Response to RFP: Avtech

Network World Fusion, 08/23/99

This document is provided to assist and help the IT professionals at Centralization to understand and acquire PageR Enterprise-- "Complete Enterprise System, Server & Network Monitoring Made Easy, Reliable & Immediate… from Anywhere!" PageR Enterprise is the enterprise-wide multi-OS monitoring and alerting system that includes deep monitoring and automatic action capabilities desired in most critical enterprise IT environments. Environmental monitoring can easily be added with our RoomAlert product to provide the most complete monitoring available for today’s advanced data centers.

AVTECH Software is pleased to have the opportunity to submit a proposal in response to Centralization’s RFP that will completely solve their need for "Comprehensive Network Monitoring And Alerting". We would like to give you an overview of PageR Enterprise first and then go into the details of how PageR Enterprise, once deployed, will meet and exceed the Centralization requirements. A purchase quotation is enclosed.

PageR Enterprise is unique in the range of events and servers it monitors, from basic "Are you there?" network pings to complex computer room environment monitoring, server crash detections and web page monitoring. On Windows NT servers, any event written to an NT Event Log (like System, Security or Application) can be used as a trigger for immediate, remote notification and corrective action. Mixed platform networks are fully supported by polling UNIX, OpenVMS, HP3000, Netware, AS/400, NT systems and others. These systems pass alert notifications to the Network Event Console within PageR Enterprise for redistribution and automatic response. No "agents" are ever required!

PageR Enterprise allows notification to individuals, groups and hierarchies. Users can set up redundant methods of notification and blackout periods. And, if users need to connect to PageR Enterprise remotely, like when visiting a remote branch facility or from home, they can use the PageR Enterprise web browser interface to make system checks or configuration changes right over the internet!

The primary objective of PageR Enterprise is to monitor "enterprise-wide" critical processes and resources across the full range of OS systems on a network, as well as any events which might be deemed critical or important to the system or users that depend on them. Items to monitor include overnight batch jobs, critical applications, remote servers, routers and network connections, web pages, environmental and power supply problems, air conditioning, and more. PageR Enterprise monitors NT and all other types of OS servers, software applications, and general network problems cross the "enterprise network" to effectively assure that there are no "loopholes" or "gaps" in monitoring, thereby eliminating system vulnerabilities. PageR Enterprise monitors as many system and network threats or hazards as an organization wants to for detection as they occur or, preferably, in advance.

PageR Enterprise monitors all server types that exist on your network today and can handle those that may be added in the future like UNIX, Solaris, OpenVMS, AS/400, Novell, HP and others. These are monitored for availability and generic system or resource issues like low disk space, as well as to trigger alarm notifications resulting in problems with batch jobs and other issues. Because it is impossible to predict what future direction your IT data center may take, PageR Enterprise was designed to be extremely flexible and adaptable.

When critical events do occur, PageR Enterprise sends alphanumeric (full text or numeric) alerts to pagers or mobile phones, and optionally by email, broadcast to a popup message or by other methods. All pager and mobile phones are supported by PageR Enterprise to provide compatibility with both current and future contact message devices. Pager and mobile phone messaging services supported by PageR Enterprise include SkyTel, PageNet, AT&T, MobileComm, Nextel, AirTouch, PageMart, MCI, Sprint, British Telecom, Cellnet, Vodafone, Vodapage, Orange, PageOne, One-2-One, and all others known.

PageR Enterprise allows for "multiple alert, multiple contact paging" and "full message escalation". This allows different individuals or groups to be contacted at different times of the day or week, by different methods, for different issues, with varying levels of urgency. And, if staff contacted first do not respond to an alert, PageR Enterprise will work through a hierarchical contact list to allow backup personnel to be notified, as well as take automatic corrective actions if it has been instructed to do so.

PageR Enterprise allows full customization by system managers who can decide what issues to monitor, schedule polling cycles for each issue, determine who should be notified for what and when, specify what corrective actions should be taken, and much, much more.

PageR Enterprise offers a user interface that is accessible through a web browser that will allow alerts to be silenced once support staff have responded and allow interactive checking of alert conditions from anywhere via the internet. PageR Enterprise is fully compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, and Netscape Navigator.

Further, by selecting a pager icon that sits on the menu bar, users can easily create and send their own custom text messages to remote personnel right from their own keyboard!

To learn more about PageR Enterprise, go to www.AVTECH.com/PagerEntDescription.htm

PageR Enterprise helps you and your associates monitor computer systems enterprise-wide and eliminates the need to operate blindly or sit at a terminal all day trying to see what's happening on the network. It will identify problem or event situations automatically, then immediately notify system or network staff no matter where they are and, if desired, automatically take corrective action. PageR Enterprise keeps people informed and enables the quickest technical support response possible, enhancing system and resource availability while eliminating unnecessary labor, expenses and delays.

PageR Enterprise will provide the following major benefits:

1. Shorter IT Response Times To Resolve Problems And Support Users.

"IT" is the core activity or critical engine behind virtually all businesses today, yet it is often not perceived as such by top-level management or end users because so much of the "IT" activity is kept "behind the scenes". PageR Enterprise allows an organizations support staff to be made aware of issues and problems before the users, thereby allowing support staff to inform users who call in to report problems that these issues are already being addressed and corrected. This type of immediate response will maintain high productivity levels and dramatically improve the image of the IT function within the organization.

PageR Enterprise can often detect "early warnings" or "indicators" of potential problems. By flushing out issues early, support personnel often have a time advantage that allows them to prevent issues from actually becoming real problems. For example, it can alert staff if disk space gets below 20% when it may not actually cause a problem until it runs gets below 10 free space. By becoming aware early that such a threshold has been passed, managers know things are happening and can investigate to resolve unnecessary disk space consumption and thereby avoid conflicts that would effect users. This way, problems are anticipated and the "up-time" or "availability" of critical systems and applications is maintained at the highest possible levels.

