IPHost Network Monitor supports different methods of automatic reaction to undesirable changes on the resources and systems being monitored. The alerts are tied to the monitors and are performed when a monitor transition to one of the problem states occurs or when monitor recovers from problem state, i.e. when performance or availability issue with monitored object has resolved.

One of the main tasks of the monitoring system is execution of alerts as the monitoring system's reaction to the appearance of performance and availability problems in the operation of resources being watched. Prompt and informative notification of a problem helps to substantially reduce the downtime of important resources, which as a result decreases the loss of work time of monitored systems and applications users and improves the effectiveness of administrator work.

The most of alerts is sending a message with information on the problem using various means (e-mail, instant messengers, SMS and others). Methods of reaction based on program start (local or remote via SSH) or SNMP SET provide additional possibilities. With the help of such alerts you can implement any method of reacting to a problem state: ranging from starting/stopping of a service on a remote machine to rebooting.

Alerts

In IPHost Network Monitor all alerts are gathered in one common list of alerts. All alerts can be used with any monitor. The following types of alerts are currently available:

1. Send email. Sending an e-mail to persons concerned. Some variables may be used in the message template, such as $MonitorName, $CurrentState, etc., which allows for instance using one template for any changes of state.
2. Sending SMS via GSM modem or mobile phone attached to a computer. Sending SMS to mobile phones.
3. Send SMS over email. Your mobile provider have to support e-mail to SMS service.
4. Pop-up window. This is a standard balloon connected to the application icon in the system tray with the message about a problem (state change).
5. Net Send. It is a similar standard window with a message, a standard dialogue with a message on a remote machine.
6. Execute program. Starting an executable file or executing the code of a script in a language supported by Windows Scripting Host. The path to the file and arguments should be specified. You can specify user account under which program should be started.
7. Sending Jabber message. Jabber is now wide spread, for example Google Talk is based on Jabber.
8. Sending ICQ message. You should have ICQ account to use the action.
9. Sending AOL message. You should have AOL messenger account to use the action.
10. Play Sound. You can use any mp3 or wav sound files. Sound will be played if Windows client application are started or Alerts tab in Web interface are opened.
11. Set SNMP value. For example, you can change router configuration using SNMP SET command.
12. Execute script over SSH. You can start script on a remote computer.

The full list of alerts is available for viewing and editing. To open the form with alert list please select 'Settings...' from 'Tools' menu (or 'Settings' button on the toolbar) then select Alerts tab. It is important to remember that changes in an alert affect each Alerting Rule that uses this alert.

Alerting Rules

In an Alerting Rule you link alerts to state changes. Also you can set a schedule for each alert in Alerting Rule, i.e. on which weekdays and during which hours alert should be active.

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By default, a monitor uses the Alerting Rule specified for its monitor type. So you can easily manage alerts for the whole monitor type, for example, if it is necessary to add a new alert to all the monitors of the HTTP type, it can be done in one place without having to change the Alerting Rules in all the monitors of this type.

Description of other features