The modern world is pretty much all online these days and the same is true for businesses too.
You know, almost every company worldwide uses servers to store and access data.
Even all your favorite shopping and entertainment sites, like Amazon and Netflix, rely heavily on these servers to keep their services up and running constantly.
As a consequence, in 2024, it will become a necessity for IT administrators to find a way to protect these servers from failures and performance issues that can affect the operations or bottom line of the company.
So, What Exactly is Server Monitoring?
It is basically the process of reviewing and analyzing virtual and physical servers to look into their availability, operations, performance, security, and overall processes.
This way, no matter if you’re renting a VPS server from https://host-world.com/estonia-vps or a private server for hosting your business. IT admins can pretty much monitor, spot, and prevent any risks before they turn into issues that can affect your company’s day-to-day operations.
Why is Server Monitoring Important for Businesses?
Well, the world of online is pretty much based on an application economy.
This means that anyone with a smart device and an internet connection can get the products and services they need with the simple click of a button.
For businesses, this means that they need to come up with innovative digital experiences for their users and customers to keep them coming back.
This also means that the stakes for the IT team responsible for managing these operations is just that high.
DID YOU KNOW?
For every hour of downtime, a company can lose anywhere between $140,000 and $540,000. And these downtimes can happen a lot. Usually, on average a company can lose around $22 Million a year because of downtimes alone.
While servers being down will impact businesses, a slow server can also cost a company money.
Ultimately, one can only say that servers and systems can have a huge impact on if a business can meet its customer’s demands for digital services or not.
How Does Server Monitoring Work?
You know, server monitoring can be done manually by Sys Admins but it can pretty much involve logging into every server daily and checking the log files for any issues.
Monitoring tools can pretty much take care of all the legwork and they can constantly collect system data from across the entire infrastructure so that the admins can have a clear view of all the metrics.
These tools can also alert you if any system errors have been detected in the system.
Different Types of Server Monitoring Systems
You know, server monitoring systems can come in three basic types:
On-Premises/ Traditional Systems
These are pretty much installed on your local systems.
This software can also give you more customization options that can give you more control over where your data is stored.
Plus, these are the more expensive options for companies.
Cloud Based/ SaaS Systems
Cloud systems can be installed and managed entirely online.
Because there is no software installed on the user’s infrastructure, it is easy to rapidly install and launch systems in just a couple of hours.
And while cloud services are pretty flexible, they can oftentimes give you less control over the customization and personalization of traditional systems.
Besides, as these services are subscription-based, many do not even need you to have long-term contracts, which means that you can easily try different options to see which one fits your business.
Mobile Systems
Mobile systems are not one of the main types of server monitoring systems but many on-site and cloud options do support mobile applications in their systems.
You can easily use your smartphone or tablet to have easy access to all the server monitoring data.
Best Practices for Server Monitoring
Every server deployment can be different. Here are some of the industry best practices that can help your IT get the most out of their server monitoring solution.
Make Sure the Hardware is Operating Normally
You know, file servers are oftentimes used to their limits without any breaks.
You need to pay careful attention to key metrics like CPU temp, CPU and RAM usage, and storage to make sure that every one of your servers is always running at peak physical performance.
Monitor the Software for failures
You need to use server monitoring tools to watch out for any issues with the software problems as well as some hardware issues.
For example, these tools can help you get alerts about any issues before they happen or corrupt your database.
Capacity Planning
In the past couple of years, data center workloads have nearly doubled and servers have had to keep up with this use.
You need to check on the long-term server use so you can be prepared for any future spikes.
Improve Your Asset Management and Tracking
Server monitoring can pretty much tell you when your systems are at their end or tell you if any data has vanished from the servers.
So, instead of looking at spreadsheets, you can let server monitoring tools do the work for you.
Things to Look For in a Good Server Monitoring Tool
If you’re thinking of getting a server monitoring tool for your business, you’ll want to check out the following key things to keep in mind.
- It needs to cover all the server types used in your business as well as support any upgrades you make in the future.
- It needs to have easy-to-set alerts so you can easily get notified of any issues.
- It needs to have some good logic or AI to help you get to the root of the problem
- It should be easy to use.
- It also needs to have good technical support in case you need help.
For small businesses, the cost of downtime per minute falls in the range of $137 to $427 per minute.
Conclusion
Servers are pretty much the core of the business of any company.
This means that your IT needs to take every step necessary to make sure that they are at their best.
So, if you have smart server monitoring in place to fix any issues as they arise.