How do you monitor the connectivity of device on a wide area network that uses static ip's.?

Question

I am a service technician for a small, but growing, internet service provider. I am the only technician and am pulling my hair out trying to keep up with failed links with our 900MHz and 2.4 GHz wireless equipment. We have about 400 customers using either kind of wireless equipment. We give both the computer or router and the wireless equipment static ip adresses so we know the exact addresses of the individual components in our network. The only problem is monitoring the connectivity of the device. Because we are mostley wireless, we need a way to monitor when a customer loses thier internet connection, before they call to complain. Is there any software out there that will ping each address every so often, to ensure that it is still connnected to the network? What would be even better is if a loss of connectivity with an ip address on the list would envoke an alarm, email, or some other form of immediate notification.

Answer 1

Try a program called Dude. We use it for four locations spread over 70 X 50 mile range.  You can even set it up for a server to check a server if one link goes down.  Works great and allows you to make a complete graph of the links.