IPHost Network Monitor for Windows

User Reviews

• Proactive in case of network outage

  reneemartinNovember 30, 2014

  Pros

  I've been working in the hosting industry for 12 years and used different tools to monitor the server performance, uptime and network issues. Poweradmin, Spiceworks and Nagios are already vestiges of the past for me as each of them had their own disadvantages (either high license price or insufficient number of tools which I needed to monitor my servers). Then I came across IPhost which was advised by my colleague (a professional IT expert from Melbourn). Now we can provide information to our hosting customers when one of our servers gets down or when there is a DDOS attack or network outage. We use 5 monitoring methods (Performance website monitoring,Full-page website monitoring, Website uptime and response time monitoring,etc.) for our servers and all in all 120 servers are monitored for uptime, response time and stability.

  Cons

  When something goes wrong, I receive SMS to my iPhone and if I am not at the office, I can contact my colleagues to check the server anytime. Would love to have an app in my tray as well.

  Summary

  IPHost Monitor saved my life once. Who knows if it can repeat it again?

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• In IT support industry since 1994

  jsffreemanNovember 29, 2014

  Pros

  I've been working in IT support industry since 1994. Used SolarWind in the past. It's little bit too much what we wanted. After WhatsUp Gold and more recently NetXMS, but it needed frequently restarting. IPhost runs scripts. IPhost is stable. It allows us to react quicker. It's proactive, rather than active. We run 91 monitor, adding one at a time manually, without ever even using Network Discovery, checking .exe's running on the servers, a lot of basic checking. Email alerting is the main method, it's 24/7 even if are home.

  Cons

  We carry Android phones to get alerts instantly. When Windows updates get updated, deployed on server on a maintenance schedule, we do not want to get noticed. So several schedules would be wanted. Run on a large LCD screen after our shoulder. Very quick to use. It was literally a couple ours to learn to use it. The scripting side, how to return values was a bit harder.

  Summary

  Can't repeat enough, that one of the really good features is the ability to run scripts. Reporting function and statistics is a good evidence to give the corporate people proof about actual issues. URL reports are very good. For example, you can also see patterns every Saturday evening at 5 pm, you can track it down easily.

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• It's stable. If I do not get emails, I suppose it's ok.

  albruizNovember 29, 2014

  Pros

  Need to be able to trust. I have 100% trust that it's telling me the truth. It's stable. If I do not get emails, I suppose it's ok. But if the software would be down, I would not get emails even if the server is down. It truly has been a very useful piece for our environment, we have it always live on a huge TV so everybody can see it.

  Cons

  I should be able to buy tech support for 5 years at once.

  Summary

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• Total number of 1879 monitors, 710 active.

  mclgilbertNovember 28, 2014

  Pros

  Track every IP device, a three building campus. Mostly just track ping response time for active devices, and some other monitors are used like disk space, mail servers, HTTP (a couple of web servers), some FTP sites, SNMP traffic speed to specific PCs.

  Cons

  Next to none.

  Summary

  There was a few hours delay when I asked the assistance, at 2.01 am, support responded at 7.21 am. For me it was acceptable. It was good. When support helped me, we where not under support contract, I got a message "How can we help you," - so I we bought it afterwards. It works very well, works very stable. It does consume a lot of server CPU. I have never read any documentation. As intuitive and and stable as the first version - hope the upcoming release remains the same.

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• It is worth the its cost

  MarkEluderNovember 22, 2014

  Pros

  I am an IT expert, so in most cases I do not need to call support for details, I handle installation/whatever myself. In short A. Low memory footprint, low load on system. That's important to me, monitoring softwar emust be as light as possible. B. Monitoring database schema sent on request. They promise, in their knowkedge base, to give database schema when asked. That true, I have received schema in less than 12 hours and can now access monitoring data with my own scripts. C. Good cost-performance. When creating really important monitors only, Professional 500 license was enough to cover dozens of important devices on my network.

  Cons

  Nothing significant so far.

  Summary

  The software is worth its money, as I see. I started with free version and was able to transfer database to paid license without much hassle. I had OS hang severtal times, but I keep al important data backups, so that's not an issue to me. Note that this comes with lot of online help/technical info, so make sure to read it first.

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• Tool to monitor multiple services at the same time

  bobanzer33November 19, 2014

  Pros

  I used IPHost Monitor to check my site uptime and performance and they really saved my life for a couple of times when they provide reports that there were server issues. I contacted my hosting provider immediately and they resolved the issue on the site when my site was located. I was also surprised by their WMI monitoring method as it helped me to perform monitoring of CPU load, available server memory, incoming and outgoing traffic ( especially when there was a DDOS attack on my server). Perfect monitoring tool!

  Cons

  When I was testing it there were no disadvantages, but in case they appear i will certainly mention them later.

