Whatsup Gold is a well-established network and systems monitoring tool, capable of discovering a wide range of network devices and monitoring their availability.

It uses a graphical network map to display device status, changing the colour of the icons used and issuing alerts when a device needs attention.

The latest Distributed edition builds on this functionality enabling small companies to run the same kind of centralised network operation centre (NOC) employed by large corporates to monitor and manage their distributed networks.

The software at the core of the new distributed solution is Whatsup Gold v11 Corporate Edition, which can discover and monitor devices using a mix of SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol) and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) protocols.

It can also monitor systems running Microsoft SQL and Exchange servers and issue alerts using a variety of mechanisms including email, pager and text messaging, although additional hardware and software may be required to support some of these.

Two setup programs are provided to step you through the deployment, one to be run at the central site the other at each remote location to be monitored. An MSDE database is used to hold the data at each location and it’s important to understand that the software installed is a fully featured implementation of Whatsup Gold Premium able to monitor the local network standalone should the need arise. In addition, however, the remote consoles can be set to communicate with the central site over secure SSL-encrypted links.

Communication between sites is two-way, with operators at the central site able to both view the information from remote locations and configure the various implementations centrally. They can also create centralised reports to gather and display data from all the monitors on the network. The information from remote sites is also cached at the central location so that the last network state can still be seen even when the link is lost.

Whatsup Gold includes two types of console. A custom Windows-based implementation used for the bulk of the management, supplemented by a similar but slightly less functional browser display.

In addition, users of the Distributed edition get an application called the Ipswitch Dashboard Screen Manager which can be configured for a multi-screen display. This graphs and maps the devices for each network on an integrated, icon-based dashboard that makes it easy to view multiple networks at once. It can also be configured to cycle through a selection of Whatsup displays and other websites containing information that needs to be monitored on a regular basis.

Although aimed at the SME market, Whatsup Gold Distributed edition does require a fair amount of technical expertise to deploy. But then it is designed to be used by support staff with sufficient knowledge to get the most out of it so that shouldn’t be an issue. Support for Windows Server 2008 and Vista has also to be added, and should be available by the middle of 2008.

However, it’s far from cheap. Existing Whatsup Gold Premium customers can upgrade to a central install of the Distributed edition for just £285.71, but they still have to shell out for remote site licences and the final cost is dependent on the number of devices to be monitored.

On the plus side, it compares well against competitive products such as HP Openview and has a lot to offer companies that rely on a distributed network of systems to run their business.