The simple way to monitor multiple Smoothwall installations

As deployments become larger, running to dozens - even hundreds - of installations, there needs to be a simple mechanism to keep those systems in check.

Whether those Smoothwall installations are clustered within a single data centre, or in satellite locations around the world, our new Central Management facility keeps you in touch. From a single dashboard, you can monitor the boxes, and make sure that everything is doing what it should.

From your primary 'Parent' appliance, you are now able to see:

• The status of all services running on each 'Child' appliance
• Which boxes require updates - and be able to schedule them!
• How storage space is being used and as a result whether a Child system may need upgrading
• Which installations are subject to an upcoming subscription renewal

If your policies aren't entirely consistent across the entire organisation, or different sites simply have different needs, you can configure different Profiles for those site policies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How many remote installations are supported?

A. Central Management has been tested to 500 remote deployments though no technical limitations exist.

Q. Am I able to carry out remote hardware reboots?

A. Yes, though these are handled through the Web Interface of the box in question.

Q. Can I easily configure multiple child boxes at once?

A. Yes, we support importing information via CSV files for bulk deployments.

Q. Will this still be compatible with my VM environment?

A. Yes - any virtualised products will still be completely comptaible.

Q. Is this safe to use over the public internet?

A. Yes - All traffic passes over a secure ssh tunnel.

Q. How quickly will data refresh?

A. Every 10 minutes, or immediately if you click 'Update Now'.

Q. How much bandwidth is used?

A. Measurements indicate that for one child the average load will be (just under) 7Bytes per sec parent to child and 70Bytes per sec child to parent. This will be quite bursty, but will even out with a large number of nodes over time.

Installation notes:

First, bring your boxes up-to-date. You’ll have to visit each one individually (for the last time), but this can happily be done via their respective Web Interfaces. Main Update 46 is the listing to look for.

Update any child nodes before you update the parent node.

If you’re not already using any of the central management tools like settings replication or central logging, you should probably sit down with a nice cup of coffee and the user manual and familiarise yourself with the concepts. The manual is available in the documentation section of our website.
If you’re already replicating settings or logs, then just head on over to the new section in system >> central management on the parent box. You should have your child nodes listed. Edit one or two to say “monitor status”. After a while, those nodes will begin to show up on the overview page.