If the time in which it takes support staff to become aware of problems is reduced as a result of using PageR Enterprise, then total system and application down time will be reduced as well. This is especially true if a problem occurs just after support staff have left for the weekend and a developing problem may not be dealt with until several days later. PageR Enterprise is able to contact support staff outside of normal business hours by pager, mobile phone, email and other methods. When an alert is received, support staff can react to resolve an issue immediately if needed rather than wait until they later return to the office.

Problems are resolved quicker, allowing staff to concentrate on more productive tasks elsewhere in the organization. The cost of providing "overtime" work by onsite staff is extremely high compared to the cost of using PageR Enterprise in conjunction with staff "on call". Staff can avoid having to keep checking up on potential problems or to see if batch jobs have finished OK. PageR Enterprise can monitor everything, confirm job completions, and alert of developing problems if there is a need to. Otherwise, staff can be free to enjoy their personal time as they please, which in turn allows them to be more productive when they return to work the next day.

The objective of the IT department is to maintain the computer systems and support the users who depend on them. PageR Enterprise will help maintain high service levels and fast response times, thereby improving the real and perceived quality of IT services by management and users.

Time is money and computer downtime can cost BIG money. By maximizing staff time effectiveness and reducing downtime, PageR Enterprise will benefit the organization in reduced expenses and real savings now and for many years to come. There is nothing to wear out or be replaced in PageR Enterprise and it is completely Y2K compliant. Further, because PageR Enterprise is platform independent in the sense that it will monitor virtually any OS platform available today or that might be installed on the network for years to come, PageR Enterprise will grow with your organization as your IT responsibilities continue to expand. With this in mind, the expected life of PageR Enterprise is at least 10 years.

In addition to PageR Enterprise, AVTECH Software offers a separate environmental monitoring package called RoomAlert that interfaces with PageR Enterprise to monitor the computer room physical ‘environment’. It typically detects air conditioning and power problems that are a major hazard to larger systems. Sensors attached to RoomAlert can be used to monitor conditions like temperature, humidity, moisture (flood), smoke (fire), motion (intruders) and power/UPS problems.

The reason environmental monitoring is so important is because computer and network equipment is only designed to operate within a specified range of environmental conditions. If conditions surpass reasonable limits, then (a) unpredictable and potentially catastrophic results start to occur, such as disk drive failures, CPU errors, system crashes, data loss, and more. And, (b) manufacturers of the equipment, as well as maintenance and software support vendors, will often NOT accept responsibility for problems caused by equipment which has not been kept within its specified range of temperature, humidity, power, etc.

These types of environmental problems can cause extreme software and backup failures that can be difficult and expensive to recover from. The most common causes of environmental problems in computer rooms are air conditioning and power failures.

For ease of setup and maintenance it is proposed that the monitoring and alerting be centralized in a single PageR Enterprise software license which runs on a Windows NT 4 workstation or server. By using a Windows NT host, the organization is assured that system costs are minimized, compatibility with networking and other OS platforms is as high as possible, and if there is ever a major hardware failure a replacement system can be obtained virtually the same day. The specification and features of the PageR Enterprise software will be generally as outlined above, in published sales literature and the release notes. PageR Enterprise will monitor the whole "enterprise network".

Any Novell Netware/Intranetware servers on the network will be monitored using a special Netware monitored objects in PageR Enterprise. For UNIX (HP9000, RS6000, Sun, Solaris, SCO, etc.), OpenVMS, AS/400, HP3000 and others which are on the network now or may be added in the future, additional monitored objects and scripts are provided which detect critical processes not running, low disk space, and other general system problems. Commands are also included which can be inserted in batch jobs to alert through PageR Enterprise as soon as an error occurs on a remote server.

It is further recommended that the RoomAlert Environmental Monitoring Package be installed to monitor the environmental conditions of the computer room and the NT host system that PageR Enterprise is to be installed on. This will expand the capabilities of PageR Enterprise to protect the organization from unpredictable threats of nature.

PageR Enterprise is configured and priced by the "maximum" number of Monitored Objects (MOs) it is able to process. RoomAlert is a fixed price package that includes one temperature sensor (additional sensors are optional and can be easily added). When using both products, they can be configured to monitor each other, thereby creating a "failsafe" operation offering maximum protection.

Reliability and resilience are the primary requirements of a monitoring system. Dedicating a small NT Workstation to run PageR Enterprise and/or RoomAlert will increase the resilience of the system. Sharing the PageR Enterprise and/or RoomAlert host NT system with other applications means that the reliability is dependent upon the least reliable application on that system. And with multiple applications, there are more frequent updates to those applications and the Windows NT operating system that might effect PageR Enterprise and/or RoomAlert by impacting the host NT system.

If RoomAlert is used to monitor the computer room environment, then RoomAlert can be installed on the same system as PageR Enterprise or it can be installed on a separate workstation or server. When installed on a separate system, the "AlertScript" (available separately) monitoring software enables RoomAlert to monitor the PageR Enterprise host NT system and independently send an alert if it hangs or becomes inaccessible. Therefore, PageR Enterprise and RoomAlert can be installed on two separate systems allowing them to monitor each other. This means there is no single "point of failure" for the monitoring system, creating a "failsafe" environment.

Avtech Dartmouth INS Ipswitch Knozall

Loran MediaHouse NextPoint RGE Ripple

RiverSoft (in Word format) Tally Systems Tavve Tessler

RELATED LINKS

The RFP and responses from other vendors

Review and buyer's guide: Network monitoring and alerting
An in-depth look at several apps; database of detailed specs on 46 tools; and a forum on the technology.