VISUAL Message Center's Web Applications ThinAgents help you improve the availability and performance of applications that use a Web browser-based interface, and help you monitor the real user experience of your employees, customers and partners in real time.

Monitor your entire network and Web environment at all levels of infrastructure and applications, from your TCP/IP network ports, devices and email services, to your Web-based commercial transactions. State-based events can be obtained from any network component using SNMP or ping operations.

Covering all physical and logical levels of your Web applications, the Network Services ThinAgents, the Web ThinAgents and the new Web Transaction ThinAgent help you make sure that everything is under control in all your Web domains and that your business processes are running smoothly.

No more network bottlenecks, email failures, Web downtime or slow end-user experience. VISUAL Message Center's Web Applications Monitoring ThinAgents will help you maximize uptime, get the best quality service from your Internet service provider and increase the value of your Web presence.

• Network Services ThinAgents: POP3, SMTP, FTP, FTP, SNMP, networked devices and more…
• Web ThinAgents: Availability, response time, contents and much more…
• Web Transaction ThinAgents: End-to-end transaction time, actual user experience!
  

Network Services ThinAgents

Tango/04 Network Services ThinAgents allow you to monitor in real time the status of all your networked devices and services. Detect problems and slowdowns; automatically restart inactive devices, and measure total downtime with historical reports.

Dedicated agents check the health of POP3 and SMTP email servers, and check port availability of any networked device - locally or over the Internet.

You can even retrieve new messages from a POP3 account to detect errors in devices that send emails to communicate operating problems.

Any network device that supports the Simple Network Management Protocol, SNMP, can be monitored using the SNMP ThinAgent, enabling you to monitor the availability of servers, routers, switches, printers and other devices.

The operating health state of all components can be viewed directly from the ThinkServer Configurator, or can be sent to VISUAL Message Center's SmartConsole for full alert and automation capabilities.

Use the ThinkServer Configurator interface to easily configure your Network Services ThinAgents and begin monitoring your email and Web servers instantly. Use the predefined values or customize in seconds your network and service monitors.

Technical Overview

Run any number of service checks on local networks or the Internet:

• Check any type of host or port - regardless of the operating system or device type
• Use IP addresses or DNS e.g. mail.tango04.com
  
• Control your POP3 email servers:
  
  • Check availability and response times
    
  • Check mailbox access, user profiles, passwords
    
  • Check mailbox size in Kb or by number of messages
    
  • Download messages - redirect to the SmartConsole
    
• SMTP email server:
  
  • Check availability, response times
    
  • Check access, user profile, password
    
  • Check sent message loop
    
• Check networked services, check port, response times:
  
  • Web servers (HTTP)
    
  • FTP
    
  • Telnet
    
  • Client Access
    
  • Third party applications - ERP, CRM etc.
• Monitor SNMP-enabled networked devices
  
  • Easily retrieve any SNMP variable from any device
    
  • Setup custom event severity states
    
  • Capture SNMP traps sent by devices
    
• Ping networked devices:
  
  • Printers
    
  • Routers
    
  • Disk subsystems
    
  • SAN storage etc.
    
  • Check availability, response times
    

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New Web ThinAgents

The new Web ThinAgents help you easily integrate your e-Business environment in your monitoring solution.

Are there any broken links in the homepage? Is a particular image missing? Are there any Page not found (404) errors? Is your Web site loading quickly? Why is it so slow? Is it a server problem, a connection problem or a result of poor design? Can you get proof so that you can demand better service from your Internet provider?

Now there is an immediate answer to all of these questions. VISUAL Message Center's new Web ThinAgents generate messages and alerts in real time about the operating health of your servers and your Internet, Extranet and Intranet pages.

Monitor the Availability of Web pages

• Embedded documents
  
• Hyperlinks
  

Monitor the response time of your Web pages

• Detailed report of response time: entire page, page details, network, etc.
  

Monitor Web page content

• Simple security test of your Web page: Does your Web site show what it should display? If not, is it possible that your page has been hacked?
  

Monitor General operating health of your Internet site with Web page variables

• The Web Data Adapter returns values from specific fields on your Web pages so you can integrate them in your monitoring environment.
  

Your Web page is the business card of your company and your brand image. Ensure your visitors enjoy an optimal user experience. Generate reports to demonstrate the actual levels of service received from your hosting provider or communication links.

The new ThinAgents allow you to control the quality of your Web presence using the full power of VISUAL Message Center.

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New Web Transaction ThinAgent

Companies must simulate transactions carried out on the Web to control the availability and performance of their Web applications. The goal is to obtain a picture, as realistic as possible, of the actual user experience of their customers, employees, partners and other users of their Web-based applications.

Many critical business processes depend on Web-based applications, or business processes with a Web component. It is extremely important to make sure that Web applications are working correctly, are permanently available and provide optimal response times. Any glitches or crashes should be prevented or corrected immediately.

The new Web Transaction ThinAgent can reproduce transactions executed by any Web application over the Internet, including WebSphere and CRM applications. By simulating a real transaction, this agent helps you measure the response time, availability and many other relevant indicators of your business' operating health.

VISUAL Message Center's new Web Transaction ThinAgent uses a very simple procedure for configuring Web pages to monitor. Simply activate the recorder and carry out the different steps in the transaction you want to monitor. The Web Transaction ThinAgent will then automatically carry out these steps and measure total response times.

Simply "record" a typical Web transaction from end to end. The Web Transaction ThinAgent will then measure the user experience while navigating a Web page or any application with a Web browser.

Measure the load time of a Web page and the different steps that comprise a transaction, i.e. entering text, selecting an option from a list, load time of a link, and more.

Connection and HTTP errors are automatically verified and diagnosed, indicating the necessary steps to resolve the problems and to implement proactive controls. In addition, the VISUAL Message Center SmartConsole retrieves this information and allows for simple yet detailed reporting regarding the state and performance of transactions.

With the VISUAL Message Center Web Transaction ThinAgent it is very easy to edit and debug the script of a recorded Web transaction in order to refine and customize the logical structure and personalize the measurement criteria.

This new ThinAgent can also measure transactions on 5250 (iSeries) and 3270 (mainframe) consoles with a Web interface. Use IBM WebFacing, Host Access Transformation Services (HATS), iSeries Access for Web (for older systems) or other third party development tools to easily create a Web interface for 5250 or 3270 applications. This greatly extends the usefulness of the Web Transaction ThinAgent to natively developed applications.

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