RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
We have serveral tests for determining if a system is functioning. The first is a simple ping test. The second level is to determine if necessary services are running on the server. The services we monitor depend on the functionality of the server. IE, Exchange servers are checked to verify all the Exchange services are running. Similarly for SQL servers. This is still not 100% as a service can be running but not processing commands properly. For mail and web servers, we also do client checks. For mail we send an email to an account on the mail server. This account is set to autorespond to a given mail account. If the reply is not received, an error is generated. In addition to these checks, we also check disk space and cpu usage to ensure the server is functioning within given limits. For most of our checks we are using Big Brother. Denny From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joeSent: Saturday, March 27, 2004 9:47 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime I have a general comment for this and kind of curious what people are doing in this area... Most products check for availability of the server via pinging and agents that scrape events and report availability of servers in terms of whether the server returns a ping or not. This is obviously a good start but quite honestly, pretty worthless. It doesn't say anything about whether the server is truly functioning and able to respond to client calls (ditto for agents running on the server themselves). What are people doing to get realistic uptime/availability numbers out of their systems? Do you have monitoring that pretends to be a client and use the normal client hooks? For example, we monitor our DCs all centrally via perl scripts that act like they are users... For instance, one test is a WINS name resolution test. It basically does Domain 1C record lookups via NMBLOOKUP/NBLOOKUP type calls which emulate clients. Another test tries to read the netlogon shares (which also tests authentication on the DC). Another test does some NET API calls against a DC. An LDAP lookup test also exists. Another checks time on DCs. Again all of these work remotely, they do not run on the DCs themselves. In this way we have a pretty good idea of what is truly available versus just up. I would like to go a step better and actually do this central monitoring from several points around the globe and then centralize the results. Our company's main outlook on Servers is uptime via ping response with no consideration for application level availability or degradation. The main reason being how hard it is really to do accurately. So say an Exchange Server that is responding to pings but isn't handling mail at all or not very well is considered UP for availability numbers. I obviously don't agree with that approach and did something different. I am curious as to how many others are doing things that way. joe - http://www.joeware.net (download joeware) http://www.cafeshops.com/joewarenet (wear joeware) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Philadelphia, Lynden - Revios TorontoSent: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:42 AMTo: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This might not be the right forum, but I will ask anyway. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or database that tracks server down/uptime? Need to produce a report for the management on a monthly basis. Lynden
Re: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
Besides MOM/Tivoli and Scripts I personally also like to have a "good old" Mailcheck (or equivalent) running. I can tell you from experience that we have a high percentage of cases where mailcheck stops responding to/from a server without a single event in the logs, all services running perfectly, Exchange and respective DCs up and running (apparently) just fine, and absolutely nothing triggered by MOM/Tivoli on either Exchange or AD... We're still in migration to fully use MOM and we're hoping that will help us identify these kinds of issues but for now Mailcheck it is :) - Original Message - From: joe To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 3:37 PM Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime Yes and no. This is still internal to Exchange, it is just as bad as say a MOM agent that is running tests on a local box. Doesn't tell you anything about whether clients can access you or not. Do you for instance warn if the queue doesn't grow at all for a while? That would be an aside method of determining whether an exchange server is working with clients or not. How do you warn on that because some times maybe you shouldn't see anything hitting the queue, etc. For testing Exchange specifically I would have scripts or something sending mail to and fro the distance of the entire exchange organization that I need mail delivery guarantees for for instance. Fortunately I am not in charge of the availability of our exchange servers... - http://www.joeware.net (download joeware) http://www.cafeshops.com/joewarenet (wear joeware) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of deji AgbaSent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 12:28 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime >>So say an Exchange Server that is responding to pings but isn't handling mail at all or not very well is considered UP for availability numbers. This you handle by using the Built-in Exchange monitoring tool. You can roll your own sink to monitor queue and send you an alert IF it reaches a certain threshold or if it can't determine the threshold. I want to bet that you know this already and you are just picking on Exchange as usual ;) Sincerely,Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE MCSA MCP+I Microsoft MVP - Active Directorywww.akomolafe.comwww.iyaburo.comDo you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon
RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
Yes and no. This is still internal to Exchange, it is just as bad as say a MOM agent that is running tests on a local box. Doesn't tell you anything about whether clients can access you or not. Do you for instance warn if the queue doesn't grow at all for a while? That would be an aside method of determining whether an exchange server is working with clients or not. How do you warn on that because some times maybe you shouldn't see anything hitting the queue, etc. For testing Exchange specifically I would have scripts or something sending mail to and fro the distance of the entire exchange organization that I need mail delivery guarantees for for instance. Fortunately I am not in charge of the availability of our exchange servers... - http://www.joeware.net (download joeware) http://www.cafeshops.com/joewarenet (wear joeware) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of deji AgbaSent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 12:28 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime >>So say an Exchange Server that is responding to pings but isn't handling mail at all or not very well is considered UP for availability numbers. This you handle by using the Built-in Exchange monitoring tool. You can roll your own sink to monitor queue and send you an alert IF it reaches a certain threshold or if it can't determine the threshold. I want to bet that you know this already and you are just picking on Exchange as usual ;) Sincerely,Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE MCSA MCP+I Microsoft MVP - Active Directorywww.akomolafe.comwww.iyaburo.comDo you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon
RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
