Sonar is implemented using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and requires the computer on which it is running to have the .NET Framework version 1.1 installed. To download .NET Framework 1.1, visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=16722.
Note
Sonar requires ntfrsapi.dll on the local computer system. If you want to run Sonar on a Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP system, you need to copy this DLL from a Windows 2000 Server system.
By default, you need to copy the Sonar.exe to a local folder before running it.
To enable .NET Framework 1.1 to execute code from a remote server, go to Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Configuration in the Administrative Tools menu, right-click Runtime Security Policy, click Adjust Security, and set the Local Intranet policy to Full Trust.
The tool assumes you have Administrator access, and are able to access WMI, Performance Counters, Active Directory, and the FRS service on the members to be monitored.
To minimize network traffic and status calls into FRS servers, Sonar should be run by a small number of users in your organization at any one time.
When Sonar is started with no command line options, it allows a query to be defined. The administrator can choose a domain and a replica set within the domain. Administrators can also choose to just view the hub machines in the domain; in this case, Sonar queries the FRS topology in Active Directory and then limits the view to just those computers with a larger than average number of connections. Note that members can be explicitly added or removed later.
After the replica set is selected (or an existing query is loaded), Sonar displays replica member status in a grid view. The users should now click Refresh All to collect the data from the member systems.