Daily Network Monitor

By sbarry

LodgeNet Manages Network of 1300 Hotels with WhatsUp Gold

LodgeNet, the premiere media and connectivity solutions provider for the hospitality industry, ensures that millions of travelers are provided with TV and internet in over 1300 hotels throughout the U.S. and Canada annually. Their network’s monitoring software of choice? WhatsUp Gold.

Selecting a network management solution was not easy for this vast network, so why WhatsUp Gold? Well, according to LodgeNet Systems Engineer, Brian Jacobs, “familiarity with WhatsUp Gold by no means ensured its selection (…) Everyone recommended WhatsUp Gold. Even with the cost of custom programming factored in, WhatsUp Gold was by far the most cost-effective and feature-rich solution.”

WhatsUp Gold provided LodgeNet with:

• Real-time monitoring of a cross-continent broadband network
• Ability for 24×7x365 customer service
• Reduced call center costs, increased customer satisfaction
• Instant verification on installation of new networks
• Proactive network maintenance
• Strengthened competitive advantage in emerging technology

What’s more is that the provider of media and connectivity solutions was able to utilize the WhatsConnected plug-in to instantly verify that each individual hotel’s network was set up according to company specifications. In the end, LodgeNet’s deployment of WhatsUp Gold (a transition from manual monitoring to real-time monitoring) over the whole network was completed in just two weeks.

>>Read the full case study or press release

>>Learn more about what WhatsUp Gold can do for you

>>Try WhatsUp Gold free for 30 days

Popularity: 1% [?]

By Erin Hayes

Ever wonder how other IT professionals use WhatsUp Gold?

Marston’s, Britain’s largest brewer of cask beer, has a cool use-case story. The brewers were interested in growing their business to become known for more than great beer and pubs. They wanted their evolving clientele to know them for also providing a fun public WiFi hotspot and the place to play the latest internet-connect gaming products.

In order to do this they needed to not only enhance both front of house and back-office infrastructure but also improve communications and reliability of connection between the individual pubs and head office so they could start offering these new services to clients.

To achieve this, Marston’s took on the ambitious and innovative step of moving into the telecoms industry in its own right, allowing it to package and deploy its own customized services to various parts of the business.

But creating its own broadband network and taking responsibility for the infrastructure of its 500+ managed pubs meant that Marston’s needed to invest in a scalable networking monitoring solution to provide visibility across the new telecoms network and to help identify problems with hardware and connectivity.

Luckily, their partner, Level 8 Solutions, stepped in and recommended Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold.

This wasn’t Marston’s first experience with WhatsUp Gold. They’d been using within their head office for several years. They then deployed a separate WhatsUp Gold installation to monitor routers and WiFi hotspots installed at its managed pubs, as well as to support home workers also served by Marston’s Telecom.

“Using Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold, we are able to monitor the remote infrastructure installed at our estate of managed pubs across the country, ensuring that equipment is functioning correctly and that the connectivity we are providing through Marston’s Telecom is also performing as expected,” McMinn explained.

Plus sides to using WhatsUp Gold over other products like HP Insight were WhatsUp Gold’s clear and easy to follow feedback on the state of the network and the devices connected to it; its single point of view over the health of the network being monitored; and the clear visual guidance when a device encounters a problem.

As in . . . Green is Good, Red is Bad.

If you’re interested in reading the full Case Study click here.

So what about you? Do you use WhatsUp Gold to monitor something even more interesting that beer? If you do, let us know about it in the comments!

Popularity: 9% [?]

By sbarry

As of Wednesday, September 1st, WhatsUp Event Rover will be available as a free, 10 workstation license. This event and log management tool can assist with identifying problems and security threats faster than ever before. Its accessible tree view and sorting feature will change the way you view and mine event logs. The tool also includes the capability to automatically save a local copy of event logs before reviewing and storing it for future use.

