Remote server monitoring software

Zenoss seeks to reduce costs and IT complexity by creating a visual representation of your overall server performance and availability as part of an end-to-end IT service model.

What this means is that Zenoss takes stats from all of your servers within your environment, and creates and overall, unified performance and utilization data source for analysis. This gives you a clear understanding of what is happening across your network, and how your servers are performing.

Zenoss is available in different versions, from open source to enterprise, and each has their own specific features and limitations that may or may not work in your environment. Zenoss is also able to make use of the Nagios plugin framework, which gives your system even more functionality. For environments that have WAN links and remote offices, there is even a visualization and mapping tool that lets you map out your communications links.

This is particularly useful for when a remote server fails, but you are unable to determine if the cause is network related, or server related. OP5 is a Swedish IT company with a global presence, and their monitoring software is built on top of an open source platform. Although OP5 is a great server monitoring tool, it also offers application and network monitoring as well.

All of this information is displayed on a customizable unified dashboard, giving you and your team all of the information that they could need, right at their fingertips. OP5 increases their overall appeal by providing Nagios plugin support for most open source plugins, which is great for specific requirements that you may have on your network. The range of details that can be monitored are varied, and in some cases you might find that there is a wealth of information that your network is generating, ideal for monitoring and graphing!

You are able to monitor individual server components, right up to global communications links, giving you a micro and macro view of your IT environment from a single application. Overall, this is another great server monitoring platform that does more than just look at individual servers. This product is aimed more at the web server monitoring end of things, and as such provides a lot of web-based information relating to your website and server.

In the event of an outage or server failure, alerts are sent through to you via SMS, email, Twitter, or via phone. Due to the web-based layout, users will find that the availability of information and easy to use tab based system will have them finding everything that they need in next to no time at all.

Server health and many other pieces of information can be found within the web GUI, so if any of your online servers start to develop issues, your IT staff can stay on top of things and pre-emptively resolve issues before they become a problem. This is a free set of Windows tools for monitoring and remotely resolving issues with your servers. These tools are ideal for a smaller network where there are only a few local servers that need monitoring. Some basic monitoring can be performed.

The tools have been made available by ManageEngine, and as such are well written and work really well. These are great for system admins that need a few free tools to perform some niche operations like remote desktop support and process monitoring on remote servers.

There are many different monitoring options available, from basic server device information, to hard disk space, and a handy network share browser. All of these tools are useful to a system administrator that is looking after a small site, or multiple small sites.

For a free product, the overall functionality of this suite is really good. Hard disk space monitoring is really important on critical servers like file and storage servers. Even web and FTP servers need to be checked for storage space usage every once in a while, so this could be just the application for you if you have been looking for a freeware solution.

Your needs may be different if you manage a server farm, as opposed to a small business cluster of a few virtual hosts in a small company. As such, the small selection that we have taken a look at should help you to find the right solution for your needs.

This list is no means exhaustive, and there are many other great products out there that offer similar functionality to some of the applications that we have looked at today. Reporting and monitoring is critical in business, especially when it comes to IT infrastructure such as network connectivity and server monitoring. There are multiple layers of technology at work inside these software suites, and some of the most common protocols that we will be mentioning today are: SNMP Simple Network Monitoring Protocol WMI Windows Management Instrumentation ICMP Ping PerfMon Microsoft Windows Performance Monitor Depending on the software that you use, there could be any number of the aforementioned protocols within the monitoring application, depending on what the application monitors, and what environment it runs in.

The tool runs on Windows Server but can also monitor Linux servers across a network. Ideal for managed service providers. Available for Windows Server and Linux. Runs on Windows Server and Linux. This is a cloud-based platform. Installs on Windows Server. Nagios XI A comprehensive infrastructure monitoring system that includes live server monitoring services. Installs on Linux. Opsview A system monitoring tool that includes sever monitoring and is billed as an alternative to Nagios XI.

Runs on Linux. Zenoss A system monitoring tool that includes a server monitoring module and is also available in a free version. OP5 Monitor Server monitoring as part of a system-wide monitor tool that accepts Nagios plug-ins.

Install on Linux. Monitis A cloud-based monitoring system that specializes in tracking the performance of Web servers and Web applications. ManageEngine Free Windows Admin Tools A collection of 15 free tools that cover different aspects of server monitoring including disk space, software inventory, and user lists. Get started with Sematext Server Monitoring here 4. This is great news if you monitor many different servers in your operating environment.

Automated notifications can be setup to inform your IT team of any problems that arise. NinjaOne Features and Capabilities include: Discovery of all endpoints connected to a given network Constant scans of software inventories Device identifiers and service life tracking Endpoint activity logging Endpoint availability monitoring Price: Contact the NinjaOne Sales Department to request a quote. Some Key Features Include: Custom metrics Timescale comparisons Fine grained measurement capabilities Unified dashboard support Plugin customization options Price: Contact for pricing or register and get started with a day free trial.

Nagios XI Nagios XI is a comprehensive IT infrastructure monitoring application that provides information about all mission critical aspects of your environment.

