Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold 4.0
Once a free utility on the Internet, Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold is now an old-timer, but it hasn't strayed from its roots as an uncomplicated network status tool. After just one day's testing, we were convinced that the easy setup, fully functional Web user interface, and modest price provide an impressive bang for the buck.

Strong status charting is WhatsUp's biggest diagnostic lever. There are no spectacularly granular or graphic MIB walks offering usage baselines in this product. The architecture is simple: It's a single Win32 product running on a single box, without distributable or interchangeable parts, such as status polling and database add-ons. Admittedly limited in grand design, WhatsUp is the only product we tested that provides a fully functioning Web-enabled console that performed acceptably even over dialup links.

WhatsUp impressed us by offering status information on devices and the services they are running. Beyond the simple SNMP MIB browser, WhatsUp tracks SMTP, FTP, POP3, IMAP, telnet and other common services. It also boasts utilities, such as Trace-Route, and simple uptime statistics based on polls. These features are enabled and working without hassle from the time you open the box.

There are only two disks for the entire product--you've gotta like that. And the autodiscovery ran. It wasn't perfect but let's face it, autodiscovery never is. WhatsUp populated the map, which we then had to audit manually to get accurate identifications of some devices and to arrange segments and subnets into their correct relationships. The product does not support multiple SNMP community strings during autodiscovery--you must run a discovery session per community string. The hidden advantage is the audit it performs on the network, revealing those free and exposed public/private communities. Within 30 minutes, we mapped IP and IPX servers, switches and routers on both coasts and in between, without once referring to a readme or help file. Unfortunately, this was not the case with the other products tested.

We did run into one Dr. Watson General Protection Fault during our test of WhatsUp (while running autodiscovery), but that was the last. As far as Win32 programs go, we figure that is above-normal performance. We had no other problems in more than a month's use, and response was always snappy.

WhatsUp monitors many common TCP and UDP traffic types--including SNMP, POP3, IMAP, HTTP, HTTP content, telnet, DNS, SMTP, FTP, RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) and Time--by default. DHCP support is to be added with the next release. It also includes ping, port scanning and throughput utilities, among others. We were able to use all from the Win32 or Web console. Nothing fancy--just simple text--but it worked.

The Web console offers the same functionality found in the Win32 console. Its design is easy on the graphics and heavy on static text, making it very usable. At times, though, we wished the log files (all text) offered some scrolling column heads to help identify the fields: When you're looking at long logs the heads scroll off screen.

Both consoles have great drilldown capabilities for node status and services. The console also boasts navigation help in the form of tabbed links for recently visited pages. These are dynamically updated as you move around the interface, making it easy to get around and preventing you from having to start again at the home page or from looking through lots of open windows.

WhatsUp has all the common alarm functions--beeper, e-mail, executable and audio. In less than five minutes we had set up an e-mail alert specifying the number of up devices, down devices and down services, along with the last lines of NT event logs. The same info can also be sent to an alphanumeric pager, sans the NT event log.

Alarm definition is very flexible. We defined separate alarm methods for individuals and groups. Therefore, we set separate e-mail, pagers, executables, NT system pop-ups and .wav sounds in various combinations for different users or groups of users. We also blocked out notification and non-notification times by users and groups of users.

When it comes to reporting, WhatsUp is adequate but not as granular as Castle Rock's SNMPc. The event report shows overall downtime, number of outages and total downtime by device. The statistics report lists average, maximum and minimum round-trip time, the number and percentage of polls missed, and the standard deviation. In comparison to SNMPc, which boasts the capability to drill into octets and errors for any SNMP IFIndex, this is rather high-level information. But it really is very useful, and belies Ipswitch's claim that the product doesn't provide any historical reporting.

WhatsUp Gold 4.0, $695, Ipswitch, (781) 676-5700; fax (781) 676-5710. www.ipswitch.com