Often times when implementing a monitoring solution where, and how to get started can be overwhelming.  It can be especially overwhelming with powerful tools, because you can truly monitor anything.   This series of articles will take a look at some strategies to implement monitoring into your company in a stepped approach, as well as how Monitis can make your life easier.

Overview:  Start Small and Go Big!

Getting started with some monitoring tools can be pretty risky and require an investment that you may not feel comfortable making.  You may find out too late that it does not meet all of your needs.  With Monitis and a stepped approach, there is little to no risk in getting started.  Monitis is “Month to Month” and you pay only for what you use.  Getting started takes only a few minutes, but where should you start?

After our previous article “XenDesktop on Microsoft Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V: Best Practices”, we decided to expand on this series and post some additional articles that are more specific to Hyper-V itself and in particular, tuning performance of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. We’ll discuss processor, memory, disk I/O, and network I/O tuning tips, but first let’s look at the type of hardware you would need to ensure Hyper-V performs well when running multiple virtual machines. After all; all virtual machines that run on a Hyper-V system share the same hardware.

The hardware considerations for your Hyper-V servers are not all that different from non-virtualized servers, but obviously Hyper-V servers has increased CPU usage, requires more memory, and needs more I/O bandwidth because the same hardware services multiple virtual systems

1. Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) Server’s Monitoring Whitepaper
Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server is a popular Internet connectivity solution that contains an enterprise firewall and a Web cache solution. If you use ISA, you’ll want to check out Monitis’ new white paper. It discusses best practices specific to ISA Server, Health Monitoring in general, and how to monitor your ISA Server with Monitis. The white paper includes scripts and code for creating custom monitors in Monitis to monitor ISA.

It is no secret that there is a shift in how technology is being delivered.  Cloud, Hosted, and Virtual are all buzz words that are flooding our conversations, emails, and businesses.  While it is easy to ignore them, there is a concern in the monitoring world. Here a few questions that might have entered your mind:

• Are we losing control?
• Are all SaaS providers created equal?
• What will my role be, now that our critical applications are moved to a hosted solution?

1. Monitor Everything with Monitis – And do it easily with PowerShell – Part 12
This series has covered a dozen or so ways to use Monitis and PowerShell to monitor all kinds of IT services and metrics. This post shows how to add notification rules to the mix. That’s right, not only can Monitis+PowerShell monitor anything in your network, it can also notify your personnel via Email, SMS, and other channels. Three commands are introduced that let you do this: Add-MonitisContact, Get-MonitisContact, Add-MonitisNotificationRule. The source code is provided.

This is our final article in the series on reviewing shopping cart vendor software. The last article featured analysis on the pros and cons of: Miva Merchant; Network Solutions; Shopping Q; Actinic; Mals E-Commerce. You can read the previous articles here: Part1, Part2, and Part3.

1. Monitis SharePoint Monitor
This is the third post about simple and effective Sharepoint monitoring. It introduces a Monitis Custom monitor for SharePoint that you can download from the Github page. This powerful custom monitor includes support for CPU, Memory, ASP and SQL monitoring as they relate to SharePoint. A list of the counters and metrics are listed and described, and snapshots are also provided.

In the following article we have reviewed the next 5 in our list of Browser-Based Storefront Creation Services companies to guide web developers and online retail providers in finding a suitable ecommerce solution. Part 2 of 20 Browser-Based Storefront Creation Services reviewed: Volusion; Mercantec; MerchandiZer; ShopSite and GoEmerchant.

The following article details our own analysis of the next 5 services in our article series: Miva Merchant, Network Solutions, Shopping Q, Actinic, Mals E-Commerce. 

1. 20 Browser-Based Storefront Creation Services – Part 1/4
Ecommerce stores comprise a big chunk of Monitis users. If you run an online store, your storefront software is absolutely pivotal to your business. Your entire revenue depends on the performance of the shopping cart application. Monitis has decided to review 20 storefront creation services. This first post in the series covers 5 services: Shopify, PrestaShop, 3DCart, Nascent Commerce, and Yahoo Stores. For each, a description, Pros and Cons, and traffic history are included.

This is the second in a series of articles about ecommerce and shopping cart software that we hope will help web developers and system administrators in selecting what is best for their needs. The first article 20 Top Browser-Based Storefront Creation Services reviewed: Shopify; PrestaShop; 3D Cart; Nascent Commerce and Yahoo! Stores.

The following article details our own analysis of the next 5 vendors in our article series: Volusion; Mercantec; MerchandiZer; ShopSite and GoEmerchant.