Global System Services Corporation (GSS) - The leading provider of email and messaging, directory services, and groupware consulting and professional services

Mike,

Allow me to clarify that I recommend ABS ViewPoint over cc:Mail View because I think it's more useful. I also recommend Baranof's Mail Check. No one product gets the whole job done. If I had to pick two monitoring products, I'd pick Baranof and ABS. But these two toools together are still not enough. You need these and basic automation, monitoring, and error detection tools, such as those included in the GSS Automation Kit for cc:Mail (ftp.gssnet.com or http://www.gssnet.com/). These three things together are about as good a monitoring system as you can have.

There are other tools you can use but the bottom line is that you have to build your own cc:Mail monitoring system. There is no off-the-shelf product that does the whole job; no single-vendor, black box solution. I think cc:Mail View has strengths too, just not the ones that most of my customers care most about.

You might equally have asked why I don't recommend cc:Mail View. The reasons are simple. cc:Mail View's monitoring is not close enough to realtime and it doesn't have the Router/session level granularity of ABS. These are simple, practical concerns. cc:Mail View's reports are more useful for capacity planning and monitoring resource utilization then they are for understanding message traffic and representing your routing topology. ABS gives you more of what you need to know in a more timely manner (and without WAMM message traffic).

Again, ABS ViewPoint is just a more practical, useful product over cc:Mail View but, like cc:Mail View, it's not enough by itself.

Ron