Will the Cisco Cius Make Desktop Video Conferencing Mainstream?

With the Cisco Cius product launch, the age of desktop video conferencing may well be emerging. The Cisco Cius is an ultra-portable, mobile collaboration business tablet that offers access to essential business applications and technologies.

The early adaptors are likely to find making video conferencing calls within an organization extremely easy and become hooked on the experience.

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3 Keys to Achieving Optimal IIS Performance…

Monitoring the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) is something I take pretty seriously. As one of the most relied upon and mission-critical web infrastructures for eCommerce websites, web applications, intranet portals and corporate websites – it is definitely a mission critical application and there will be some crazed phone calls if the service goes down.


I monitor IIS for two main reasons - to troubleshoot performance problems on the server and to improve server performance. When I’m able to optimize server performance and save money by reducing costs on additional servers and hardware it is always a big plus.

Here are three steps for achieving optimal performance (for additional details read this article):

1. Monitor Memory and CPU Usage
It is critical to monitor memory and CPU usage and to take any steps necessary to reduce the load on the server. Other processes operating on the server could be using memory and CPU resources needed by IIS. If this is the case, stop non-essential services and move support applications to a different server.

2. Resolve Hardware Issues that Cause Problems
Slow disk drives can delay file reads, if that is the case improve the disk input/output (I/O). Also install additional network cards, if the current ones are fully optimized to ensure you can perform critical activities such as back-ups.

3. Optimize Web Pages and Applications on IIS
Make sure to test web pages and IIS applications to ensure the source code executes as expected. Take the time to eliminate unnecessary procedures and optimize inefficient processes.

To fully optimize IIS, you have to do some testing and go through some trial and error until you get everything tuned properly. It is definitely worth the time.

If you don’t want to use a bunch of disparate tools to monitor such a critical server and application, try out dopplerVUE 2.1 for a 30 day free trial. dopplerVUE’s IIS application center lets you display system responsiveness, application services, server and application utilization and alarm conditions all in a single window.

Application Problems and Downtime – Avoid the Pain

Whether it’s the email system, web infrastructure or your database backend – downtime can make your blood pressure rise. I’ve seen the support calls come in when a server and application goes down that is mission critical.


That’s why I’m so excited about the new release of dopplerVUE 2.1. Application centers have been added for Microsoft® Exchange, Microsoft® IIS and Microsoft SQL Server® applications. These monitoring centers provide detailed information about the overall health of an application, including its hardware and software dependencies.

dopplerVUE displays responsiveness, application services, server and application utilization and alarm conditions in a single view. Take a look at the screenshot below.

Interested in getting more insight into your Exchange, IIS or SQL server and applications? Try
dopplerVUE 2.1 free for 30 days.

7 Key Considerations for Managing Exchange Server Health and Status

In my experience application problems are often a factor in downtime making monitoring mission critical. Trying to resolve application performance issues is no easy task. Troubleshooting requires that you test and validate the different application layers and dependencies like the network, server and application performance to determine the cause of the problem and solve it. For applications like Exchange server, there can be a fair number of items to evaluate. Here are some of the items you want to evaluate when troubleshooting Exchange Server or monitoring its health and status.

Application Monitoring in dopplerVUE 2.1 Available Soon
In early May the new release of dopplerVUE 2.1 will be available with application monitoring capabilities. In a single window it will display system responsiveness, application services, server and application utilization and alarm conditions. An early preview is provided below with a screenshot. The screenshot shows Exchange monitoring displaying average delivery time in milliseconds and queue size at zero with more metrics in the same window.
Be on the look out for an email letting you know more details about the release and its availability.