Monitoring and Reporting

Let's face it, our bosses love reports. Especially if those reports have colors and graphics! Systems people love monitoring systems that will help them be more proactive in the monitoring of their servers. In this section, we will introduce you to a few monitoring and reporting packages that will make your life easier and let you send the boss those spiffy reports.

• AppManager for Microsoft Exchange AppManager for Exchange lets you monitor the health and performance of an entire distributed Exchange system. It can tell you such things as the time it takes to deliver e-mail, where Internet e-mail is being sent, what is making some mailboxes as large as they are, and where offensive e-mail resides on your server. Contact: NetIQ (www.netiq.com)

• Argent Exchange Monitor Argent Exchange Monitor is for small to very large Exchange environments (up to 2,000 Exchange servers). Monitoring includes response-time tracking, SMTP connectivity, top senders and receivers of messages, and mailboxes over storage limits. Contact: Argent Software (www.argent.com)

• Control Suite for Exchange Control Suite for Exchange is a monitoring, alerting, and reporting tool for Exchange. It includes two products: MessageInsight for Exchange (usage reporting with histories) and ExRay for Exchange (monitoring, alerting, and reporting). Contact: Intellireach Corp. (www.intellireach.com)

• Promodag Reports Promodag Reports is an agent-less reporting tool that uses existing Exchange log files such as the message tracking logs to provide extensive usage reports of your Exchange servers. Contac: Promodag (www.promodag.com)

• MessageStats MessageStats is a comprehensive reporting tool for Exchange Server that reports on mailbox usage, top senders, most commonly used domains, and more. Contact: Quest Software (www.quest.com)

• OmniAnalyser OmniAnalyser provides monitoring and reporting solutions for Exchange as well as service metrics that can be used for service level agreement management. Contact: Hypersoft (www.hypersoft.com)

• Power GUI PowerGUI is an extensible graphical administrative console for managing systems based on Windows PowerShell. These include Windows OS (XP, 2003, Vista), Exchange 2007, Operations Manager 2007 and other new systems from Microsoft. The tool allows administrators to access and use the rich capabilities of Windows PowerShell in a familiar and intuitive GUI console. Contact Quest Software (www.quest.com)

• Spotlight on Exchange Spotlight on Exchange and its companion product Spotlight on Active Directory are two of the slickest and most "Star Trek"-looking server monitoring tools on the market. These tools monitor server health and report server problems, bottlenecks, and performance in a very slick graphical user interface. Contact: Quest Software (www.quest.com)

• Smarts Application Discovery Manager EMC Smarts Application Discovery Manager is powered by EMC nLayers technology and provides the infrastructure for real-time hands-off dependency-driven change, configuration, incident, and problem management. It works with Exchange, SQL, and Active Directory among other applications. Contact: EMC Corporation (www.emc.com)

• Zenprise Zenprise is a not really a monitoring or reporting tool in the traditional sense but rather a proactive monitoring and diagnostics tool for Exchange. Zenprise scans your Exchange server's configuration, event logs, and services and analyzes Exchange in real time. A knowledge base of common problems and solutions is used and can provide administrators with knowledge of an impending problem before it affects users. Contact: Zenprise (www.zenprise.com)