WhatsUp Gold incorporates a Crystal Reports plug-in for producing a range of reports, such as an availability report showing devices whose failures have resulted in the greatest downtime. Nonetheless, because they didn't let us drill down into SNMP alert details, the reports weren't as granular as we would've liked. The interactive Web page interface was a joy to use and encompassed all the functions of the Win32 native interface. For example, it let us check the status of any network device from a remote location, using only a dial-up connection and Web browser. On the other hand, for many of its displays, WhatsUp Gold simply scrolled lines of text in the Win32 console's window and the Web browser window when it ought to have formatted one or more data presentation screens.
Installation is unremarkable, and the printed documentation is perfectly adequate.
JavaScript is dandy, but we need something on the server-side. This week, David Wall begins exploring communications with MySQL-managed databases using the PHP scripting language. Special offers on ORiNOCO wireless LANs for small businesses and homes. Intel announces New Mobile Intel Pentium III Processor-M .