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So while we made the process more efficient, we needed to ensure that the accuracy improved as well.  SAGE’s design chief Peter von Elling crafted a dashboard interface that displayed the vital signs based on the simple “stoplight” metaphor: red is stop, yellow is caution and green is go. For most indicators on a server, thermometer-like gauges display the current value against normal, warning, and hazard thresholds, allowing engineers to see whether a given indicator is approaching a warning or hazard level. These thresholds can be customized for each server: a file server that traditionally has heavy disk usage can have its caution and warning thresholds adjusted higher. The stoplight motif drills down from the network of OnSight clients, to a particular client’s servers, to an individual server. SAGE engineers monitoring the entire OnSight network can easily spot a problem (red light) or potential problem (yellow light) amongst a host of servers across all clients and drill down to the particular issue, alarm or problem. With the Sentinel dashboard daily checks are much more accurate.

With the software agent and “stoplight” interface in place, we wanted as many eyes as possible to watch over our clients’ servers, so we made Sentinel web-based. This way, our managers and engineers—and soon our clients—can be sure that daily checks are being performed and the servers are running at peak performance no matter where they are. We even added the date for the next scheduled site visit by a SAGE engineer. Symptoms of potentially catastrophic problems—such as low disk space, extended up time, high memory usage, persistent errors and warnings, and outdated antivirus signatures—can be easily spotted by practically anyone, anywhere.

Last, we needed better intelligence to advise our clients on their technology needs. A critical part of the OnSight service are the quarterly system reviews where the IT strategy is devised between SAGE and our clients. Realizing Sentinel presented a treasure trove of intelligence, we store the data from each daily check. With this data we can chart disk storage over time, for instance, to see when more capacity is needed. The information becomes the foundation for strategic and budgetary decisions on network performance and infrastructure improvements.

Sentinel’s success is its lightweight agent technology and simple dashboard interface. Since we began using Sentinel, we have significantly reduced the time necessary to perform server checks, while improving our ability to react quickly to problems or proactively address potential problems. It has proven to be the perfect compliment to other, more complex monitoring software. SAGE Sentinel will be available as a standalone service in the second half of 2006. Already in use internally for OnSight, we intend to make is visible to our OnSight clients later this year at no extra charge.

Now that Sentinel has met our needs, it will be at your service, whether you have four servers or 100. To learn more about Sentinel and SAGE OnSight, please contact Karin Magness at 202-476-7604.

Karin Magness is the Director of Sales and Marketing at SAGE and works closely with our customers to determine their IT needs. To learn more about Sentinel, OnSight, or SAGE's support services, please contact Karin at kmagness@sagesol.com or call 202.478.7600.