dr.jeyllandme:

Try accessing the service it provides and see if it provides reasonably good service within your minimal limits.

Not a very helpful answer, is it? But you don't provide any information, so it's hard to point you to anything. You might try adding a bit to your question. Some things like: Operating system? What services does it provide? What do you mean by "health". How many and which services need to be dysfunctional to call the server "down"?

If you just want to ping it to see if it crashed, perhaps Net::Ping::External. Beyond that, you'll need to provide some details.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.