.saddlecrk.com > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 8:31 AM >> To: Servers Alive Discussion List >> Subject: [SA-list] RE: [SA-list] RE: [SA-list] RE: [SA-list] >> RE: [SA-list] RE: [SA-list] RE: [SA-list] RE: [SA-list] RE: >> [SA-list] Skype alerting >> >> Is HTML a unique interface? >> We can make reports in HTML. You have to make an HTML >> template for it, based on HTML tags (standard stuff for the >> layout part) and specific tags for the actual data part. >> With whatever reportwriter it would be the same, it would >> need to have access to the "format" and based on the format >> it could show you what "vars" you can use. We use tags. >> >> >> Dirk Bulinckx. >> > > > -------------------------------------- > The information contained in this message is intended only for the use of the > addressee. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or > agent of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any > dissemination, distribution, or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. > To unsubscribe send a message with UNSUBSCRIBE as subject to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe send a message with UNSUBSCRIBE as subject to [email protected]
