The program also provides its own Web server, which has no conflicts with Microsoft Internet Information Server operating on the same machine. After initial installation, you must configure the software to give it some knowledge of what needs to be checked. The developers included most of the common services in the package, so you don't have to know a lot about the inner workings of things like Web servers and mail servers to monitor them. Pick the server type when you add it to the environment, define a couple of parameters, and the system will start polling the boxes. The service process never showed above 0 percent CPU utilization and was about 75 percent of the way down the CPU resource list.
Configuration is accomplished through a .URL file.
Everything is accomplished via the browser, which eliminates the burden on developers to build a complete configuration program. But it does limit all functions and interfaces to fit into the constraints of the browser environment. We found the compromise acceptable, but at times the user interface seemed a bit confusing. We kept going to the wrong place but eventually got used to it and were able to add and delete services and servers easily. Since the program and the user interface are network-centric, a user ID and password are required to access the configuration procedures.