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A Different Kind of System Monitor

Contents

WinScry is Different!

The WinScry Manager Console

Client Console

If you Google Remote System Monitor you will receive over 2 million hits, and there are many fine products out there for asset management, hardware monitoring, remote control, etc, but that's NOT WinScry. The VAST majority of these products were designed for use by network administrators who need to remotely monitor and administer computers and servers within their own enterprise. We are different, while it certainly can be used like that, the target customers for WinScry are those who are responsible for supporting a PROCESS which is running on a computer / server which is NOT under their complete control.

Instances where you, the WinScry customer, cannot just install any software you like at your client sites, especially not software which could allow users to potentially harm or violate the internal security policies of the enterprise which actually administers the hardware. This scenario would include virtually ALL remote monitoring solutions available today.

Question: Why would a client allow WinScry software to be installed but not allow other remote monitor solutions?

Answer: It's simple, one major reason might be that (if they are a large enterprise) they already have some type of RSM or Asset Management system deployed to all of their computers / servers. This, however, does you no good, their RSM will be designed to alert them about issues that they care about and likely cannot include you or give you the type of process based alerting and reporting that you can get with WinScry. ALL that the WinScry Client Console software does/can do is Observe and Report. This is what we mean when we say that WinScry is a passive RSM. It cannot be used to interfere with the client computer / server in any way (restart, purge files, start or stop other programs, etc). It cannot be used to create SPAM emails, or to create DOS attacks. It cannot be used to harvest proprietary data or vulnerability information. When running it will not "bog down" the server and produces a very small system load (CPU and Memory). It performs this way by design specifically to overcome the very objections of security conscious network administrators who may be (justifiably) leery of allowing internet-enabled applications to be installed on their computers/servers.

A small, but fundamental difference in design!

To boil things down to their most basic elements, and realizing that some might call this an oversimplification, we will state that: Remote System Monitoring solutions are made up of 3 basic components. 1.A central controlling application (typically a Web Service) this is the WinScry Web Service. 2.A Manager component. This will be the user interface application which customers use to view and edit their RSM settings, get reports, etc and generally communicate with the controlling application (#1) this is the WinScry Management Console. 3.A Monitor component. This will also be a user interface agent which would typically be installed and activated on the actual hardware being monitored by the RSM. This is the WinScry Client Console.

Typical RSM Design	WinScry System Design

Client Console (Click to Zoom)

A Rich Set of Process-Driven Alerts You Can Create

oFiles and Folders Alerts. Generate Alert Emails IF: A network shared folder can't be found, a folder contains too many (or too few) files, or based the age of the oldest or newest files in the folder.

oMS WIndows Service Alerts. Generate Alert Emails IF: A MS Windows Service is not installed or is not running.

oTask / Process Alerts. Generate Alert Emails IF: A particular process is not running in the Windows Task Manager.

oDatabase Alerts for both MS SQL Server and MySQL. Generate Alert Emails IF: A database connection fails, or if the number of rows returned in a SQL Query is greater or less than a certain number, or if the returned result of a SQL Query doesn't meet your criteria.

oNetwork Alerts. Generate Alert Emails IF: A website or TCP/IP address cannot be pinged, or if an FTP folder cannot be reached, or if a DNS lookup of a network computer or device fails, or if a TCP/IP connection to a TCP/IP Listener application (HL7 Specific) cannot be established.

oHDD Alerts. Generate Alert Emails IF the free space on a fixed drive falls below a certain value.

oStatic System Reports. A special type of alert which requires no event. You just indicate that you want to receive a status report every <nn> hours or daily, or only on demand.

oWinScry File API Alerts. WinScry can interface with ANY system! If your program can write reports or alerts to a folder, WinScry will pick them up and deliver them to you as email attachments.

oReceive WinScry Alert notifications via text message on your cell phone.

Other Web Resources: Management Console Online Help, Client Console Online Help