ServersCheck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ServersCheck is a Belgian based and privately owned technology company founded in 2003.

It is most known in the Network Administrator community for its software program monitoring the availability and performance of servers and other networked devices. Next to this it also offers environmental sensors; providing monitoring from both the inside and the outside.

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[edit] ServersCheck Monitoring Software

ServersCheck Monitoring Software
ServersCheck screenshot
ServersCheck screenshot

Developer: ServersCheck BVBA
Latest release: 6.7.0 / September 27, 2006
OS: Windows XP/2000/2003
Use: Network Management
Website: www.serverscheck.com

The software monitors the availability and performance of networked devices such as servers, routers and switches.

ServersCheck is capable of monitoring almost any device connected to an IP based network. It can perform traditional network related checks (TCP, PING, traceroute) but can also be used to monitor a wide variety of other checks such as internet related checks (url, email chain, database checks, Windows checks (diskspace, CPU, memory, process, services). The system runs on Windows based systems (XP/2000/2003) and is being administrated through a browser. When the software detects a failure then alerts can be generated in different forms: SMS (text messages), email, MSN or network message. Historical observation is possible by using the built-in trend analysis capabilities.

The software can be operated in 24 languages: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Slovak, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Hindi, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Korean, Japanese.

Based on a poll of administrator's most popular trouble shooting tools, the ServersCheck Monitoring was selected by the Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine as one of the Best of the Best Tools.

The software is available for downloaded from sites such as Download.Com

[edit] Sensors

Temperature/Humidity Sensor
Temperature/Humidity Sensor

Environmental sensors are being used in data centers to monitor the conditions in which servers and other network equipment operates. While the size of hardware has been reduced, more and more systems are fitted into racks resulting in more heat being produced and making it harder for air conditioning units to reduce temperature.

The sensors as marketed by ServersCheck are not stand-alone sensors. They are polled based where the polling is initiated from the ServersCheck Monitoring Software and this at programmed intervals by the end-user. The sensors from ServersCheck can monitor temperature, humidity, flooding or power failure. They can be connected either via serial port, usb or directly plugged into the network.

[edit] Monitoring Software for Managed Service Providers

MSP is an activity where a company manages (remotely or not) the IT infrastructure of another company. In the SME market, MSP's often perform such an activity in a remote way (meaning they are not onsite). The ServersCheck Monitoring Software enables MSP to monitor infrastructure customers and get the status pushed to a central server (NOC at MSP site)

The ServersCheck product can work for MSP's in 2 modes: A/ In agent mode, each customer runs a copy of the Monitoring Software and pushes over UDP its status to a centrally installed server (at the side of the MSP) B/ In agentless mode the tool can directly query the customer systems and report their status. This of course requires that you have a direct network connection to your customer's network.

[edit] ServersCheck vs Google

The company got itself in the news after the first phase proceedings before a Belgian court in May 2006. The suit is about the "Google Suggest" feature that suggests users of the Google Toolbar to go and look for cracks of the software when entering "serverscheck" in the toolbar. The question, for which a verdict still has to be pronounced, is whether Google is allowed to suggest cracks of a software product when a user didn't ask for it. The issue is not the Google index itself but the suggestions Google gives. It is the first case of its kind against the activity of suggesting illegal software as generated by the Google Suggest module.

As can be understood from the company's press release, the legal proceedings were only initiated because registered mail and phone calls were never returned by Google, leaving a lawsuit as the only option.

CNN and CIO wrote articles about this case explaining the issue at hand.

[edit] External links