Using SMS Server with ActiveXperts Network Monitor
This example will demonstrate how to setup a server with the ActiveXperts Network Monitor using the SMS Server for sending alert messages.
The ActiveXperts Network Monitor is a light-weight but fully featured and easy to setup network monitoring application. This Network Monitor is used by many IT departments around the world to monitor networked devices and services for failures or irregularities and it has build-in support for the Auron SMS Server.
Using the SMS Server support in the ActiveXperts Network Monitor has a number of advantages. Among which:
- All common SMS protocols, including SMPP, GSM or HTTP are supported
- Audit trail. You will have list of all SMS sent and whether they arrived
- Retry / Fail-over support when an SMS failed to send
- Fine grained control over channel settings and message routing
- Etc…
Any version of the Auron SMS Server 2020 and upwards will work with any version of the ActiveXperts Network Monitor 2021 and upwards.
Setup the Network Monitor
The order of installation does not matter. For the purpose of this example we’ll start with installing the Network Monitor.
The following things are important to note during the Network Monitor setup
- Select to install both the Network Monitoring Engine and the Management Console
- Make note of the user that should run the Network Monitor Server
- Do not automatically start the Network Monitor Management Console after setup.
Network Monitor – Choose Setup
We’ll continue configuring the ActiveXperts Network Monitor after setting up the Auron SMS Server.
Setup the SMS Server
The next step is to setup and configure the SMS Server.
In the configuration wizard make sure to:
- Select either Standalone or Server
- User SQL Server (express) instead of LocalDB
- When using Windows Authentication for the database make sure that the user running the Network Monitor Service has access to the SMS Server database as well
Configuration Wizard – Database Type
Configure an SMS channel in the SMS Server
The SMS Server uses channels to send or receive messages. You can create a new channel by following these steps:
- Open the SMS Server Manager
- Click on ‘Channels’ in the left-side tree view
- Click on ‘New Channel‘ in the channels view on the right
If you don’t already have a GSM modem or an existing SMPP account to use you can use the test and demonstration gateway to test your setup.
Auron SMS Server – Select SMPP Channel
To use the test and demonstration gateway select the ‘SMPP Client‘ channel type, click ‘Create…‘ and accept the default settings in the SMPP channel wizard.
Configure the ActiveXperts Network Monitor
Since the ActiveXperts Network Monitor was just installed it should start with the Quick Configuration Wizard. If it does not start with the Quick Configuration Wizard you can start it manually by clicking: File -> Configuration -> Quick Configuration Wizard.
ActiveXperts Network Monitor – Quick Configuration Wizard
If you already ran this wizard you can safely click through this wizard without modifying any existing settings. We’re interested in step 1 and step 3.
Step 1 make sure that your own contact details are present in the Address Book. This should include your mobile number to make use of SMS alerting.
Quick Configuration Wizard – Address Book
In step 3 you will configure the SMS Server as the means to send SMS alerts.
- Make sure ‘Enable SMS Alert Notifications‘ is checked
- Select ‘Use Auron SMS Server‘
- Click on ‘Configure…‘ to select the Auron SMS Server channel
When selecting the channel you will have to opportunity to send a test message though the SMS Server.
Quick Configuration Wizard – SMS Alert
After this step you can safely click through the Quick Configuration Wizard and verify or setup the rest of your monitoring configuration. The SMS Server integration should work.
Test SMS alerts
To test the full setup for this example you can create a simple ICMP (Ping) check and have that send an SMS alert when it fails two times in a row and another one when it succeeds again.
You should see the alert messages automatically appear in the Auron SMS Server Manager.
ActiveXperts Network Monitor and Auron SMS Server – Full test
But this is only the start of everything that is possible. For instance: It makes sense to look at configuring a failover trigger. That way you can make sure that no particularly critical network outage will prevent you from being alerted.