There are different computer servers in our working place. We have a mail server, proxy server, database server, web server, ERP application server, and many more. Monitoring each server is a very important aspect of the daily operation. Experiencing a downtime in a server will have the helpdesk hotline flooded with calls.

Thus, server uptime is very important and the goal of system administrators is to have minimal or no downtime at all. A particular downtime could lead to a loss of revenue or profit. There is some mechanism developed that will minimize the impact on the site visitors whenever a glitch is the computer system or computer network happens. System fail over, server load balancing, site redirection is just some of the techniques employed.

Monitoring server uptime in order to minimize downtime and maintain availability could be done by server monitoring software. This software could send an automatic alert through email, pager, and messengers when there is a problem with the computer system, service, device, switches, and more. Computer specialist will be notified immediately whenever the website or server is down or having an access problem.

We’ve use Nagios open source web monitoring solution software for creating a comprehensive IT infrastructure monitoring. Depending on service provided by the server the Nagios monitoring software can check different protocols like HTTPS, HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IMAP, POP3, DNS, Telnet, SSL, TCP at regular intervals. Checking can be done for multiple servers with various operating systems like Linux, Windows and others. A small client application could be installed on the tracked server for detailed ports and services scanning

Having an automatic alert from a server monitoring software makes a difference in reducing downtimes. It also improves customer trust and reduces business loss.