On 11/17/11 4:58 AM, A. Chase Turner wrote:
I am seeking a $100 turnkey micro hardware appliance to plug into a LAN hub (behind a consumer-level cable modem) whose only purpose in life is to send heartbeat (and simple quality of service metrics) to a pre-configured central aggregation service on the WAN.
Key requirement is the micro hardware appliance will be installed by non-technical elderly end-users -- so, it must be pre-configured and literally plug and play without need for the person installing the appliance to open a web browser to configure. And it must be a secure, good-reputation stand-alone hardware appliance ... because the heartbeat cannot / must not be a service installed on the end-user's computer where it becomes a support burden (e.g., did the end-user turn off their computer? Is their antivirus software blocking the outgoing heartbeat? That the end-user needs to enter a username/password/destination to enable the heartbeat, etc)
Mikrotik RouterBoards are low cost and robust. It can be scripted to do things like call a specific URL every X minutes. Some models have just a single Ethernet port as well (they're designed to be used as a wireless AP/CPE with an add-in mini PCI card) for even less confusion about plugging it in. ~Seth