Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold User Guide - Ipswitch Documentation Server

Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold User Guide
Polling overview
Polling is the active watching, or monitoring, of your network by WhatsUp Gold. This is done
in a variety of ways, depending on the service monitors you have configured on your devices.
The default polling method is done through Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP). The
default polling interval for WhatsUp Gold is 60 seconds.
A small amount of data is sent from the WhatsUp Gold computer across the network to the
device it is watching. If the device is up, it echoes the data back to the WhatsUp Gold
computer. A device is considered down by WhatsUp Gold when it does not send the data
back.
Changing how you poll devices
After a device is added to the database, WhatsUp Gold begins monitoring that device using
ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol). WhatsUp Gold sends a message to the device, then
waits for the echo reply. If no reply is received, WhatsUp Gold considers it an unresponsive
device and changes the status color of the device.
By default, WhatsUp Gold uses the device IP address as the message target. If you prefer, you
can use the Host name or the Windows name of the computer instead, and you can change
how WhatsUp Gold polls the devices.
To change how you poll a device:
1 Click the Devices tab.
2 Click Devices. The device list appears.
3 In the Device List or Map View, right-click a device, then click Properties. The Device
Properties dialog appears.
4 Click General.
5 Select the protocol used to poll the device from the Polling type list.
6 Select IP address or Host name from the Poll using list.
7 If you selected Host name in the Poll using list, enter the device host name the Host
name box.
8 Click OK to save changes.
It is useful to poll using the host name if you want to monitor a device that has a dynamic IP
address instead of a static address. To monitor this type of device, choose Host name from
the Poll using list. Doing so allows WhatsUp Gold to locate the host using DNS on the
network even if the device IP address changes.
106