System Center Essentials is designed to facilitate computer system management by using agents that communicate with management servers to provide critical data. This function depends upon installing and configuring agents on the computers and devices that will be monitored.
If you have devices in your environment that need to be monitored but do not support the installation of agent software or SNMP, Essentials can use a ping monitor to monitor them. A ping monitor uses the familiar functionality of the ping command and in Essentials you are offered some control over the parameters by which it is administered.
Ping Monitor Functions
In Essentials, a ping monitor can be configured with the following parameters:
- You can set up multiple ping monitors for
multiple targets and run them separately.
- You can create a unique name for each ping
monitor.
- You can store the ping monitor rules in your
choice of management pack.
- You can set the time between pings.
- You can designate which computer or computers
will send the ping.
Ping Monitor Requirements
Ping monitors require certain conditions and dependencies in order to function properly. These requirements include:
- Target computers and devices must be
reachable through IPv4. There is currently no support for IPv6.
- Watcher nodes must be running Windows XP
or higher as their operating system. If the watcher node is a
server, it must be running Windows Server 2003 or higher.