As a result, we gave OpalisRobot a score of Very Good. Once it determines that an event has happened, it initiates a preset task. In the newest release, OpalisRobot's reach has been extended so that it can tell when remote Internet services such as your corporate Web site are no longer available. When it senses this event, it can page a staff member or send an e-mail. OpalisRobot offers approximately 50 preset events, all of which are highly customizable, so it is unlikely that systems mangers will need to create custom events.
Users can even set up event tests to run during specific hours.
For example, if your staff needs ongoing access to an internal Web site, you might test for its presence just during business hours when your staff needs it. If the site fails, you might have OpalisRobot automatically try to restart the Web service, and if that fails, it could send an e-mail or a pager alert to the site's manager. The frequency of testing is also controllable, within broad limits. OpalisRobot is designed to test some events frequently, such as NT services starting or stopping, and other events less often, such as disk space tests that occur once a day by default. Different events and tasks have different timing options available, which sometimes proved confusing and at times even annoying.