WebChallenger Keeps Web Servers Soaring

By David Daly  Web management is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot lately, thanks to the general popularity of the Web. However, Web management means different things to different people. In our story "Web Site Management Tools Help Get Content Online and Keep Users Inline," (see www.NetworkComputing.com/818/818r2.html), we use this term to refer to the development and maintenance of Web content. To start-up WindDance Networks Corp., Web management refers to monitoring servers and ensuring proper performance, and this concept is applied to its new product, WebChallenger. WebChallenger complements other products that store documents, develop a source tree and manage content creators. It is a combination of a log analysis tool, ne twork management device and link checker. While other products may outperform WebChallenger with respect to these individual functions, it proves its worth with solid showing in each of those categories, all in one coherent package. WebChallenger handles these functions in two ways, actively and passively. It passively monitors the network traffic to a server to compile its own log file. It actively polls the server to check links, benchmark the server and ensure that it is still running properly. While WebChallenger may stress its suggested requirements--a Pentium 200 with 64 MB of memory--during benchmarking and link checking, it barely loads the system when passively monitoring and analyzing the results. On the Launch Pad I tested WebChallenger in Network Computing's Syracuse University lab and used it on the Web servers running in our lab. It runs on Windows NT and provides an easy-to-use Web interface that makes extensive use of Java and JavaScript. It is comprised of seven functions: Web Explorer, Web Alarm, Web Statistics, Web Verify, Web Benchmark, Web Diagnosis and Web Director. The Web Explorer queried all of the servers on our subnet to see which services were running. After a few minutes, I was provided with a complete list of servers broken down by type. I was impressed by how this information was integrated into the WebChallenger product. Whenever I was asked for the name of a server to monitor or test, I selected a server from the menu that WebChallenger had located. Alternatively, I could directly type in a server name. After those servers were located, I used two other WebChallenger functions, Web Statistics and Web Alarm. Both monitor server performance, albeit in different ways. Web Statistics compiles log files for later analysis, while Web Alarm alerts the administrator if any problems arise on those servers. Web Alarm presented me with several conditions that could trigger an alarm. I set the minimum acceptable level for throughput per minute and slowed the tra ffic to one server. With production servers, low throughput might be an indication that the server is no longer accessible to clients or there might be a network slowdown. When the traffic slowed below the trigger level, Web Alarm sent me an e-mail alert. I used Web Statistic to generate usage reports. It attacks log analysis in a unique way, using its own log files, not the log file maintained by the server. Using its own log files provides increased power in analyzing data, but this comes with a down side. Knowing that the servers were running smoothly, I used the Web Verify and Web Benchmark functions to find other errors before my users could. David Daly is a network administrator at Syracuse University. He can be reached at ddaly@syr.edu.

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