Review: Monitoring Tool Gets Smart

WhatsUp Gold's trending abilities provide excellent network traffic analysis. With more than 50 canned reports, administrators can quickly identify traffic trends and use the data to future-proof networks. Trending traffic is becoming more important as enterprises deploy packet- and bandwidth-sensitive applications such as VoIP and IP-based videoconferencing.

A major bonus with the product is the integration of WMI monitoring capabilities. Here, solution providers can query and trend the performance loads on PCs and servers to define load-balancing plans. In addition, the performance-monitoring capabilities help to determine if a particular piece of hardware is approaching saturation so that the hardware can be augmented before a failure or slow performance hinder operations.

Extensive packet-capture capabilities allow administrators to drill down into network traffic flow to diagnose performance or even unauthorized traffic. The ability to track protocols such as Skype and peer-to-peer applications proves valuable in keeping offenders at bay and securing the network, while guaranteeing an acceptable level of performance.

While WhatsUp Gold can be sold into an enterprise and then left to an internal IT department to use, VARs still have ample options available to build services revenue. In many cases, at the enterprise level, reports will need to be interpreted by a network professional, an ideal service for the VAR to perform. Also, VARs can do the initial installation, training and customization of consoles to garner additional revenue.

The real service potential, however, comes from deploying the product in the small and medium enterprise market, where internal IT support is lacking. Here, solution providers can offer soup-to-nuts management and reporting, and the product's Web-powered interface allows all of that to be performed remotely.

WhatsUp Gold's customizable network-mapping capabilities and definable subnet monitoring play well in the managed services market, where a VAR can offer remote support and define individual networks to monitor yet still have a 10,000-foot view of all of their customers' networks. For VARs venturing into the managed services realm, such a "world view" is a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to allocating personnel and resources to meet customers' needs.

VARs will also find that a network-management product can be a key driver for building disaster-recovery plans and business-continuity solutions. Being able to display a visual representation of the IT infrastructure can quickly lead to a "what-if" conversation surrounding the business impact of IT failures.

WhatsUp Gold v11 is priced based on the number of managed devices. The Premium Edition, which includes more application monitoring features than the standard product, costs between $2,600 for as many as 100 devices and $7,000 for more than 1,000 devices. The Standard Edition costs $2,000 for as many as 100 devices and $5,300 for more than 1,000 devices.