Infoworld just reviewed Exchange monitoring & management tools. The following tools were reviewed:
1. Dys Analytics Email Control 5.0.2
2. Microsoft Exchange 2003 Management Pack for MOM
3. Quest Spotlight on Exchange
4. Zenprise 1.03
Zenprise 1.0.3 came out with flying colors. Zenprise doesn’t compete with monitoring & managmenet products like MOM and Quest SOE (in fact, it’s a complementary product to these) – it got the highest score in the pack – 8.4, compared to Quest SOE (7.8), Dys Analytics (7.6) and Exchange 2003 Management Pack for MOM (7.4).
I’ve tried hard not to include every single observation from the review here, and understandably it was a hard task to do. Here’s what Infoworld had to say about Zenprise 1.0.3 (emphasis mine):
“Zenprise is very different from the other tools in this roundup: It doesn’t manage servers or send alerts. Instead, it focuses on troubleshooting Exchange errors, which it does extremely well.”
“Although many administrators tend to regard expert systems with skepticism, Zenprise provides useful diagnostic advice and clear, accurate instructions on how to correct a problem.”
“….and unlike many online help systems, Zenprise provides clear, useful instructions on how to resolve problems. Its real-time, automated diagnosis and resolution extends to other network problems, such as Internet connectivity, firewall blips, and DNS hiccups as well — all issues that can impact Exchange performance. And as opposed to many historical tracking systems, there’s no need for the administrator to guess at thresholds for alerts because the software creates its own thresholds based on all data collected to date.”
“…With its proactive troubleshooting capability, historical trending, and expert diagnostics system, Zenprise could well keep troublesome Exchange networks from ever becoming a real problem — or at least dramatically speed resolution of problems when they to occur.”
It feels great to get a thumbs up from a reputed IT publication like Infoworld – and in the same league as Exchange 2003 Management Pack for MOM and Quest SOE! To top it all, this is for a 1.0 product!
Working on the Exchange knowledge engineering side of things at Zenprise, I can go on ad nauseam about how we’re building a great troubleshooting tool for Exchange, but I would rather you read about it on Infoworld.com here.
Zenprise 2.0, the next release of Zenprise, is going beta soon and should be in users’ hands in a few weeks.
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