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As IT systems evolve and grow thanks to the increasing influx of data from an ever-increasing list of endpoint devices, additional monitoring of servers and processes is being required. Specifically, this means middleware for servers, storage, and networking hardware and software that monitors and creates alerts for power usage, carbon footprints, performance issues and software/firmware patch management.
As systems become more sophisticated, this brings a question to the fore: What happens when those important monitoring tools—upon which admins depend—fail? Who’s monitoring the monitors?
As it turns out, there’s an app for that, too.
ManageEngine, which provides the Site24x7 cloud infrastructure monitoring service, on Jan. 21 launched a new, free-of-charge cloud-based service that monitors conventional on-premises network, system and application monitoring products.
Making Sure No App Goes Down
The new service, which entails the installation of a 1MB agent, enables IT to monitor the monitors themselves to make sure the software that companies rely on is working effectively. It enables admins to start and stop monitoring processes from a mobile device and provides alerts if an on-premises monitoring solution goes down.
“Enterprise IT systems are heavily instrumented—the app servers, the Web servers, databases and so on. Technicians rely on this monitoring data to make sure everything is running smoothly within the data center,” ManageEngine President Raj Sabhlok told eWEEK. “And as a result, the tools themselves have become very critical. If something were to happen and the monitors blow up, serious problems could occur without admins knowing about them.”
How It Works
The Site24x7 agent works in this way: It monitors the uptime of the monitoring system by using port checks, system uptime checks and process uptime checks. If a failure is detected in the monitoring software, the software agent reports to Site24x7 in the cloud, which can immediately alert any individuals that the server owner specifies—via SMS, email, mobile push notifications for iPhone/Android or even voice calls.
Once an administrator receives an alert, he or she can interact with Site24x7 in the cloud and take corrective actions via a mobile phone.
The free Site24x7 monitoring service works with many of the most popular on-premises monitoring products, including ManageEngine, Hewlett-Packard, Kaseya, Nagios, SolarWinds and Ipswitch, Sabhlok said. It passes status information to Site24x7 in the cloud using secure, firewall-friendly communications protocols. IT managers can view system status, percentage of CPU and memory use, and thread and handle counts for all their monitored servers through a single Site24x7 console.
Site24x7 itself is ManageEngine’s cloud infrastructure monitoring service, monitoring the uptime and performance of Websites, online applications and servers. The monitoring is done from 50-plus locations around the world, thus giving users a global perspective of the end-user experience. Site24x7 supports monitoring HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, TCP, IMAP, SSL, Ping, FTP, SFTP, DNS and other Internet-facing network services.
For more information on Site24x7 and the new monitor-monitoring service, go here.