Self-Contained Monitoring Solutions
Servers and applications deployed in the cloud on services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure require the same level of monitoring as if they were hosted in your on-premises infrastructure. Fortunately, these services provide fairly robust monitoring capabilities that can be used for your hosted environment. These typically cover hardware-level metrics like network I/O, disk performance, memory usage and CPU, as well as service and application availability monitors. Activating monitoring and alerting from the web portal is a simple process, which involves setting the appropriate monitoring thresholds that trigger alerts to designated contacts.
In-House Server Monitoring Alternatives
Nagios (www.nagios.com) is a popular monitoring tool for servers, usually installed within your infrastructure, but can be extended to your cloud environment by setting up appropriate access rights. Nagios monitors just about every health metric for your managed infrastructure with its open source edition, but can also add dashboards and incident management features in its commercial editions.
Cloud Application Monitoring…Via the Cloud
Third-party application monitors range from uptime analysis services from sites like www.siteuptime.com and www.uptrends.com to log monitoring services like Splunk. With their newly introduced SplunkStorm (www.splunkstorm.com), multiple means of data input are available, including forwarders installed on your managed servers, calls to an XML API, and file uploads making this service extremely flexible. From there, searching logs and monitoring for incidents is enhanced by sophisticated visual tools in their web interface.
A Hybrid
New Relic (www.newrelic.com) is an up-and-coming player in the cloud monitoring space, focusing on web and mobile application monitoring through the cloud. An added benefit is the ability to monitor your on-premise infrastructure in its integrated web console.
Like most infrastructure and application decisions, it’s really a matter of your policies, budget, and interface preference in terms of solving your system monitoring needs. Many of the services we’ve noted above offer free trials and/or open source versions. The best approach is to give them a try!
For more information on Monitoring Cloud-Based Servers and Applications, contact Superior Technology Solutions. We look forward to sharing our extensive technology background with your organization. For more information, visit us on the web at www.superiortechnology.com or call us at 845-735-3555.
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