PTC MKS Toolkit Product FAQs

PTC MKS Toolkit 10.2



MKS AlertCentre Product FAQs

General

Licensing System Requirements Additional Resources



General

What customer support services are available for MKS products?

    MKS products have a solid and professional support team. Technical support for these MKS products is available during normal business hours via telephone, fax, and electronic mail (tk_support@mkssoftware.com). In addition, we have an online Technical Support form and a Technical FAQ available on our web site.

    Other forms of support are available by special arrangement.

    The customer support policies for the MKS Application Lifecycle Management product line can be found here.


What is a monitoring station and what’s the difference between a primary and a backup?

    A monitoring station is a machine on which you install the AlertCentre Add-On. This machine is one that runs monitors and triggers actions; sending results back to the user interface and to other devices such as phones and pagers. AlertCentre gives you the ability to assign a back-up monitoring station for redundancy and automated failover. The backup monitoring station stays in synch with the primary to ensure that the primary is functioning correctly. In the case that the primary fails, the backup alerts you and takes over, helping to ensure that your business keeps running smoothly. An additional MKS Toolkit license is required for each back-up monitoring station.


What is a monitor?

    A monitor is a program that runs on the monitoring station and is responsible for monitoring the health of a network connection, a system resource, or an application (e.g., a TCP port, a disk drive, or a Web page, respectively) on a single device (e.g., a server). Typically there is no imposed limit on the number of monitors that can be created on a given monitoring station or for a given device that is being monitored. There is however, a practical limit to the number of monitors that can be run from each monitoring station. This limit will vary based on monitoring interval, the types of monitors being run, and the speed of the hardware in the monitoring station. A single monitoring station can typically run hundreds of monitors, depending on the values of the variables listed above.


Is there a limit on the number of AlertCentre monitors per device?

    No, there is no imposed limit to the number of monitors you can set up for monitoring each device.


Is there a limit on the number of AlertCentre monitors per monitoring station?

    No, there is no imposed limit to the number of monitors you can set up for monitoring each monitoring station.


Licensing

How is MKS AlertCentre licensed?

    As of v2.03 AlertCentre is a free Add-On to licensed MKS Toolkit products and defaults to the underlying license of that product. Any questions concerning licensing should be directed at your authorized MKS sales representative.


Is there an additional license fee for multi-user access (via browsers on remote workstations) to an AlertCentre monitoring station?

    As of v2.03 AlertCentre is a free Add-On to licensed MKS Toolkit products and defaults to the underlying license of that product. Any questions concerning licensing should be directed at your sales representative.


System Requirements

What operating systems do the PTC MKS Toolkit products run on?

    The PTC MKS Toolkit products are supported on the current Windows operating systems. Please refer to the Supported Versions chart in our Customer Support area for complete information.


What are the hardware and software requirements for using PTC MKS Toolkit, PTC Lex & Yacc and the add-ons?