There are numerous managed services available, such as website hosting, backup solutions, file storage, email services, and more. To ensure uninterrupted service delivery, each component of these services requires remote monitoring to prevent unexpected outages. Effectively monitoring these managed services is often complex. Each service involves multiple interacting components, all of which must operate flawlessly. Manual monitoring entails running numerous scripts and/or applications. For large-scale services with a substantial user base, manual monitoring becomes practically unmanageable. Adding to the complexity, managed services typically restrict access to internal component status information from external sources. Therefore, effective monitoring requires access from within the managed service’s network. Several solutions exist, including port forwarding, to enable access to the intranet. However, this raises security concerns as granting external applications access to critical components is risky. An alternative approach utilizes Remote Network Agents. A Remote Network Agent is essentially a dedicated instance of the IPNetwork Monitor application residing within the restricted network. The agent can receive instructions remotely or proactively contact the client portion of the main IPNetwork Monitor installation to both receive instructions and transmit collected data. For instance, if a company offers a backup service, the Remote Network Agent can operate within the intranet, directly accessing all component servers and devices. It collects data about these components just like a standard IPNetwork Monitor installation. Agents are valuable in situations where direct connections to network resources are impossible. Moreover, multiple agents deployed across various computers can simultaneously test service availability from different locations. [interfaces_screenshot]

IPNetwork Monitor 1.0 build 141 of March 11, 2024. File size: 112MB