Server monitoring is a valuable tool when it is set up and configured correctly. With a server monitoring service, there are several things you can do if you have the right knowledge. Obtaining that knowledge is easy when you have experts in your employee or on contract.
For others, access to experts is not as easy to come by. For those of you who don’t have easy access to experts or even those of you who want to find out exactly what your experts can be doing with your server monitoring system, here are 5 things experts should know how to do.
1. Identity server usage trends.
Experts can use server monitoring configuration settings to help generate data and reports that show server usage. This data is vital to know if your servers can provide reliable access with quick data access speeds.
2. Identify potential server vulnerabilities
Your servers can have vulnerabilities that leave them open to attack from hackers internally and externally. Your server monitoring experts should be able to review various reports to help find and fix vulnerabilities.
3. Not solely rely on “server down” alerts.
One mistake some people make is to mistakenly assume their server is down when server monitoring software is not able to connect to the server. There could be several reasons why the alert is sent. For example, internet service is down at your remote office.
This would give a false alert even though the server is up and running. Experts understand this and will use the alerts to confirm if a server is down before rebooting it.
4. Identify the causes of server outages.
When servers go down, it means your employees cannot work and your customers cannot get on your website to shop and buy your products and services. Server monitoring system experts should know that they need to determine the cause of server outages to help prevent them in the future.
Sometimes finding out why the server crashed can be uncovered in various reports that are generated from the data collected by server monitoring software.
5. Identify server attacks and shut them down.
Experts in server monitoring know how to configure monitoring software to alert when there are server attacks. They also know how to configure other settings in various server monitoring service software applications to perform various actions to stop an attack without having to take the server offline.
How to Become an Expert in Server Monitoring
There are several things you can do to enhance your server monitoring skills to become more of an expert. These include:
- Determine system priorities and urgency to create alerts.
- Identify, develop, and configure alerts that are best for you.
- Use agent-based and remote monitoring solutions.
- Test, test, and test your monitoring system and alerts.
- Make revisions and test some more.
- Know where to send alerts to get the fastest response (i.e., email, text message, etc.)
- Know who is going to resolve alerts when they occur and how.
- If you are not receiving alerts, something could be configured wrong or not working correctly.
- Do not be afraid to ask for help from others with more expertise.
- Document, document, document. You need to document everything you did, even when it was wrong, so you know what does and does not work for your needs.
By using the right server monitoring tools and these tips, you can start to hone your skills to become an expert.
About Power Admin
Power Admin has been developing professional-grade system and server monitoring products for many years. We update our products regularly based on customer feedback and requests for enhancements. PA Server Monitoring and our other networking monitoring and server monitoring solutions are used by Fortune 500 companies.
To learn more about PA Server Monitor and our other simple and easy-to-use server monitoring solutions, or to download your FREE 30-day fully functional trial, please feel free to visit our official website at poweradmin.com or contact us at 1-800-401-2339 today!
