If you want to stay ahead of server failures, server capacity problems and server-related network outages, Microsoft Operation Manager 2005 can help. On a small to midsize network with Windows 2000 Server systems and above, MOM 2005 can do a good job of getting and reporting server status and health information. We recently tested MOM 2005 and found that while it used more bandwidth than expected, and was not useful as a monitoring tool for router- or switch-related infrastructure problems, it did a good job monitoring Windows-based servers. MOM 2005 is the latest incarnation of a product originally from Mission Critical Software (which was bought by NetIQ and then bought by Microsoft). The latest version of MOM sports several user interface improvements, new monitoring capabilities and a new report generation mechanism.