>>So say an Exchange Server that is responding to pings but isn't handling mail at all or not very well is considered UP for availability numbers. This you handle by using the Built-in Exchange monitoring tool. You can roll your own sink to monitor queue and send you an alert IF it reaches a certain threshold or if it can't determine the threshold. I want to bet that you know this already and you are just picking on Exchange as usual ;) Sincerely,Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE MCSA MCP+I Microsoft MVP - Active Directorywww.akomolafe.comwww.iyaburo.comDo you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon
RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
Title: Message Alex has a forum you can use to get help, he is very responsive. I like the product, he has done a good job with it. - http://www.joeware.net (download joeware) http://www.cafeshops.com/joewarenet (wear joeware) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Philadelphia, Lynden - Revios TorontoSent: Monday, March 22, 2004 4:15 PMTo: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime Thanks Just having a little trouble configuring alerts Lynden From: Rutherford, Robert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:51 AMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This is a good product... cheap 2 http://www.ks-soft.net/hostmon.eng/ -Original Message-From: Philadelphia, Lynden - Revios Toronto [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 22 March 2004 15:42To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This might not be the right forum, but I will ask anyway. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or database that tracks server down/uptime? Need to produce a report for the management on a monthly basis. Lynden The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entityto which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/orprivileged material. Any use (including retransmission or copying)of this information by persons or entities other than the intendedrecipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient of thistransmission, please contact the sender and delete the materialfrom any computer. The sender is not responsible for the completeness or accuracy of this communication as it has beentransmitted over a public network. Any replies to this email may bemonitored by the MCPS-PRS Alliance for quality control and other purposes.
RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
I have a general comment for this and kind of curious what people are doing in this area... Most products check for availability of the server via pinging and agents that scrape events and report availability of servers in terms of whether the server returns a ping or not. This is obviously a good start but quite honestly, pretty worthless. It doesn't say anything about whether the server is truly functioning and able to respond to client calls (ditto for agents running on the server themselves). What are people doing to get realistic uptime/availability numbers out of their systems? Do you have monitoring that pretends to be a client and use the normal client hooks? For example, we monitor our DCs all centrally via perl scripts that act like they are users... For instance, one test is a WINS name resolution test. It basically does Domain 1C record lookups via NMBLOOKUP/NBLOOKUP type calls which emulate clients. Another test tries to read the netlogon shares (which also tests authentication on the DC). Another test does some NET API calls against a DC. An LDAP lookup test also exists. Another checks time on DCs. Again all of these work remotely, they do not run on the DCs themselves. In this way we have a pretty good idea of what is truly available versus just up. I would like to go a step better and actually do this central monitoring from several points around the globe and then centralize the results. Our company's main outlook on Servers is uptime via ping response with no consideration for application level availability or degradation. The main reason being how hard it is really to do accurately. So say an Exchange Server that is responding to pings but isn't handling mail at all or not very well is considered UP for availability numbers. I obviously don't agree with that approach and did something different. I am curious as to how many others are doing things that way. joe - http://www.joeware.net (download joeware) http://www.cafeshops.com/joewarenet (wear joeware) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Philadelphia, Lynden - Revios TorontoSent: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:42 AMTo: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This might not be the right forum, but I will ask anyway. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or database that tracks server down/uptime? Need to produce a report for the management on a monthly basis. Lynden
RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
Title: Message Thanks Just having a little trouble configuring alerts Lynden From: Rutherford, Robert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:51 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This is a good product... cheap 2 http://www.ks-soft.net/hostmon.eng/ -Original Message- From: Philadelphia, Lynden - Revios Toronto [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 22 March 2004 15:42 To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This might not be the right forum, but I will ask anyway. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or database that tracks server down/uptime? Need to produce a report for the management on a monthly basis. Lynden The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any use (including retransmission or copying) of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient of this transmission, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. The sender is not responsible for the completeness or accuracy of this communication as it has been transmitted over a public network. Any replies to this email may be monitored by the MCPS-PRS Alliance for quality control and other purposes. This message is intended for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message in not the intended recipient or the employer or agent responsible for delivering the message to the recipient, you are hereby notified that dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by email or telephone, and delete this message and all of its attachments.
RE: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime
Title: Message This is a good product... cheap 2 http://www.ks-soft.net/hostmon.eng/ -Original Message-From: Philadelphia, Lynden - Revios Toronto [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 22 March 2004 15:42To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: [ActiveDir] Server up/downtime This might not be the right forum, but I will ask anyway. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or database that tracks server down/uptime? Need to produce a report for the management on a monthly basis. Lynden The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entityto which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/orprivileged material. Any use (including retransmission or copying)of this information by persons or entities other than the intendedrecipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient of thistransmission, please contact the sender and delete the materialfrom any computer. The sender is not responsible for the completeness or accuracy of this communication as it has beentransmitted over a public network. Any replies to this email may bemonitored by the MCPS-PRS Alliance for quality control and other purposes.
