Mutiny Blog

Modern organisations, without fail, rely on their infrastructure and technology to run their businesses. Propping up the infrastructure are the servers that keep the whole thing running. Businesses rely on these machines for data storage together with the processing and execution of often business critical applications. So from a maintenance perspective, server health should be one of the top priorities on your list but often neglected due to the time consuming effort involved in doing this properly.

Monitoring, using a system such as Mutiny, can ensure that your server is healthy and warn you of any impending failure, but what are the signs that you should be looking to tell you when potential issues are on their way?

1. Unusual Logs

It may sound obvious, but the logs generated by your servers are a rich source of information about their health. Generated constantly, 24/7 they can reveal even subtle server issues quickly. Monitoring of these should be a constant process, but not necessarily a manual one. Automated monitoring can be used to pick up warnings and errors with notifications then sent to your teams before issues escalate. Additionally, keeping a central repository of server logs will support your team in tracking down the causes of errors.

2. Speed and Latency

Often poor performance can be put down to an automated update, or a particularly memory intensive process, however if poor system performance is constant or it's getting worse then this could be a sign of potential issues. Automated monitoring can be used to routinely query servers and measure for example: CPU, memory leaks and disk utilisation, server database size, buffer & cache performance, log files, connections, transactions and so on.

3. Poor response rate

If a server is struggling then its ability to respond will be impaired. Pinging these servers, is a simple way to ascertain if a server is alive however, testing it is responsive and that it can accept connections is better. Slow or slowing response times could serve to indicate escalating issues which need to be addressed.Automated monitoring can take over this function to ensure servers are up and functioning. Solutions can even test specific ports, depending upon the role of your server.

Simplifying the process through automation and centralised monitoring.

With businesses often utilising multiple servers for different uses, across multiple sites and data centres, the difficulty of manually ensuring they stay live and performing properly is obvious. Though they are mission critical to a business, manually monitoring them just may not be possible.

The advantages of automated monitoring are clear. It takes the strain and the worry away from server management. It removes the mundane, time consuming, manual processes involved in continuously monitoring servers no matter where they are. It frees individuals up to concentrate on more important duties.

Having a combined centralised solution gives you visibility, reporting and alerting in one place. Automation of alerts means that when issues do occur your team can be notified via email or text, removing the requirement to constantly watch screens and speeding up reaction times.

If you would like to see a live demonstration of the Mutiny monitoring product or discuss the options available, please get in touch.