www.petervrenken.nl

HeadsUp

The HeadsUp tool can be used to monitor multiple sites at once. Running from within the toolbar the user can quickly access it and review the status of the different sites that he configured. For each site, multiple urls can be configured, including https and urls on other ports.

HeadsUp can for example be used to monitor multiple released website/services running simultaneous by different customers. When a customer calls, one quick view can determine which component fails. HeadsUp can also be used as an early-warning mechanism to detect failure before the customer calls, or to quickly determine which specific component is causing the whole system to malfunction.

Click on the screenshot for a bigger image.

Version 1.0 of HeadsUp features:

For each site, multiple urls can be configured.
The interval can be configured. Checking of the different sites will wait for this interval.
The number of attempts that each url will be checked can be configured.
Double clicking on a site directly checks the site for availability.
The application starts up minimized (in the icon tray), and double-clicking it shows the main window.

HeadsUp can easily be configured using one single configuration XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<settings>
<interval>6000</interval>
<attempts>10</attempts>
<sites>
    <site name="Local Network">
      <url>http://www.microsoft.com</url>
      <url>http://www.google.com</url>
      <url>http://www.nu.nl</url>
    </site>
    <site name="Internal Development">
      <url>http://development.microsoft.com/serverservice.asmx</url>
      <url>http://development.microsoft.com/clientservice.asmx</url>
    </site>
    <site name="Release Management">
      <url>http://development.customersite.com/syncservice/service.asmx</url>
      <url>http://development.customersite.com/dataservice/service.asmx</url>
      <url>http://development.customersite.com/Monitor/service.asmx</url>
      <url>http://development.customersite.com/shop/service.asmx</url>
      <url>http://development.customersite.com/b2b/service.asmx</url>
      <url>http://development.customersite.com/management/service.asmx</url>
    </site>
    <site name="Customer 1">
      <url>https://www.customer.nl</url>
      <url>https://www.customer.nl:444/server/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://www.customer.nl:444/client/service.asmx</url>
    </site>
    <site name="Customer 2">
      <url>https://webservice.customer2.nl/service1.asmx</url>
      <url>https://webservice.customer2.nl/service2.asmx</url>
      <url>https://webservice.customer2.nl/sync/service1.asmx</url>
      <url>https://webservice.customer2.nl/sync/service2.asmx</url>
      <url>https://webservice.customer2.nl/sync/service3.asmx</url>
    </site>
    <site name="Customer 3">
      <url>https://www.customer3.nl/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://mail.customer3.nl/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://web.customer3.nl/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://admin.customer3.nl/service.asmx</url>
    </site>
    <site name="Customer 3">
      <url>https://www.customer3.nl/s2c/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://www.customer3.nl/c2s/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://www.customer3.nl/messageservice/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://www.customer3.nl/shop/service.asmx</url>
      <url>https://www.customer3.nl/sync/service.asmx</url>
    </site>
</sites>
</settings>

The different settings are:

- interval: number of seconds between each iteration of checks.
- attempts: the number of attempts at each url.
- site.name: the name that should be displayed for each site.
- url: a url that should be checked.

HeadsUp is free for any use.
Version 1.0 can be downloaded here.