Watchdog, which runs on both the UPS and the Windows server being monitored, watches services and CPU usage to ensure that they stay within the parameters you have configured. If a monitored service stops responding, Watchdog restarts it. If the service cannot be restarted or if the system CPU usage goes over the amount specified, the computer is power-cycled.

Setup and configuration are simple. I plugged in the UPS, attached the server to the back of the UPS using a serial cable (you can also use a USB cable) and installed the Watchdog software. Software installation entailed accepting the license agreement and indicating which users should have access to the Watchdog control panel -- that's it.

Once the software is installed, you also have to enable the Watchdog software on the UPS. This step is simple and is handled through the management software that comes with the UPS.

Setting Parameters

I tested the Tripp Lite Smart2200RM2U and Watchdog on a Windows 2000 machine, monitoring regular services bundled in Windows 2000 and a test service that I could control through a helper application. You set and monitor the parameters from the interface; those parameters include polling frequency, number of missed polls before restarting the service, high and low CPU usage limits before restarting the service, and number of times to attempt restarting the service before rebooting the server.

Watchdog comes with a tool that measures average CPU usage for a service over time to get a baseline figure for that service. I used this tool to determine minimum and maximum CPU usage, then set the average values as the points at which the Watchdog should restart the service. The system will restart only if the service stays at the usage you set for the amount of time you specify. There is no way to set up a warning level -- either it restarts the service or it doesn't.

Vendor Information Smart2200RM2U with Watchdog, $975 (average street price). Available: May 1. Tripp Lite, (773) 869-1234; fax (773) 869-1329. www.tripplite.com

You can tell Watchdog to restart the service as few as three and as many as 100 times before it gives up and reboots the server. I configured Watchdog software to reboot the server if it were unable to restart a given service three or four times, depending on the service being monitored.

Interestingly, the server does not have to get its power through the UPS for Watchdog to work. It relies on the serial connection to the UPS for all error recovery except when the Watchdog software fails. When that happens, the UPS assumes it will not be able to work through the serial port and reboots all hardware plugged into it by cycling the power to each outlet. This is a potential hazard to your systems: The communications among the Watchdogs on the server and on the UPS must work flawlessly or your server might get rebooted for no reason. This did not happen in my testing, but single points of failure are a potential issue.

I wanted to see with my own eyes the services restarting and the server rebooting, and to see if a service right on the edge of the set parameters would be handled well. I observed restarts and reboots with several services that I overloaded, including a test service that could be made unresponsive at will. Thankfully, pausing a service through the Windows control panel did not cause the system to be rebooted.

One problem with the Watchdog is that Tripp Lite designed it so it can interface only to a single server. You can connect only that server and supporting peripherals to the Smart2200RM2U UPS, and the server must maintain a serial connection between the server and the UPS. The UPS will restart everything connected to it if the monitored server becomes so busy that the server's software quits responding.

This downside is somewhat mitigated by the product's reasonable pricing. Still, because the Smart2200RM2U can control power at the individual outlet level, it would be useful if the customer could specify which outlets to reboot.

Watchdog writes a message to the server's event log whenever it restarts a service or reboots the operating system. This feature tracks the problems your server encounters, but it could do more. I would like to see a log of the applications and services running at the time of the reboot to help diagnose the problem. Other Tripp Lite software products for use with the Smart2200RM2U UPS allow e-mail or SNMP notification, but Watchdog does not. If you are responsible for several hundred distributed servers or are remote for a period of time, e-mail and SNMP error notification are essential. Tripp Lite says it's planning e-mail and SNMP support for future releases, but for now these features are the missing links.

There is also no way to integrate with the Web services of the UPS. The Smart2200RM2U supports a Web server page that contains critical UPS information, but Watchdog events do not get logged onto this page. They should: These are events that the UPS is monitoring. Tripp Lite has promised to add this feature in a future Watchdog release.

In the Doghouse

The Tripp Lite Smart2200RM2U UPS and Watchdog software are a useful combination if you have a single critical Windows NT/2000/XP server running outside the data center. The limitation that it can be hooked only to a single server makes the $975 price of this product too steep for the data center. There are more reasonably priced solutions out there that make more sense.

As for enterprises with a Windows NT/2000/XP server, Watchdog would be more useful if logging were fully integrated into the UPS software that is distributed with the Smart2200RM2U and if the notification system were modified. When e-mail and SNMP functionality are available, this product will be much more appealing.

It also would be helpful if the Watchdog system monitored applications. You cannot watch your mission-critical applications with this product unless they are services too. The combination of these weaknesses makes the Tripp Lite Watchdog an unlikely candidate for any but highly specialized uses.

If you have systems that match all the criteria -- Windows services only, single machine and no need of e-mail/SNMP logging -- this solution would work for you. For the rest of us, more complete solutions from network-management software vendors are in order.