This small app will attempt to connect to your server's Windows Services and databases and verify that everything is running as expected.

1. Add your remote service monitoring details to the remoteServices section of the Web.config:

    <remoteServices>
      <add name="SQLSERVERAGENT"
    	path="\\server\root\CIMV2"
        username=".\user"
        password="password"
    	authority=""
        state="running"/>
      <add name="MSSQLSERVER"
    	path="\\server\root\CIMV2"
        username=".\user"
        password="password"
    	authority=""
        state="running"/>
    </remoteServices>
   

Use Start > Run > WBEMTEST to help test for valid path/username/password/authority settings.

2. Add your database connection string to the connectionStrings section of the Web.config:

    <connectionStrings>
      <clear/>
      <add name="ASPState"
           connectionString="Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=ASPState;User ID=sa;Pwd=tester12"
    	   providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
    </connectionStrings>
   

3. Configure logging to output to your logs directory. Be sure to give the IIS AppPool user account write permissions to your logs directory:

    <listeners>
      <add name="outfile"
           type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener"
           initializeData="c:\temp\upcheck.log"/>
    </listeners>
   

4. If debug is set to true, the exceptions that are thrown will be the actual exceptions encountered. If set to false, the exception will be a generic ERROR: message suitable for public viewing:

    <system.web>
      <compilation debug="true"
    		       targetFramework="4.0"/>
    </system.web>
   

5. Build and publish the bin/, up.ashx, and Web.config files to an IIS Virtual Directory (default settings are for ASP.NET 4).

6. Setup an HTTP monitor (i.e. binarycanary.com) to hit up.ashx periodically. A 200 response means that no exceptions were thrown. A 500 means an exception was encountered. Monitor the trace log for more details.