  Summary

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• Great tool for checking site uptime

  urewasdNovember 18, 2014

  Pros

  Instant SMS alerts in case of a problem Monitoring of multiple sites and applications at the same time

  Cons

  No cons for me

  Summary

  I used IPHost Monitor to check my site uptime and performance and they really saved my life for a couple of times when they provide reports that there were server issues. I contacted my hosting provider immediately and they resolved the issue on the site when my site was located. Perfect monitoring tool!<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Nov 19, 2014<p/>I used IPHost Monitor to check my site uptime and performance and they really saved my life for a couple of times when they provide reports that there were server issues. I contacted my hosting provider immediately and they resolved the issue on the site when my site was located. Perfect monitoring tool!

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• It's stable as a steel ship.

  gasyounNovember 18, 2014

  Pros

  It was working since 2010 without a single issue. It's stable. I can be sure if there is electricity, that it is working. No bugs, no nothing in the middle of the night. If I do not get an SMS means there is actually no problem. It's proactive, rather than active. We run 91 monitor, adding one at a time manually, without ever even using Network Discovery, checking .exe's running on the servers, a lot of basic checking. Email alerting is the main method, it's 24/7 even if are home. We carry Android phones to get alerts instantly.

  Cons

  It's too cheap.

  Summary

  Can't repeat enough, that one of the really good features is the ability to run scripts. Reporting function and statistics is a good evidence to give the corporate people proof about actual issues. URL reports are very good. For example, you can also see patterns every Saturday evening at 5 pm, you can track it down easily.

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• As they say "the devil is in the details" so BE AWARE

  Hector2014January 25, 2014

  Pros

  1- Allows Import of MIB (although feature is not very practical) files 2- Allows custom OID polling (this is a biggie, because others like Spiceworks do not as of Jan-24-2014) 3- Nice Interface (appearance) 4- Fast Support response time (&lt;24hrs in our experience)

  Cons

  1- Unstable database - gets corrupted easily and recovery is NOT 100% reliable in our experience 2- Cannot export monitors (this is a BIG Deal, believe it or not - they keep your data points to themselves within the database and only give you a graph to use) 3- Charge by number of monitors (not devices monitored) - big deal as some devices could have THOUSANDS of OIDs to monitor EACH 4- COMPANY CHARGES EXTRA to help you export 'your' Data points from the database (in our case, we were quoted about MORE than the cost of the software). Made us feel our data points collected are being held for ransom.

  Summary

  Important to point out that we're reviewing the PAID version of this software for 500 monitors. Free version has similar functionality and limitations. A- Cost is per Monitor (not per Device) They do not charge PER device, but rather PER MONITOR. This is a big deal, but depending on your situation, NOT IN A GOOD WAY: Some devices we monitor can have THOUSANDS of OIDs (SNMP polling commands) to monitor. For example, we monitor less than 30 devices, but have over 200 monitors. For each monitor we add, we need to repeat the monitor (copy) copied for each device separately; hence, at about 30 devices, we use up 30 monitors from our license for EACH KPI (Key Performance Indicator) we choose to monitor. You really need to THINK about what you want to monitor. Other S/W vendors (competitors) make a POINT to tell you that they charge per device -- some are even fully functional up to 30 devices for free. B- Support HELP/Support is very fast to respond and they even help you with some minor things...FOR EXAMPLE, if you want to create a 'Script' monitor they have sent us a sample at no cost if you can't program the script language they use (not sure what that script language is). C- Data Points collected NOT released for free IF you don't need the Data points this could be a good solution for you as their pricing is competitive (but not necessarily the best). In our case, we monitor many values of different devices at different locations. In order to TROUBLESHOOT a problem, we need to look and compare the values at a specific time on MULTIPLE devices...so looking at 1 graph at a time is impractical because it's a burden to 'line up' the graphs with time codes, etc. NOTE: If you just need to attach pretty graphs to a report, then their basic solution might just be good enough for you. Our REVIEW would have been much better until they quoted me DOUBLE THE PRICE OF THE SOFTWARE (&gt;US$1,000) to extract the data points our PAID S/W collected on our DEVICES being monitored! Did NOT receive an offer of providing the Database Schema (which they state that they do on their website! Technically, I guess they do make it available: they just don't tell you it's gonna cost you more than the software). D- Cannot Export Monitors created As we were troubleshooting our Database (which really went haywire and was not providing the right responses to the polls) we noticed that if we wanted to create a 'clean' database we had to RE-CREATE all over 200 monitors, one by one. It took us about 30 man-hours to do the first time. E- Overall it WORKS WELL and you get GOOD support Software works fairly well...it's when you get down to the 'details' of really using it or needing it to support your equipment and/or your customer's equipment. F- Maybe the Developer is missing the bigger picture Their software is promoted as a smaller 'solution' that can GROW. As we GROW our customer base and SNMP monitoring needs, guess what !? we're now looking at a BUNCH of other S/W vendors...ALL BECAUSE of the limitations 'they have imposed' which make their software either impractical for troubleshooting or prohibitively expensive.

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