The modern organization is heavily dependent on technology. It’s brought convenience and efficiency to the management of vendor, employee, customer, transaction, and business data. This tech dependency has, however, led to a complex web of hardware and software that includes servers, routers, desktop computers, smartphones, operating systems, and enterprise applications.
Staying on top of this web of systems is difficult. Servers, in particular, are the nerve center of your IT operations and must, therefore, be running well at all times. With some organizations relying on hundreds of individual servers, manual monitoring is impractical. Server monitoring applications automate this process. The following are some important advantages of server monitoring software.
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1. Better Productivity
Every day, IT departments must walk a tight rope balancing their routine operations and the need to troubleshoot ad hoc system outages. It’s safe to say that the day of a system administrator can be fairly unpredictable. Therefore, any automation of routine IT operations, such as server monitoring, would be hugely beneficial.
Automation frees server administrators, so they can concentrate on other tasks. This can substantially boost the department’s productivity. Server monitoring tools can continuously check for suspicious, anomalous, or sub-optimal system behavior then send an alert to administrators when an issue that requires resolution is noted.
2. Catch Problems Early
No system can guarantee 100 percent up time. Irrespective of how secure and thoroughly configured it is, there’ll be problems at some point that will degrade performance or render the server inaccessible. But while problems are inevitable, how they are managed is crucial.
In particular, how soon you can detect the problem will determine the scale of its impact. A seemingly small issue that’s left unattended can rapidly spiral into a catastrophic incident that brings down your entire network. Monitoring tools will help you capture issues early and, therefore, give system administrators ample time to fix them before they cause much damage.
3. Improved Security
When many people think about server monitoring, performance is what first comes to mind. But monitoring is about ensuring system security is up to speed too. If your IT security is not effective, all your work on bettering server performance can go down the drain with one successful attack.
Monitoring server security is about ensuring patches are applied as soon as they are announced, firewall configuration is robust and that the entire network is built from the ground up with security at the center. By preventing malware infection or unauthorized user access, server monitoring can reduce server downtime, strengthen the business’s brand and keep customers contented.
4. Advanced Planning for Hardware Upgrade
Technology departments can get so caught up in troubleshooting and routine that they forget about rapidly diminishing resource capacity. By the time they realize that server disk space, RAM, bandwidth, and processors are urgently due for an upgrade, they may be under so much pressure to deliver that they fail to make the most prudent choices.
Server monitoring tools will start to issue alerts well before resource capacity reaches critical levels. That way, IT departments can start planning and budgeting for the upgrade well in advance and have the time to identify the best deals.
5. Assign a Specialist from the Get-Go
Technology teams in large organizations comprise members with diverse specializations. Hardware technicians, network administrators, database administrators, server administrators, security specialists, and application developers are just some of the job descriptions you’d find in a typical IT department.
When a system problem arises, a lot of time goes to waste identifying the cause and thereafter assigning the matter to the appropriate specialist for resolution. Server monitoring software gives precision to troubleshooting. If it’s a database problem, the alert will be sent out directly to the database administrator, thus reducing the time it takes for the issue to be rectified.
Whether you are a small business running a couple of servers or a global corporation powered by thousands of servers, server monitoring tools will help you better protect and manage your technology assets.