Server infrastructure consists of physical and virtual resources, along with hardware, software, network resources, to support the management of servers in an IT environment.
Organizations can set up two types of infrastructure: centralized and decentralized.
A server is a computer system built to share its resources, such as data, services, and programs, locally and over a network.
Several types of servers perform different functions. The most common server types organizations use are outlined below:
With the increase in IT services and adoption of new technologies, organizations must check on the health and performance of various IT operations through regular monitoring. Server monitoring starts with gathering critical data, including CPU usage, disk utilization, memory consumption, error rates, key metrics analysis, and more. With automated server monitoring solutions, organizations can capture and analyze essential metrics to help save time and improve efficiency of IT teams.
Hardware Utilization: Hardware metrics—including CPU usage, memory utilization, and disk space utilization—largely contribute to overall server performance. Monitoring these metrics helps organizations track and detect performance and resource issues.
Average Response Time: It’s important to measure the average response time of a server as it determines how long a server takes to respond to a request. Average response time must be as low as possible to avoid interrupting the user's flow. Additionally, measuring the high response time for certain requests is a clear indication of downtime or performance bottlenecks.
Requests per Second: The number of requests a server handles every second determines its usage. The server will crash if it isn't able to handle huge amounts of requests or doesn't scale when required. One of the best metrics to measure and identify the potential scaling issues is its throughput.
HTTP Server Error Rate: HTTP server error rate enables organizations to measure and understand the end-user experience. This metrics allows teams to measure how often users experience HTTP errors or internal server errors.
Server Uptime: High server uptime indicates good server health. It indicates whether the server is fully available and functional. Server uptime can be determined by the availability of a website or domain.
Manage server capacity and forecast resource utilization: Server monitoring tools provide key metrics and forecast charts to track and check resource utilization thresholds limits. They can also help in monitoring key metrics such as network latency, packet loss, and response time that directly impacts end-user productivity and business performance.
Monitor server hardware health: A server health monitor proactively notifies organizations about the server’s health status. It sends instant alerts to notify relevant teams about critical server components such as power supply, CPU utilization, and hard drive status.
Minimize application downtime: Server monitoring tools speed up the troubleshooting process by enabling teams to monitor application and infrastructure dependencies. They provide a built-in dashboard to view metrics in a single interface and drill down to the root cause of issues.
Troubleshoot server performance issues: A server monitoring tool allows troubleshooting remotely, so teams can identify real-time hogs and server performance issues, view Windows event logs and errors, and more.
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