I added support for end-user monitoring by installing VitalSigns' Net. Medic on a few desktops and Vital. Analysis on the server. Medic collects information about client machine and Internet server performance, as well as all of the in-between plumbing. I configured the clients to upload the information to my Vital.
Analysis server once a day.
The server then transports that information to the SLM database, which, in turn, churns out network health and availability from the user's perspective. A few days later, I fired up a Web browser and connected to the main SSDS server, which presented a menu of the various reports, such as SLM and the PM products' exception reports, and a link to the SniffMaster browser. The SLM module offers general availability and health reporting on routers, switches, networks, clients and servers. The PM products are configured to collect detailed information on specific network devices, including routers, switches and frame relay devices. In the lab, SLM simply told us that a router was not 100 percent healthy, while RouterPM told us that the router was running short on memory buffers.