Exodus launches monitoring tools for Web hosting customers

While its been challenging for ISPs to roll out monitoring tools that let users track their Internet access connections from end-to-end, Web hosting service providers such as Exodus Communications, are moving more swiftly in this direction.

Exodus just introduced its Managed Monitoring Service (MMS) 1.0 for its collocation and Web hosting service customers. Using Computer Associates Unicenter TNG and Exodus developed monitoring software customers can now view statistics such as Web servers CPU utilization, disk space and bandwidth utilization.

This information is presented to users with an Exodus developed Java Web interface that the service provider calls HeadsUp Site Monitor. Users can access the HeadsUp Site Monitor using any Internet browser.

Exodus is initially offering three levels of its MMS service under Basic, Enhanced and Pro levels. MMS Basic, which is included with all of the services, includes the HeadsUp Site Monitor that reports the status of all of the customers URLs, historical bandwidth utilization and Exodus network news events.

The MMS Enhanced, which is an additional $250 to $450 per month, offers users the same features as the MMS Basic service plus 24-7 monitoring of Web and database server thresholds, data base processing and real-time event notification.

Exodus' MMS Pro is $600 per month and includes all of the features that are part of the MMS Enhanced service. MMS Pro also offers customer problem resolution by Exodus, real-time and historical server performance reporting, hourly bandwidth reporting and up to five system reboots per server per month.

MMS 1.0 is available today in Exodus' s Santa Clara, Calif. data center. Exodus plans on rolling out MMS support in its remaining six data centers in the next three to four months.

Denise Pappalardo is a senior editor for Network World, covering ISPs, VPNs and related topics. Reach her at denisep@nww.com.