Single Website Monitoring Makes Sense; Lets You Focus on Road Ahead

by Hovhannes Avoyan | Jan 18, 2010

When I go to visit a prospective client, I’m often asked to explain why it’s better to have a single website monitoring service to oversee that company’s websites and other public services externally, as well as its networks and servers internally? Why a single solution rather than two or more? Wouldn’t multiple solutions be better apt to handle the many problems that arise?

Well, for one, your IT department will have a much simpler job. A single solution will literally alter the way that IT operates.

Let’s look at it this way. When you’re driving your car to a new destination, you’re typically required to watch a number of things in order to drive safely – for example, the dashboard to check on speed and remaining fuel plus a map to make sure you don’t’ get lost. In fact, to coordinate it all, you have to pull over every so often to check the map, ask for directions if needed, get gas and make sure your car’s running properly.

But if you have technology like a GPS navigator – you get a single solution that handles multiple tasks: a map that knows your speed and current location, and it eliminates the need for you to stop to coordinate multiple tasks. You always know where you are and, by setting your destination, you’re sure about the route you’re taking and how long it will take you to get there.

Think of it this way, too. A GPS allows you to save time and have more fun and less stress on the road. When you are late, you can focus on driving, but if you’ve got more than enough time, you can find points of interest along the way, without having to worry about getting lost.

So, why not consider a single product for monitoring IT networks, one that combines the understanding of delivered service levels provided by external monitoring systems with the knowledge of resource use you get from internal server and network monitoring. You’d wind up with the detailed picture, combined with an accurate assessment of the end-user experience.

Choosing the right, single solution, you can track:

• The uptime and speed of websites
• Servers, including those that are virtualized or housed on the cloud
• Desktops, including assets monitoring
• Applications such as email, VoIP, databases, business applications, processes, transactions
• Networks, including switches, routers, VPN, firewall, DNS, VoIP
• Printers
• Notifications, including email, SMS, IM, Twitter, RSS

A single website, network and server monitoring service can handle a multitude of tasks efficiently – leaving IT managers to better focus on more pressing issues.