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 37% of the time (32 successes in 86 attempts).
Answers by: DarcyB | Dave | Adam Thorsen | JSO1
EMS has already been suggested, but I'm not familiar with it, so I'm in no position to suggest it.
Here's what I'm wondering...what do you consider "amiss"? Is it things like no connection to the rest of the internet? Spammers/DDOS taking over the system? Slow response times? Someone asking 20 questions in a row?
I doubt you'll find a good plug-in solution that magically does everything you need in a simple to use interface. Thus, my suggestion is relatively basic, but should get the job done: monitor the log files. I'm assuming you're using RoR, and the log files keep track of all the things that happen, including things like how long it took to process a request. You can use whatever scripting language you're familiar with to parse it for the relevant information, and tell it what to look for. If you've gone 30 minutes without visitors, raise a red flag...if it took the server more than 500 milliseconds to respond to a request, raise a red flag.
Also, there are ways of sending text messages from the internet, so you could set it up to notify you via phone in case something semi-bad happens. But don't expect it to save you if the internet connection goes down or the power goes out.
Hmm I am hoping there is some standard suite of remote tests that you can customize and employ to check the status of the site:
ex. If url x does not load with text y in z seconds, send an error message.
It sounds like you want a scriptable, external piece of software that will occasionally run a suite of tests for a website.
I'm not aware of these, although I would guess they exist.
If they don't exist or if they're overpriced, might there be a market a product like this? :)
I haven't done the research, but I can certainly imagine that the current offerings could probably be improved on.