Free SMS For monitoring Notification?

Soldato
Joined
18 May 2010
Posts
12,832
Hi,

Does anyone know of a free SMS provider that is reliable that I can use for monitoring system notifications.
All of the suggestions listed in the monitoring software seem to charge or am I asking for something that does not exist?

Google shows results but I don't know what's dodgy and what's not especially when putting in our mobile numbers.

Thanks
 
Can you not use email? If you're sending to a smartphone that might do..? Or to save money a VoIP system configured to prank call you (but so long as you don't answer, no charge!)
 
If you're sending to an email address that isn't hosted on the servers that you're monitoring and using external SMTP servers then it's going to be just as resilient as an SMS - if all of your outbound connectivity drops then you aren't going to get a text message out. Unless you look into GSM modems and your monitoring software supports that.
 
Caged beat me to it!!

We upgraded to a GSM modem and send messages out for all critical faults, SMTP infrastructure faults and main connectivity faults as we can never be sure email / web based SMS message will get through.
 
What about twitter? Could it be set up to tweet when something happens?

Still need outbound network connectivity. The fail safe, as mentioned, is a GSM Modem - which you use as the notification method for certain checks i.e. 'WAN connection' (to make it simple). If that drops, you'll get an SMS..
 
Yes, but you'd want some sort of control over what goes over it and your router would need to support triggering an alert when the WAN link went down.
 
If you're sending to an email address that isn't hosted on the servers that you're monitoring and using external SMTP servers then it's going to be just as resilient as an SMS - if all of your outbound connectivity drops then you aren't going to get a text message out. Unless you look into GSM modems and your monitoring software supports that.

The fail over monitoring system is at a DR site, its this site that would use the SMS alert and would still have internet connectivity

We dont have external SMTP currently its another option to look into but it would be emailing a business email address which would be useless assuming the worse has happened, a private email address could be used and its something I want to look into but they want me to investigate SMS at this stage

What about twitter? Could it be set up to tweet when something happens?

I've looked into it, the monitoring system can do it but via 3rd party software and it looks messy, SMS is the preferred option followed by the above mentioned email option
 
In that case I think AQL is your best bet. UK networks don't seem to offer the [mobile number]@[carrier sms gateway address] that lots of others around the world do.
 
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