Spikes, outages, overloads – there is a lot of horrible things that can happen to a server. One minute your business is operating normally, the next – it is not operating at all. No access to databases, no access to data, staff records, financials, transactions, everything is out. Can your business risk it all only because your database providers were the cheaper option?

Cheaper means something is lacking – proper server monitoring, for example. But first, let’s establish why is that important and do you even need server monitoring.

To adapt to externalities or to do things your way is up to you, of course, but more often bespoke solutions that are developed for your particular business work better.

Define the problem

What’s server monitoring?

Server Monitoring is a process to monitor server's system resources like CPU Usage, Memory Consumption, I/O, Network, Disk Usage, Process etc. Server Monitoring helps to understand the server's system resource usage which can help you better your capacity planning and provide a better end-user experience and ensure that things run smoothly. Generally monitoring tools allows the following:

• Monitor CPU, Disk and System Processes
• Memory Consumption, I/O, Network monitoring
• Hardware Monitoring & Virtualization Monitoring
• Automated, 24x7 alerting
• Remote monitoring and maintenance
• In-depth and consistent view into parameters
• Realtime reporting

All of the above is needed to make sure that all the tasks – the software, databases, front-end sites, and everything that runs in the background, run smoothly and there are no unexpected outages and overloads and if there is any maintenance necessary. With so many background tasks running in your servers, it can be quite difficult to know what is being written or modified to or from your files. A monitoring eye to notify of such changes would be a real time-saver to keep you aware of unauthorized access and save your precious data.

Depending on the complexity of the business operation and the server load the tools needed for Some monitoring tools and software database providers will be more flexible and allow the process to be easier to apply and others will force you to do things their way.

To adapt to externalities or to do things your way is up to you, of course, but more often bespoke solutions that are developed for your particular business work better. At least in Tentacle Solutions’ experience.

Apply the solution

Can you risk handling it all on your own? Or going for a cheaper solution to risk the wrath of your customers and the frustration of our employees when the servers go down? Is there any company that can afford that? Hardly.

With five servers of their own, Tentacle Solutions has a team dedicated to the server monitoring and maintenance, with their own set of protocols and procedures. They have developed and polished their methodology over the last fifteen years and have ensured the stability and comfort for hundreds of clients and their software databases.

If you had problems with your server, need an upgrade from your 64mb RAM Linux server and 30-year-old Access database make sure to drop a line to Tentacle’s team and they’ll definitely come up with a solution for you.