Every IT infrastructure depends on web servers to host applications, services, and the sites themselves. Without them, users wouldn’t be able to browse social networking sites, stream media, or do other activities, whether on a computer or through a mobile app on your Android device. As more services move online, monitoring your web servers becomes more critical. In this AppOptics blog you can find a guide to web server monitoring, and in this article, we’ll look at what it involves and the advantages of having a good solution.
The Importance of Good Monitoring
There plenty of reasons to monitor web server health and performance for your business. There’s a lot to look at, including requests for your host resources, like RAM, disk access, and CPU. You’ll also want to look at whether other servers are available to help proxy requests. The tool handles requests from users for online content, so if it isn’t performing well, it will noticeably impact a user’s experience. If they aren’t fast enough, a potential customer is likely to leave your site and move to a competitor’s. In today’s age of mobile devices, it’s also essential that you provide your content as a mobile device as well. Monitoring both will allow you to see any failures or errors that could cause downtime.
Another advantage of monitoring is the ability to automate your processes. The process allows you to see how quickly your applications and websites are growing. With connection and traffic metrics, you can get more insight into the activity on your site, like how long each user session lasts and the number of active visitors. As more people use ad blocking apps, that data is even more valuable. It’s hard to track that information using JavaScript when it is blocked. With the information you gain, you can create better plans for scaling your site to meet the demand. It also allows you to optimize your applications.
Connection Metrics
If you read a guide to web server monitoring, you might learn about connection metrics. Every time someone makes a connection, data is transferred to create responses. Some metrics to view include the response time, which refers to how long it takes to respond to a request. If the time is long, it might indicate that the resources have problems.
Host Metrics
A server is run as a service on the host machine and run in the background. Monitoring the host metrics allows you to learn about the impact of the server on its host machine. You might look at the cache, which is the disk space needed to create pre-generated responses. Caching might reduce the amount of time required for a response since it doesn’t have to create a full request. However, it might also use up too much disk space on your device. Uptime refers to how long the server is active and if the uptime drops quickly, there may be an outage. Finally, you’ll want to monitor the memory usage, which refers to how much RAM the tool is using. If it uses too much, the performance might drastically go down. When the RAM is exhausted, the server might crash.