Server Monitoring
This will log you into our Server Monitoring System which will display the status of any computers/servers/network equipment covered by your Service Level Agreement. If your not an existing client you can logon using the demo credentials below to see what you are missing.
Go to http://dashboard.swcomputers.co.uk
Username: demo@swcomputers.co.uk
Password: Demo2008
Our Server Monitoring solution is based on an award winning software platform which we have customised to fulfill our clients needs. We install a small agent program on the monitored Server, configure it and it runs in the background of your Server and uploads small amounts of information to our own servers about various system health checks.
There are two categories of system checks, the daily health check and the 24x7 checks.
The daily health check can check things such as the following:
Backups - supports various Backup solutions including NT Backup
Antivirus Updates - Check your using the most up to data updates
Hacker Check - Checks for a Brute Force Attack (someone guessing your password)
Drive Space Change - Has something suddenly used a large amount of disk space?
Physical Disk Health - Check your HDD's are healthy - backup and replace before they fail
Critical Event Logs - Has your server logged any major problems?
The 24x7 Checks are typically run every 15 minutes, but as often as 5 minutes to keep you really informed. Useful checks on the 24x7 side include the following:
Performance Check - Is your Server running correctly, is something hogging processor or memory resources which may cause unacceptable delays to other users?
Disk Space Check - If you hard drives are too full users may not be able to save files to the network or it may cause serious problems if the operating system hard drive is full.
Network Performance - Monitor routers, switches and network cards, is your network congested, sudden massive congestion could indicate a security problem.
TCP Port Checks - Monitors open and closed ports on Servers/Computers/Routers on your network, should a server accept email on port 25 all the time, this will warn you if its closed, or likewise if someone has opened a dangerous port on a computer such as an FTP incoming port - be warned early.
Windows Services - Typical Windows Services which are critical to your network i.e. DNS, DHCP, Exchange, SharePoint etc
Exchange - Keeps an eye on the size of your Exchange Data Files.
Event Logs - Checks your application, security, system logs for any potential problems.
The below is a screenshot from our monitoring system, which is monitoring one of our own Windows Server 2003 x64 systems at a small office, from this you can quickly see that it gives you a last response time, last reboot time, details of the server and then begins to give responses that have been setup, you can also see that from here we can easily remote desktop into the computer in question, or we can configure the system to send a TEXT alert to our engineers and/or the client if they a particular check fails i.e. backup hasn't worked two nights in a row!
This is a screen shot of our "Wall Chart" display which is mounted in our workshop, office and living room of our technical director, this allows us to keep an active eye on the various monitored servers.
Each symbol represents a specific key test or group of tests for example the Safe indicates the backup status, if there is a cross then the backup has not worked or cannot be determined. The triangle with the ! inside is a hacker alert, in this case a false alarm - although it was worth knowing about as a user's password had expired, it hadn't been changed and their PDA was continuing to attempt to collect her email with the old password.
This is an example of our MiniDash view which allows you to view your own Server status by visiting http://dashboard.swcomputers.co.uk/minidash on your mobile or PDA. We use this view to keep an active eye on your servers, or to get more information while onsite fixing issues!
In this example you can see that HM Coroners office in Truro had an issue on the 26/01/2008 with their Tape Backup, which we quickly determined was down to the Tape not being inserted on the Friday, even so our technicians kept an close on the next backup to ensure that was successful.
On top of our monitoring you can also we will send you a daily/weekly and monthly report which will outline your Server performance and if we are working on any current issues!
