IT monitoring tools:
Server management is defined as the process or a task or a service which is associated with dealing with the servers so as to manage the server. Server management is mainly associated with involving the monitoring, updating, setup and other activities. Monitoring is mainly done upon the servers or the application which are running in the server which involves the status, uptime, and monitoring of the new or the recurring issues [1]. Updating the servers and the software which are installed in the server is also essential. There are different tools or methodologies which are mainly used for the purpose of continuous monitoring along with helping in overseeing the performance of the servers.
Server monitoring tools are associated with generation of the reports which helps in having a comprehensive server health as well as the capacity and the performance which exists in an operating environment [2]. The reports are associated with helping in a routine checkup of the servers which in turn is associated with providing a pre-emptive warning related to the working of the servers. This tool is associated with helping in tracking of the server activities.
There exists various type of monitoring tools and techniques so as to monitor the servers and some of the most popular server monitoring tools have been listed below:
NagiosCore
This is one of the most famous server monitoring tools which can be customized very easily and this is one of the cost-effective open server monitoring tool. The metrics provided by the NagiosCore tool is mainly associated with performing a check upon the server along with reporting and remediation of the services [3]. The NagiosCore is also seen to be associated with providing of monitoring features which are limited in nature.
Ganglia
Ganglia is another open source monitoring software which has designed only for being used by the computer with high speed such as the grids. The entire architecture of this software is scalable as well as distributed. The architecture has been created by considering the hierarchical design of which is associated with targeting the federations that the clusters or the grids are having. The transportation is generally represented as the XDR whereas the data is represented as the XML. The algorithm is engineered by this algorithm along with engineering the data structures so as to maximize the efficiency which is initially resulting in the formation of overheads for the individual nodes [4]. The monitoring tool is also seen to be associated with providing support to the other processes as well to the different operating systems.
Server monitoring architecture:
Zabbix
Zabbix is considered to be an enterprise solution which is characterized along with being equipped with the different characteristics. Besides all this the Zabbix software is also seen to be provided with the commercial support as well. Zabbix is also responsible for checking of the response time of the different services such as the HTTP. This is also seen to be associated with the checking of the uptime that the different responding services are having.
Cacti
Cacti is the front-end server monitoring tool which is also considered to be a graphing tool that the data systems are having. This tool is seen to be having the capacity of managing the processes associated with the collection of the data. The data gathering is generally done by usage of the scripts which are external and are associated with feeding the metrics [5]. The graphs which are generally produced is for any of the provided datasets. In addition to all this it is also possible to create a graph easily by making use of the different elements of the infrastructure which is also seen to be associated with the including of the servers as well as the load balancers.
CollectD
CollectD is another open source daemon or a server monitoring tool which is associated with the collection of the performance statistics and for storing the data which are collected in different kind of formats such as the RRD file. The software might also be associated with the usage of numerous operating systems. Besides this the software is also seen to be associated with searching and identification of the different bottlenecks related to the performances and for the purpose of predicting the load overtime present in the systems along with the creation of warnings [6]. The software is also consisting of an integrated graphing tool as well.
Spiceworks
This is the server monitoring tools which is mainly associated with providing of insights related to the servers, switches, services and the SNMP devices. SpiceWork is the server monitoring tool associated with finding out of the IP addresses of the devices along with providing of knowledge base and functions of the help desk.
Icinga
Icinga is the sever monitoring tool which is associated with the providing of the REST API along with the database connectors and is also considered to be an extension of the Nagios Server monitoring tool. The attributes of the API which are new is associated with helping in the easy integration of the different extensions which is not associated with needing any kind of direct modifications in the code.
Vulnerability of the data related to the availability and solution:
OpenNMS
OpenNMS is the server monitoring tool which is mainly associated with providing of the freemium option and is associated with allowing a connectivity to a limited number of devices which is not more than 10. This tool is having the capability of monitoring the applications along with the services remotely [7]. This server monitoring tools is seen to be driven by different kind of events and the tool is also having the capability of handling numerous events.