It is customizable and can be tweaked to suit your particular requirements. Zenoss Zenoss seeks to reduce costs and IT complexity by creating a visual representation of your overall server performance and availability as part of an end-to-end IT service model. For example, many project management tools also have built-in time trackers. Workpuls is the new kid on the block, but does many of the same things as others on this list. The core features of Workpuls include employee monitoring, time tracking, productivity analytics and automatic time mapping.

ActivTrak is an employee monitoring software with a free version that supports monitoring up to three users. The paid version includes even more advanced features, like USB device detection and security audits. It also gives administrators the option to create and enforce specific policies, like limiting traffic to certain websites, and can alert you about problematic user behaviors.

Hubstaff is a remote employee monitoring software that combines screenshots, time tracking, and automated reporting to make working from home simpler and with more accountability for employees. It also measures activity related to keyboard and mouse usage, so you can tell whether your employees are truly working.

ProofHub is one of the top-rated project management and team collaboration tools. It offers a wide range of advanced features to simplify project management while facilitating team collaboration. Time Doctor is one of the top names in the field. With it, you can track time automatically or manually, generate automatic reports, and track things like website and app usage while taking screenshots to see if your employees are on task.

Be sure to check out our in-depth comparison article featuring Time Doctor vs. It works with a number of project management and other styles of app on the market, and it allows you to analyze your work with intuitive reporting. RescueTime is a productivity platform that functions somewhat like a time tracking tool. It allows you to track website activity and tool usage throughout the day, and gives you the opportunity to block sites you find distracting. It also has built-in alarms and notifications to alert you of different events.

One of the downsides of traditional time trackers is their reliance on manual entry, but Timely attempts to automate things. You can also use it to manage projects and tasks, as you would with a project management platform. Hours is a simply named time tracking tool that allows you to keep running timers for multiple tasks at once, giving you the ability to switch between tasks easily throughout the day.

Like many of the tools on this list, it offers built-in reporting and the ability to transform your tracked time into invoices easily. ClickTime offers easy online timesheets and time tracking functionality. Designed for freelancers and people working from home, Timeneye is employee monitoring software that offers stress-free tracking.

With it, you can actively monitor your projects, track employee time, and ultimately, increase productivity. Created and offered by Quickbooks, TSheets is a tool designed with remote workers in mind—but it can also be used in traditional businesses. Use it to track attendance, time expenditure, and more. You can also use it to connect to other platforms like your payroll software and generate reports so you can analyze big-picture trends.

The following remote employee monitoring software solutions focus on task and project management tools. The first project management tool on this list is Asana , which is ideal for creating and assigning tasks, as well as communicating and managing priorities. Divide your projects into tasks and subtasks, split your team into subgroups, and use reporting to track activity over different periods of time.

Be sure to check out our guide to Asana! Likewise, the employer has a legal responsibility to educate employees about the type of system being used. VNC is the most through and accurate monitoring system available and should be strongly considered when choosing the type of system to purchase for company use.

Running VNC to control a computer is a fairly easy setup as well. For the most part using a VNC client is the same as sitting at the physical computer as the user is able to do virtually anything with the processor other than insert media such as a thumb drive or a compact disk. Keeping detailed record of employees Internet activity will not only help the employer to better understand how employees are using their time, but also help determine problems within the Internet connection or mainframe hardware function.

SNMP is mainly used in networks that have a need for performance monitoring. Two types of devices exist in SNMP agents and managers. An agent is simply a device that provides information about the network to the manager application.

The Manager application will then typically run a separate computer or device and provide an IT manager statistics that can be outputted to a program to chart the performance. These statistics can be used to evaluate how to better use employee time, staff during the appropriate times during the day, or project optimal performance of any computer program or system.

This information leads to a more profitable business while using time most efficiently. Restructuring of a company may result, but the end result could be better job security for the employees as well as better use of a workday leading to higher self-esteem of employees. In addition, lower turnover will result, again, more profit for the business. If a business has a high functioning system in place then fewer instances of viruses will lead to a more profitable business.

And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. While a company doesn't want to spend too much for the software or service they want to make sure to not purchase the cheapest option as this action may be sacrificing more quality than the saved amount is worth.

The Internet service provider performs remote monitoring in a rather simplistic form whether they broadcast that information or not they are very concerned with the remote computer monitoring software they are providing.

In some cases, depending how much is spent on the connection, a provider will actually create a trouble report before contacting them on the phone. Free Server Monitoring Software When searching for free server monitoring software , the Internet is an excellent place to begin.

Anyone can find companies that offer programs to provide daily, weekly, and monthly information logs to fit the needs of a growing company. The designers of these programs developed them to be compatible with all kinds of PC and Mac programs. Many are designed to run in real-time so that the entrepreneur can keep on top of everything in his business. They come in many languages, including English, Italian, German, and Russian. Some of the extras available are options and graphs for capped users, room for multiple users and selectable adapters, and network and dialup connections.

So no matter what the business may need, the web server monitoring software can service the opportunities available. One feature available with free server monitoring software is a pop-up message warning when servers are not working. That relieves the owner of checking the servers frequently so that no business is lost. This ping utility will ping IP addresses and free-definable intervals.

More options include checking any Winsock service, pinging a host, checking an NT process, checking available disk space, retrieving a URL, or checking a database.