Additional capabilities of WhatsUp Event Rover include:

• Easily perform routine review and spot audits
• Ensure the integrity of master log files
• Define, save and run filters for key event IDs
• Recover and view damaged log files
• Create HTML reports, or export data in CSV formats
• Discover potential security incidents
• Work with EVT and EVTX files side by side

Sound enticing? Download your free license today.

*A 10 workstation license of WhatsUp Event Rover will be available to download at no charge September 1 through October 31, 2010.

Popularity: 5% [?]

By sbarry

Since the launch of the newest geolocation app, Facebook Places, the Web has been buzzing about the fate and ultimate purpose of these tools. There seems to be a few favorites, but preferences vary. The market once consisted solely of Foursquare and Gowalla, with Foursquare being the more widely accepted. However, now that there are so many options now that the concept is going mainstream it’s hard to decide which application to go with. (If you’re anything like me, you get a kick out of nerdy things like this that turn up on Mashable.) Hopefully, my high-level run-down of geolocation providers will keep you informed.

So which one is your favorite (if you have one)? For me, it’s Foursquare. I started using it a little over a year ago because it seemed like a fresh, fun social media app. There’s something deeply gratifying from becoming the mayor of your workplace or local coffee shop. There’s also a kind of collector-mentality over the highly sought-after badges on Foursquare, from Gym Rat to Mile-High Club.

Since the advent of the idea, geolocation as a whole has come a long way. With Gowalla making headway from its headquarters in Texas, others have entered the scene like Loopt, Brightkite, Whrrl, and SCVNGR. While all of these ideas are fairly similar to Foursquare, they each have their own twist. For instance, Whrrl focuses on building “societies” that let you join groups that share similar interests and activities so users can exchange recommendations.  Britekite, on the other hand, is more than just a means of check-in, you can also share photos, comments, messages, tips, achieve different rewards, and hold group chats. Gowalla spins off the Foursquare badge idea by using “passport stamps” and virtual rewards that can sometimes be redeemed for tangible prizes. Loopt is a part of a suite of products that allows location sharing and customized rewards from names like Bing, TastingTable, and Zagat. Finally, SCVNGR takes check-in to a different level by offering a number of challenges at different locations – the most basic of which is taking a photo and posting a comment.

There’s something for everyone looking for their geolocation fix – that is if you don’t mind big brother keeping tabs on you…Now I turn the question over to you: what location app do you use if any? And do you see this whole geolocation thing going anywhere? Or is this just a pastime for social media nerds? – I’ll hold off on my opinion for now.

Popularity: 4% [?]

By kmyers

Do you have free time? So much time that you don’t even know what to do with it? Yea, neither do we.

However, our WhatsUp Event Rover can help with that.  You know how fast Windows® servers and workstations event logs pile up, and your Windows event log viewer doesn’t really lend itself to recalling, sorting, and quickly viewing log data in a way that makes sense to you.

WhatsUp Event Rover will help you identify problems and security threats.  With Event Rover you can accomplish much more in terms of forensics than you can with Windows Event viewer – including automatically saving local copies of log files before review and storage.

Check out our WhatsUp Event Rover Overview now.  And check back September 1st when its available as a free download!

Now you just have to figure out what to do with your free time.

Popularity: 6% [?]

By sbarry

If you haven’t already heard, the WhatsUp Gold Engineer’s Toolkit offers a lot to simplify and reduce time spent on common network engineering tasks.

Among this array of tools designed to make your life easier are the Spam Blacklist and Port Scanner.

• The Spam Blacklist tool can help ensure your organization’s emails are not blocked by spam filters to improve their overall efficacy.
• By providing visibility into open ports on a given device or group of devices, the Port Scanner tool makes sure unwanted traffic doesn’t get through because of unattended ports.

Imagine how much free time you’ll have now! You can finally start knitting that Star Trek tapestry you’ve been meaning to get to…or not.

Learn more about the Engineer’s Toolkit or view a presentation on Diagnostics & DNS Verification or Remote Control & Configuration Mgmt.

Popularity: 10% [?]