Lesson 1: Monitoring Network Resources
Windows 2000 includes the Computer Management and Shared Folders snap-ins so that you can easily monitor access to network resources and send administrative messages to users. You monitor access to network resources to assess and manage current use on network servers.
After this lesson, you will be able to
Identify three reasons for monitoring access to network resources.
Identify the tools included with Windows 2000 to monitor access to network resources and to send administrative messages.
Identify who can monitor access to network resources.
Estimated lesson time: 5 minutes
Understanding the Purposes for Monitoring Network Resources
The three primary reasons why it is important to assess and manage network resources are included in the following list:
Maintenance. When you must perform maintenance tasks on network resources, you will need to periodically make certain resources unavailable to users. To do this you must determine which users are currently using a resource so that you can notify them before making the resource temporarily or permanently unavailable.
Security. To maintain a network's security you need to monitor user access to resources that are confidential or need to be secure to verify that only authorized users are accessing them.
Planning. Meeting the expanding needs of the network's users requires that you determine which resources are being used and how much they are being used so that you can plan for future system growth.
Windows 2000 includes the Computer Management and Shared Folders snap-ins so that you can easily monitor access to network resources and send administrative messages to users. When you add the Computer Management and Shared Folders snap-ins to a custom console with MMC, you specify whether you want to monitor the resources on the local computer or a remote computer.
Understanding the Requirements to Monitor Network Resources
Not all users can monitor access to network resources. Table 20.1 lists the group membership requirements for monitoring access to network resources.
Table 20.1 Groups That Can Access Network Resources
| A member of these groups | Can monitor |
|---|---|
| Administrators or Server Operators for the domain | All computers in the domain. |
| Administrators or Power Users for a member server | Local or remote computers in the workgroup. |
In this lesson, you learned that monitoring network resources helps you to determine whether the network resource is still needed and whether it is secure. Monitoring resources also helps you to plan for future growth. Windows 2000 includes the Computer Management and Shared Folders snap-ins so that you can easily monitor access to network resources. You can monitor resources on the local computer or on a remote computer. To monitor resources on a remote computer, you specify the computer on which you want to monitor resources when you add either the Computer Management or Shared Folders snap-in to a custom console.
You also learned that in a workgroup, only members of the Administrators group or the Power Users group can monitor resources for the local computer or for a remote computer in the workgroup. In a domain, only members of the Administrators group or the Server Operators group for the domain can monitor resources on all the computers in the domain.