The ServerView Monitoring platform checks the uptime and performance status of servers, networks, websites, network devices, etc. to ensure these assets are available and functioning optimally. 24/7 infrastructure monitoring from agents located worldwide provides immediate alerts and diagnostics when errors occur.
How Infrastructure Monitoring with ServerView works
ServerView organizes monitoring as sequentially executing tasks within devices and also provides extensive reporting options. Dotcom-Monitor has monitoring agents positioned worldwide covering major Internet backbones. These worldwide infrastructure monitoring agents each independently monitor a businesses’ Internet assets (ex. website, web server, video stream, DNS server, etc.) at a frequency established by the account owner, such as once per 1-minute, 3, 5, 10, or 15-minutes, etc. If the performance or functionality of any monitored asset falls outside of parameters specified by the user account an error condition is triggered. Once an error is triggered, an alert is immediately sent via several options, including email, SMS, phone call, SNMP trap, or email to phone. The alert process also includes a website snapshot and a network traceroute to help with diagnostics to minimize downtime. When an account is set up and monitoring targets are specified infrastructure monitoring begins immediately.
It is important to understand that summarized data in a report on monitoring device is based on measurements of all monitoring targets associated with a device. Therefore, we recommend that you separate unrelated monitoring targets (for example, an HTTP target, a SIP target, and a PING target) into separate devices. This is because reports and alerts aren’t accurate when non-related tasks are combined into a single device. When targetsare not closely related to each other it is recommended to only have one target per device.
Devices operate independently of each other, and if you have fewer targets in a device, you will receive faster alerts.
ServerView Monitoring Platform Coverage
Server Uptime Monitoring
Server uptime monitoring provides details on availability, response time, and server uptime performance. A primary benefit of uptime monitoring is it helps ensure issues are detected quickly and the percentage of server uptime remains high (ex. 99.9% uptime). Also, when server uptime is impacted it is preferable that an uptime monitoring service is first to detect the issue, instead of customers. The Dotcom-Monitor® server uptime monitoring system provides notification of network error conditions that impact connecting to a server, as well as server issues (such as 500 errors). The use of multiple server monitoring agents and redundant checks against “false alarms” ensures alerts are only sent when a server uptime issue is verified.
Mail Server Monitoring
Checks mail servers running SMTP, POP3, and IMAP services for functionality, availability, and performance. Mail servers are checked independently, or in a full-cycle mail check (sending an email to a mailbox using SMTP, then retrieving the email using IMAP or POP3). Processes for inbound mail and internal mail servers are checked, including the time it takes for the server to process incoming mail.
VoIP Monitoring
Dotcom-Monitor® monitors VoIP services using SIP acting as an end client, placing an actual telephone call to a specified number and checking the results of that call. To accomplish this, Dotcom-Monitor® is provisioned as either an extension or a client, on the VoIP system and configured to call a specific number using a specified SIP server. The expected result of the call is set up as “Answer”, “No Answer”, “Busy”, or an Error Condition (if there is an unexpected result).
FTP Monitoring Service
This service attempts to connect to a specified FTP server, then using a user name and password provided logs into the FTP server and issues a directory-listing command for a specific directory. Finally, after the contents of the directory are listed the FTP Monitoring Service checks that directory for specific files.
Video Streaming Monitoring
Checks video stream performance and availability, similar to a Windows Media Player. Ensures a connection to the media server can be made, performs buffering and plays the stream for 3-5 seconds, then disconnects. The service monitors most streams that can be played using Windows Media Player. Measures performance metrics, including Connection Time, Buffering Time, Packages Received, Buffering Packages, Frame Rate, and Average Bytes/Sec.
Private Agent
A version of ServerView Monitoring services that is downloaded and installed inside a system’s firewall. Private Agent is used within a network to monitor devices not visible from outside the network.
Network Monitoring
External Network Monitoring service by Dotcom-Monitor ensures maximum uptime and availability of your network infrastructure, web servers, and applications. ServerView Monitoring Platform makes network monitoring configuration an easy task both for beginners and experienced network administrators.
DNS Monitoring Service
DNS servers are checked by querying a specified server in order to resolve a specific internet address. If the DNS server is unable to resolve the address, or unavailable, the Dotcom-Monitor® notification process starts. Domain Name Servers (DNS) are used to translate domain names to IP addresses. If the DNS server supporting an organization is down or slow, multiple services, such as mail servers, websites, or proxy servers may be unavailable to the outside world.
Port Monitoring Service
Dotcom-Monitor agents attempt a connection with a specific port on a web server using TCP and UDP protocols to determine if the remote computer is accepting connections on that port. If the connection is not accepted, then the service is likely down and the alert process starts.
DNS Blacklist Monitoring
We query major DNS Blacklist (DNSBLs) databases for IP, or the hostname you specify and if the host is found in a database an alert is triggered. This monitoring is based on the Internet Domain Name System itself, whereby DNSBLs are published to online lists of DNS addresses that are reported to be spammers. Most mail transport agent (mail server) software can be configured to reject, or flag messages that have been sent from a site listed on one, or more lists of spammers. If the mail servers are added to the “spammer” databases it will cause other companies to deny email delivery from those servers. It is important to know if your servers are listed in DNSBLs as quickly as possible. If a server is detected as part of a DNSBLS, then steps can be taken to request that the servers be removed from the “spammer” lists in a timely fashion and finding the root cause for such entry can be pursued.
Ping and Traceroute Monitoring Service
The Ping command sends an ICMP echo request to a target name or IP address, in order to verify IP-level connectivity. This is useful for ensuring the integrity of routers, firewalls, and many other Internet appliance devices.
Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool for showing the path and measuring the latency of packets as they travel through the Internet. It helps to identify network hops around the world that make your service slow or unreachable to your clients.
Traceroute maps and aggregates packets as they travel from our monitoring nodes to your host(s) and shows packet loss and latency.