WhatsUp Gold.
This is one of the server monitoring tools which is associated with performing a check upon the applications as well as upon the servers and the status of the network devices which are present inside the premises or in the clouds. The tool is also associated with providing a comprehensive as well as interactive mapping of the entire network infrastructure. The tools along with all this is also associated with the monitoring of the flow of traffic, the applications and the wireless controllers as well [8]. The tool also helps in monitoring of the real-time warnings as well as the alerts which in turn is associated with making sure of providing an optimized performance.
Architecture for server availability monitoring:
Server monitoring is considered to eb very difficult task and there exists an essential need of routine monitoring of the servers. For the purpose of monitoring the servers often it is seen that the cloud computing architecture is being used. The database of the server monitoring is associated with reporting sending of alerts and maintaining of the services [9]. The architecture of the monitoring servers is mainly classified inti four different sections which is associated with including the Branch application, followed by the windows agent, the Linux agent and lastly the services.
The Server monitoring tools are mainly seen to be requiring a proper management and the tools are seen to be highly dependent upon the privileged access of the servers, Each and every tool is seen to be responsible for particular task as well as for the overtime whenever there exist multiple users who would be associated with accessing the servers. The point of entry is generally seen to be represented by the access of the servers which are in turn responsible for the occurrence of the cyber breach. Besides this there exists additional entry of the data, the vulnerabilities related to threats are seen to be increased. Vulnerabilities in the servers can be encountered by making use of the different tools.
Along with above discussed server monitoring tool there also exists an revolutionary scanning tool which is used for counter attacking the different kind of vulnerabilities. This tool is associated with overcoming the different security concerns along with providing of different kind of benefits as well.
The place at which software ages is usually not fixed, but it depends on the time changing system workload. This requires the measurement, depth psychology, and prediction of system resource expenditure. Due to the more price incurred by software greening, an important research is when to timetable this action. While occasional greening at fixed time separations is straightforward to carry out, it may not yield the best results.
The impacts of the failure of the monitoring tool has be listed below:
1-The main purpose of monitoring would be disturbed that is the security or the performance or the network status cannot be determined.
2-Not have the capability of detecting any kind of vulnerabilities which might be the reason lying behind the entire server failure
3-The server might crash if the server monitoring tools fail
4-Determination failure related to the needs of making the changes and this in turn is associated with determining if the change is at all need or not.
Conclusion:
Server monitoring is one of the essential needs of any organization who are associated with the usage of the servers and for the process of monitoring different kind of approaches or tools are used. The monitoring tools are associated with including a collection of machines as well as infrastructure level metrics which are associated with helping the operating teams in understanding the infrastructure. However, this is often seen to be experiencing failure in finding, isolating and troubleshooting the different performances. Some of the major server monitoring tools has been discussed in this report along with providing as comparison of the different tools as well.
References:
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- Chandran, and J. Walvekar, Monitoring in a Virtualized Environment. GSTF Journal on Computing (JoC), 1(1) , 2018.
- J. Syed, A. Gani, R.W. Ahmad, M.K. Khan, and A.I.A. Ahmed, Cloud monitoring: A review, taxonomy, and open research issues. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 98, pp.11-26, 2017.
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- Shetty, S. Saxena, G. Shobha, and J. Rastogi. Monitoring OpenStack Services Using Nagios, In Emerging Research in Computing, Information, Communication and Applications(pp. 485-495). Springer, New Delhi, 2015.
- octo Forster. Collectd, a daemon for collecting system performance statistics, 2015.
- Cardoso, CJV. TEIXEIRA, and JS. PINTO. Architecture for Highly Configurable Dashboards for Operations Monitoring and Support. Studies in Informatics and Control, 27(3), pp.319-330, 2018.
- S. Hilt, and P. Lin. Leaking Beeps: A Closer Look at IT Systems That Leak Pages. Trend Micro, Sept