C# Check Remote Server

Question

Can anyone advise what the best way to check (using .NET 3.5) if a remote server is available?

I was thinking of using the following code but would like to know if

Answer 1

just to add to Dan's answer... I just had to implement this and here is a nice little code snippet that should help out those that make it here from Google.

Imports System.Net
Private Function URLExists(pURL As String) As Boolean

    Try
        'Creating the HttpWebRequest
        Dim request As HttpWebRequest = TryCast(WebRequest.Create(pURL), HttpWebRequest)
        'Setting the Request method HEAD, you can also use GET too.
        request.Method = "HEAD"
        'Getting the Web Response.
        Dim response As HttpWebResponse = TryCast(request.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)
        'Returns TURE if the Status code == 200
        Return (response.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.OK)
    Catch
        'Any exception will returns false.
        Return False
    End Try
End Function

sorry it is VB but that is what I had in front of me. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to convert this to C# as needed.