A Guardian for Your Networks. Large or Small - Software Review - Evaluation

ENT, Nov 8, 2000 by JOHN F. McGLINCHEY

The software package is full of goodies like the Argent Guardian Web interface. This enables Web management of predefined Relators and reports. A future version will provide all of the console functionality of the current GUT. Also included is Argent Predictor for optional trend analysis. This looks at long-term trends into either an internal data store or a SQL database so reports can be generated using some other reporting system, such as Seagate's Crystal Reports.

One scenario we set up was to monitor all the workstations on our network and to look for personal Web servers. If it found one, it would shut down the service. There is nothing worse than turning every workstation on your network into a server. Argent Guardian provided a clean, simple method of ensuring our network efficiency;

Our experience with Argent Guardian ran the gamut from "Oh Wow!" to "Huh?" For the most part we were in the "Oh, wow!" phase, especially for features like the rules engine and Web interface. Other features like the GUT are downright clunky. The large GUT icons look like something from an old DOS or Windows 3.1 application, while the smaller ones are fuzzy and hard to read. We would prefer to see a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) plug-in interface instead of the homegrown GUT. The MMC has been around for three years now, and it's long overdue for companies like Argent to get with the program and convert its software to use it.

Finally, it was time to remove Argent Guardian as our demo period had expired. We went to the Add/Remove Programs control panel, where all well-behaved programs should be registered. We were disappointed. Argent Guardian was missing. To uninstall the product we had to rerun the installer and select the uninstall option. Another small item that shows Argent Guardian has room for improvement.

Argent software updates Argent Guardian on a rigid monthly schedule. Updating the central monitoring system will automatically update all of the regional monitoring nodes that are set up on a network. The latest update includes some graphic fixes plus an ability to be notified if a service is unresponsive or hung, an ability to monitor whether a service that is set to automatically start is not started, and bidirectional communication integration with Tivoli console for integration into large systems operations centers.

Despite the areas with obvious room for improvement, we feel Argent Guardian is a major contender in the system monitoring arena. Its ability to be easily set up and modified, as well as its ability to scale from small to very large networks with ease, far outweigh the handful of interface annoyances. We feel that this is a good product that will improve by leaps and bounds as time goes

by.

Argent Guardian

Argent Software Inc.,

Farmington, Conn.

(860) 674-1700

www.argent.com

Price: $9,900 for the first 10 servers, $9.000 for each additional 10-server group. Volume discounts available

Pros/Cons:

Automatic installation of agents on all systems from central console