JSO1 successfully answered Rich Collins's question:

We need a performance monitoring solution that will tell us if something is amiss with the site.

The answer that provides the most comprehensive discussion of various solutions and which one is recommended (and why) will win the reward.

People succeed in answering Rich Collins's questions 36% of the time (32 successes in 88 attempts).

Answers by: DarcyB | Dave | Adam Thorsen | JSO1

JSO1's Answer:

Reply by JSO1 1343 days ago

The field of performance monitoring can be divided into at least two areas.

1. Enterprise management systems (EMS)
2. External performance management systems

Determining your responsibility level and information needs will determine your need to implement one or both of these types of systems. If you are responsible for managing your own servers, you have a different set of needs than a company using a virtual hosting solution.

I have found that I can effectively monitor websites and all underlying components using external performance management systems by writing scripts that test each underlying aspect of my website - PHP interpreter, Ruby interpreter, MySQL, PostGreSQL server and return a simple 'ok' or more complex response that we tell the external performance management system to monitor and expect (within certain timeframes, if required).

Additionally, I feel that you really need the information an external performance management system can provide. Working from multiple locations around the world, an external performance management system can help you determine ISP outages and secondary ISP outages that might be affecting a percentage of your users. The external performance management systems can also help quickly identify DNS issues. The ability to monitor third-party websites such as API providers (PayPal, Ebay, etc) is also helpful if those are integrated into your web service.

The cost of many EMS systems has been quite high in the past - this has also influenced my decision towards primarily utilizing external performance management systems.

Most of the external performance management systems work on an ASP basis. Two of the major players are:

1. Keynote Systems (http://www.keynote.com)
2. Gomez (http://www.gomez.com)

Having used Keynote Systems, I am partial to them as I am more knowledgeable in their solution.

Rich - I'd be more than happy to continue this discussion addressing your particular needs if you would find that helpful.

Reply by Rich Collins 1343 days ago

I am out of town without much internet access right now. When I get back Monday I would like to discuss it in a bit more detail. Thanks for the info.

Reply by Rich Collins 1343 days ago

Ping (last comment didn't get emailed)

Reply by JSO1 1339 days ago

I look forward to additional discussion!

Reply by Rich Collins 1339 days ago

You can chat with me by clicking on the chat with Rich link under the question.

Chat Conversation 1338 days ago

hey there Rich Collins at 6:53 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
glad you found the link ;) Rich Collins at 6:53 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Yeah! I've been out in the field without messaging for most of the day! A rare day indeed! JSO1 at 6:54 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ah Rich Collins at 6:54 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Are you looking for a solution for guruza.com? JSO1 at 6:55 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
So basically we would like a 3rd party service to monitor our site for us Rich Collins at 6:55 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
we don't want yet another thing to manage if possible Rich Collins at 6:55 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
it could do something as simple as request a few different urls and check for text in the response Rich Collins at 6:55 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
with the option to get more involved later Rich Collins at 6:56 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
but there may be things that I haven't considered Rich Collins at 6:56 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
that is why I want to consult an expert Rich Collins at 6:56 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
are you still there? Rich Collins at 6:56 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
This sounds like something right up Keynote or Gomez' alley - that's precisely what they provide along with the communication interface. JSO1 at 6:57 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Need to do some work on this chat Rich Collins at 6:57 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
full of usability issues :( Rich Collins at 6:57 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ok great Rich Collins at 6:57 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
A bit - but I like the concept! JSO1 at 6:57 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
yeah we need to add: Rich Collins at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
I've specifically used Keynote for exactly the situation you are in... JSO1 at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
JSO1 is typing ... Rich Collins at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ok are there any other things I should consider? Rich Collins at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
like prevention instead of recovery? Rich Collins at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
And it can start very simple and add features as complex as SNMP traps as you move forward. JSO1 at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
do you monitor the system for warning signs? Rich Collins at 6:58 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
I still haven't looked at those sites Rich Collins at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
been busy adding the search feature Rich Collins at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Absolutely - and that is a good point - you can specify response times for the response and if it is slow, you'll know what is up JSO1 at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
(see the nav bar) Rich Collins at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ok well I should probably have a look at those Rich Collins at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
and then get back to you Rich Collins at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
I suggest breaking the monitoring into the failure points - JSO1 at 6:59 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
I might prod you a bit more before I pay you the reward ;) Rich Collins at 7:00 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Connectivity, Web Server (Apache or whatever you use), SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc), Ruby, etc... JSO1 at 7:00 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Thanks for your time - I will send you a reply if I have any more questions Rich Collins at 7:00 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Absolutely - http://www.keynote.com is Keynote's site. JSO1 at 7:01 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
great and these services have plugins for that? Rich Collins at 7:01 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
disk space, ruby ... etc? Rich Collins at 7:01 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ok Rich Collins at 7:01 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
They are desgined with that in mind - I'm not sure if they'll have a Ruby specific tool, but they might. JSO1 at 7:01 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
$20 per month isn't too bad Rich Collins at 7:02 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ah minimum of $40 Rich Collins at 7:02 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
ok thanks again - talk to you later Rich Collins at 7:05 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
Yeah, it can add up if you aren't a bit selective - and yes there is that minimum. We found it useful, though it was never fun to be paged at 3AM ;) JSO1 at 7:05 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006
I'm more than happy to help you find and deploy your solution. JSO1 at 7:06 PM on Monday July 10th, 2006

Reply by Rich Collins 1338 days ago

I signed up for the 30 trial with keynote / redalert. They appear to have the features that we need. The interface is pretty bad though.

Can you possibly suggest a few other alternativates that I can try?

Chat Conversation 1332 days ago

hey Rich Collins at 10:38 PM on Sunday July 16th, 2006