Attempting to find an application, ostensibly called "Trakmailserver"
that polls the major email service providers in order to determine
whether they are responsive to smtp traffic.  Example:  yahoo,
hotmail, earthlink, aol, etc are polled --- if they respond to a
telnet request on port 25, they are considered "up and running" OR
they do not respond or time-out repeatedly, they are considered
"down".   This is a utility, then, for system administrators to use in
troubleshooting their own mail system by eliminating the remote server
as a source of the problem as to why the mail is not being sent in a
timely fashion.  The application may have ANY name--- so long as it
has this functionality.  It should have a trial-version with the
ability to license it later, if satisfactory.  It is to be used in a
x386 Windows 2000 Server environment.

Hi there,

I've found a few of programs that fit all of your above criteria.

Servers Alive can be found at http://www.woodstone.nu/salive/. This
utility can monitor many different types of services, including SMTP,
and has a trial version with the ability to purchase it if desired.

From their website:
"Servers Alive is an end-to-end network monitor program. Among the
many checks it can do: it can monitor any Winsock service, ping a
host, check if an NT service/process is running, check the available
disk space on a server, retrieve an URL, check your database engine,
and more. When it detects a down condition it can warn you in various
ways, including sending you an email (SMTP) saying what is down, or
paging you with a numeric or alphanumeric warning. It's also the first
monitoring program to support WAP pages viewable with wireless
devices."


IP Ultra Monitor 2000/WC can be found at
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ultraj/ and also provides the ability to
check for SMTP server uptime. Unlike the first program, this one is
free (2000 version)/shareware (WC version).

From their website:
" IP Ultra Monitor 2000 monitors TCP/IP ports on remote servers (e.g.
HTTP,FTP, SMTP, DNS) and/or monitors network device status by ICMP
ping.
Monitor TCP Services (FTP, NNTP, SMTP, HTTP) on remote devices. 
Devices are checked every 1 to 60 minutes (user specified.) 
Tracks last error message, number of successful and non-successful
connections.
Option to send an Email if failures are detected (user specified
failure interval.)
Added the ability to monitor devices status by ICMP Ping.  
Added wizards to assist you in creating a monitored device. 
System tray support showing status and number of problems detected.
HTML output indicating device and port status for all monitored
devices.
Option to begin check when program starts. 
Ability to save-as, open and compact the underlying database. 
Ability to customize the MS Agent sayings, animation and screen
position (requires Microsoft Access 97.)  "

Another program with the same functionality is IPCheck Server Monitor
3 (http://www.paessler.com/products/ipcheck/index.htm).

Hope that's what you were looking for. If you need any clarification
on this question, please feel free to ask

Deadlychiapet-ga

Resources used:
http://www.radfiles.com/query.asp?category=networkingtools

Google search terms used:
remote email server uptime tracker
email server uptime tracker
server uptime tracker

---

Request for Answer Clarification by jmbullard-ga on 19 Jul 2002 05:18 PDT

Thank you... while these are good programs, for a couple of years now
we have been using Ipswitch's WhatsUp Gold, a program with many of the
same functions listed by the apps you've located.  However, to
clarify:  we're not looking for an app to monitor our own servers ---
we looking for a program that checks the status of remote mail servers
in order to help determine why a batch of outbound email would be
returned to us as undeliverable.  If yahoo or hotmail's servers for a
particular region go down this would explain why for 12+ hours we
would have so many "returns" that are categorized as server-timed-out,
no-response errors.  Other possible "returns" are: mail-box full,
connection refused/blocked, etc.  These latter responses would not
account for the numbers of failures we are seeing. This status can be
checked by attempting to telnet to their server(s) manually... on port
25 (the incoming mail port) and request (conversationally, via the
scripts) that a piece of mail be accepted.  The way this
"conversation" goes --- determines what or whether there is a problem.
 The difficulty this presents in doing it manually for all of the
different servers, well... is excessive. It IS possible that no such
application exists and that we would have to develop it ourselves. 
<shrug>

---

Clarification of Answer by deadlychiapet-ga on 19 Jul 2002 11:32 PDT

Hi there,

I think I've found a program that does what you want it to do. It's
called sMonitor and can be found at http://www.ayarovy.com/. It
basically has the same features as the above programs, however, it
also has a customizable scripting engine which lets you telnet with
custom scripts. In your case you could write a script to talk to the
server and see what message it gives you to find out why the mail
isn't going through.

Hope that helps!
-Deadlychiapet-ga

This response indicated better-than-average research and provided good
information.  It is possible that either a) I did not clarify our
needs wells enough or b) this response is the best available,
considering what we've asked for.  In the second instance, I will have
no problem paying for the time/effort expended.