As mentioned in the previous post one of the very handy triggers in Optitask can be used to monitor availability of Servers, Routers and other network devices.  To setup a network host monitor here’s what you need to do:

Step 1 – Create a monitor task

I find it easier to organize tasks like these in folders so I create a “Network Monitors” folder and create a new task for each device that I want to monitor.

Step 2 – Execution steps

When a network host is down or becomes available, you may need to receive an Email or SMS notification or you may need to perform more advanced system tasks like shutting down a server, starting an application or whatever. Inside the task you need to define a set of actions to take when the network state is detected. In my case I am monitoring a database server and will send myself an Email when the server goes down.

Step 3 – Setting up the trigger
In the last step I add a new “Network Host Monitor” trigger to the task and specify the server’s IP address. I also select the option to trigger the task when the Host becomes unavailable.