Is server monitoring crucial for your business?

While some companies have never experienced a serious outage in services, it's still smart to invest in a monitoring tool for detecting server downtime. In doing so, it's possible to diagnose problems before they spiral out of control.

Organizations may first consider free, open-source tools as a cost-effective alternative to paid enterprise versions. However, these free tools require deeper technical understanding to use them efficiently, with regular manual configurations and updates. Also, they lack robust reporting, like root cause analysis (RCA), and instant alerting features, and do not include easy user management. Gradually, organizations end up investing more money and time on free tools than they would on an enterprise monitoring tool that would make a system admin's job easier and less cumbersome.

So, how do you select a monitoring tool? Before talking about that, let's discuss what server monitoring software is, and how a business can be affected by a server outage.

What is server monitoring?
Server monitoring is the process of monitoring and analyzing all server resources to understand server capacity and ensure high availability and performance. A continuous check on server usage patterns helps optimize the services and processes running in applications accordingly, perceive any potential bottlenecks, and resolve them before they can affect operations.

For example, Site24x7's server monitoring not only monitors servers with more than 60 performance metrics, but uses its AI-based algorithm to detect any aberrations. It also provides IT Automation tools for automatic fault resolution.

Now that we've learned what a server monitoring tool is, let's look at the business impact an unnoticed server outage could have.

Stumbling blocks of not having a monitoring service
There are numerous reasons downtime can occur: an application might be consuming a lot of memory, a disk partition might be filled up with logs, or a single server might be handling workloads beyond its optimal capacity. Without a monitoring solution in place, it's easy for an IT admin handling more than 100 servers in a production environment to miss these issues. Eventually, not only would the organization experience poor server performance, but it may also lose business opportunities.

Accordingly, server monitoring saves money by reducing these risks and keeping reputation intact as well. With instant alerting systems and detailed RCA reports, monitoring servers with a tool like Site24x7 Server Monitoring means that admins know about issues before they occur and can resolve them before end users are affected.

Additionally, the information on over and underutilized resources can help IT admins make better decisions about managing assets, and ultimately save money.

The final decision: Selecting an efficient monitoring tool
Big or small, outages do have a direct relationship with an organization's balance sheet. Instead of being adversely affected by downtime, investing in a monitoring tool is vital to avoid losses related to server issues.

However, choosing the right monitoring tool entirely depends on the organization's requirements. Nevertheless, the following are imperative in a monitoring solution:

• Easily configurable in 100s of servers with bulk deployment options
• Simple maintenance
• Intuitive reports to view the entire IT infrastructure at a glance
• Expanding integrations to customize monitoring needs
• No hidden costs
• Scalability as the business grows

Site24x7 Server Monitoring offers all of these options and more for just $9 per month for 10 servers, and includes over 60 performance metrics, one minute polling frequency, RCA, and IT Automation tools. Sign up for a 30-day free trial now!