Network Management Tool

Amy Auburger

Product Overview

Made by Ipswitch
Affordable alternative to expensive & complicated
Network Management Systems
Easy-to-use network layout and design tool
Monitors the status of your network
Identifies & resolve problems fast
Latest Version v8.03

System Requirements

Intel Pentium or equivalent

30MB of Disk Space (100MB recommended)
64MB of RAM (256MB recommended)
Windows NT 4.0 sp6 or later, Windows 2000,
Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP,
Windows 2003 Server

Key Features

Mapping maps an accurate representation of your network

Monitoring allows you to monitor the status of your network
devices, services, and resources

Notification alerts you when mission-critical network devices or

services go down

Reporting allows you to keep track of device and application

availability

Web Access enables you to use a web browser to access

mapping, monitoring, and notifications functions from your computer

Mapping

To create a map, select New Map Wizard from

the File menu.

Mapping

Discovery Methods

Mapping

Discover using SNMP Smartscan

Discover using ICMP

scans a range of IP addresses and maps the devices that respond to a

message sent via the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP). The
Discover Devices wizard will prompt you to enter a range of the IP
addresses in your network.

Discover using Network Neighborhood

discovers and maps devices by reading SNMP data on a device

(preferably a router) in your network. If your network has a router with an
SNMP agent, SmartScan is a powerful way to discover and map your
network, as it can create maps and subnet maps that reflect your
networks hierarchy. Based on the information it finds, SmartScan will
continue to "scan" your network until it has mapped all devices.

if you want to import devices that WhatsUp Gold can find via the Microsoft
network. (These are the same devices that are listed when you browse
the network neighborhood on your desktop.)

Mapping

Import devices from your Registry

Import devices from a Host File

if you want devices that are referenced in the TCP/IP, Microsoft

Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator configurations (in the
Windows registry) to be added to the map.
this may be empty unless you have specifically added devices
to the hosts file.

Mapping

Creating a blank map

Mapping

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Sample blank map

Monitoring

Once you have created or loaded a network map, you can setup
WhatsUpGold to continuously monitor the network, or you can
initiate a single poll of the network.

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One poll of the network involves checking each monitored device in the
networking map.
Each check consists of WhatsUpGold sending a poll request to a
device and tracking the response.

For each monitored device, you can choose from a set of options in
the device properties to determine how the device is monitored and
define what action to take if the device does not respond to a check.
On each device, you can determine which services are running on
that device (such as HTTP, SMTP, POP3, DNS) and you can select
those services you want to monitor. It monitors a service by
communicating with the default port that the service runs on.

Monitoring

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The following are default conventions used to indicate the status of the
network devices.

The device is up (responding to polling).

Devices that have missed one poll have a light green diamond
shaped background.

Devices that have missed two polls have a yellow diamond shaped
background.

Devices that have missed three polls, the points on the yellow
diamond become longer.

After the device misses polls four through seven, the diamond
becomes red.

After missing eight polls, the diamond becomes a red burst (device
is down).

Device Monitoring

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You can use Monitor in device properties to:

Turn monitoring on or off for a device (the default is on).

Specify how often to poll the device.

Specify the number of seconds to wait for a response.

Specify any up or down dependencies.

Device Monitoring

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To display information associated with any of the displayed devices,

right click the device, and select Quick Status, and click Status to
view its properties.

Device Monitoring

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Device Monitoring

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Device Monitoring

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Service Monitoring

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On each device, you can determine which services are running on that device
(such as HTTP, SMTP, POP3, DNS) by right clicking the device, selecting
Properties, then the Services tab.

Service Monitoring

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The Monitors and Services dialog box displays the monitors & services that have been
defined. Once defined here, a monitor or service can be applied to one or more devices.
You can get to the Monitors & Services dialog box, from the Configuration menu, then
select Monitors & Services.

Notification

Helps keep your mission-critical network up and running 24

hours a day
WhatsUpGold provides the following types of notifications:

Notifications can be used in the following ways:

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Visual alerts
Sound an alarm
Send notification via a beeper, pager, or email
Make an entry in the log file
To indicate that a device or service is down.
To indicate that an SNMP trap has been received for a device.
To send a recurring network status report.

Notification

Setting up notifications involves two steps:

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You first define the notifications that you will want to use. From the
Configure menu, select Notification Library menu to allow you to
view the types of notifications installed on the system. By selecting
one of the notification types, you can define a notification of that
type.

Notification

Then, you can enable a notification action for a particular device,

selected devices, or all devices. You can do this one of two ways:

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Right click on a device, select Properties, then select the Alerts tab.
From the View menu, select Notifications. Once you select a device, it will open
the properties for the device, then you can select the Alerts tab.

Reporting

From the Reports menu, you can create:

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Outage Reports show device up and down state

changes, service up and down state changes, and activities
such as map open and close.
Statistics Reports show the accumulated polling statistics
by device.
Performance Graphs show devices by best or worst
performance based on aggregated polling statistics.

Outage Reports

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To create an Outage Report:

Select Outage Report from the Reports menu. The following dialog box will
appear.

Select the Map Name of the map for which you want a report.

Select the Report Type (Summary, Detail, Raw Data).

Select the Start date and End date.

Click OK to generate the report.

WhatsUpGold generates and displays the report in the Report Window. From this Window, you
can save the data to file, print it, or copy data to another application.

Statistics Reports

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To create an Statistics Report:

Select Statistics Report from the Reports menu. The following dialog box will
appear.

Select the Map Name of the map for which you want a report.

Select the Report Type (Summary, Detail, Raw Data).

Select the Start date and End date.

Click OK to generate the report.

Performance Graphs

To create a Performance Graph:

When you create a Performance Graph, you can choose:

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Select Performance Graph from the Reports menu, and click Add (to create a new
job) or click Edit (to edit an existing job).
To create the desired report, select it and click Do Report.

the time interval daily, weekly, or monthly

the graph format bar chart or area chart
how to sort the data by device name; ascending or descending order
which maps or devices to include in a graph

Web Access

WhatsUpGold provides a web server that lets you view the status of your
network from any web browser.
To setup the web server:

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From the Configuration menu, select Web Server, and click General.
Select Enable Web Server.

Web Access IP Security

There are two ways you can restrict access to the web server:

To deny access to a specific computer or group of computers:

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Require a User ID and password to view data on the WhatsUpGold web interface.
Specify an IP address or set of IP addresses that are either granted access to the web
site or are denied access.
From the Configuration menu, select Web Server, and click IP Security.
Select Granted Access, then click the Add button. The Deny Access On dialog box
appears.

Web Access User Security

There are two default user accounts for web access:

To add user accounts for web access:

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Admin
Guest
From the Configuration menu, select Web Server, and click Users.
Select Enable Web Security (if this is not selected, web users will be able to logon
without specifying user ID or password.
Click Add User button. The Add User dialog box appears and displays all available
maps that you can assign to your user.
You will also need to set the desired username and password.

Summary

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Affordable alternative to expensive & complicated

Network Management Systems
Easy-to-use network layout and design tool
Monitors the status of your network
Identifies & resolve problems fast
Offers many key features such as Mapping,
Monitoring, Notifications, Reporting, and Web Access