A Detailed Insight into Server Monitoring

Server Monitoring 

Server monitoring is the process of collecting and analyzing data in order to ensure that servers are working optimally. Server monitoring basically reviews and examines the server for availability, operations, and performance. Server administrators make sure that the server is performing up to the par and try to discard the problems as they become visible. The data used by server monitoring includes the Key Performance Indicators (KPI), application availability and network connectivity.

Briefly,

• Server monitoring chiefly includes all the precautionary measures that help you in detecting issues before they cause any major disruption.
• Server monitoring is a continuous scanning process which check for failures, irregularities that are detected by server monitoring software.

Importance of Server Monitoring

Enterprises these days are heavily relying on technological infrastructure to compete with their virtual competitors on the digital landscape. Technological upgrade enterprises are becoming increasingly concerned over downtime issue. Downtime badly hurts business productivity and reputation. For this increasing concern, enterprises are now using server monitoring tools and software to avoid any technical hurdles and disruption. Server monitoring helps firms by

• Ensuring service availability
• Saving costs
• Avoiding major technical flaws

Server monitoring can be executed either by using manual practices or through automated server monitoring software. Server monitoring functions are divided into different working objectives according to the type of server:

1. Application servers screen for sever availability and responsiveness.
2. Storage server check for availability, ability, delay and any loss of data
3. Web servers are used for scrutinizing user load, security and speed.

Server monitoring main objective is to protect server from any evident malfunction. Server monitoring also screen the performance and function of components including:

• CPU utilization
• Storage availability
• Communication interface responsiveness 

Server Monitoring Tools

Server monitoring tools are used to check problems which are caused by overloaded or crashed servers or network connection failure. Monitoring tools evaluate and measure availability, response time, memory usage, CPU usage, disk space. Monitoring tools also assist in tracking the process of applications including MySQL, Apache, Nginx, Postgres, and others.

Server monitoring tools help in automating server management and provide real-time performance updates. There are multiple monitoring tools available on the tech store today depending on the versatility of the project. Kind of infrastructure, the stack which is to be monitored, time and resource allocation and integration play a key role in determining the type of monitoring tool for the project.

Top Server Monitoring Tools

1. Cacti
2. Ganglia
3. Nagios Core
4. AppOptics
5. Zabbix
6. OP5
7. Icinga
8. Retrace

Server Monitoring Service

Server monitoring services provide meticulous information about the shape of server, performance benchmark, alert aptitude level, data visualization and report detailing. Monitoring services enable you in the understanding server system and enhance end-user experience. The health of the application completely depends upon the health of the server. Server monitoring service ensures that the server machine is competent of hosting all the applications.

Server monitoring services mainly deliver:

• Server monitoring
• Network device monitoring
• Web server monitoring
• Database server monitoring

These services assist enterprises to attain optimum solutions for their technical problems, maximize return on investment and get maximum support for required business need. Enterprises are also experiencing enhanced performance, increased productivity, improved return on investment and peace of mind. 

Server Monitoring Software

Server administrators with the help of server monitoring software work on performance, availability and security metrics which provides data on CPU and RAM deployment, number of suspicious malware attacks, user load and bandwidth consumption. This instantaneous information allows firms to tackle minor issues before they become major troubleshooting problems. 

Monitoring software provides statistical insights, visual reports, storage, application, and network metrics. Monitoring software also helps in keeping an eye on decisive IP-connected devices and services in real time. Monitoring software solutions track down the application’s performance and display data in form of charts and graph which provide users with instant and easy to read optics.

Server Performance Metrics

Servers are the backbone of any computer system which manages the most crucial terms of web activities. Metrics, also known as Key Performance Indicators (KPI) allow you to evaluate the shape and health of the server and avoid any kind of anomalies. Some of the most imperative performance metrics are:

Error Rates is one of the most considerable metrics as it deals with the performance failure in the app. It lets you know about the total number of failed requests which have occurred during a particular period of time.  The error rate is calculated as a proportion of problem requests with respect to all requests.

Request per Second (RPS)is the estimation process of checking how many requests per second are being sent to the target server. It basically gives an understanding of the workload on a web application.

Average Response Time (ART)is the duration process of every request/ response cycle that a target web application takes to generate a response. ART is one of the best performance indicator showing reflections of the speed of web application.

Peak Response Time (PRT)is similar to average response time but the key difference is that PRT tells about the longest cycle which is on testing point.

Uptime is the total sum of time which a server has taken in order to run properly. Uptime shows the reliability and feasibility of server.

Server Monitoring Challenges

• One of the biggest challenges of server monitoring is the management of an increasing number of servers with limited resources. Small scale organizations with limited resources often face this problem, hence server management and monitoring process becomes difficult for them. 
• Different servers have different operating systems, which require diverse methods for the implementation, management and monitoring process. Hence IT infrastructure sometimes becomes complex to handle. 
• Sustaining and maintaining the functional capability and stability of monitoring servers.
• Management of resource utilization sometimes becomes crucial. Increased load on servers often crash the hardware resources.