Introduction
Business environment today is based on multivendor pasterns and most of them cut across several regions or nations. These businesses are designed in such a way that they can be controlled from a central point. The emergence of computer technology and high quality internet connections across several regions has been a major boost for multivendor business operations. Despite this, it is imperative that the various business entities or branches of a particular organization have systems that can be effectively managed from a central point through server based technologies. Managing several business entities from a single point has its challenges and associated risks. For one, these servers are expected to perform at very high speeds with very minimal chances of failure (ManageEngine, 2013).
Therefore, monitoring the servers is one of the most crucial tasks that cannot be ignored. It becomes therefore clear why the servers must be run in tandem with a very vibrant server monitoring tool or application. It provides the organization or business entity with real-time data about the systems thereby offering them a great chance of avoiding total system failure which would have adverse effects on the business. This paper looks to analyze a technology that can offer a single screen console that can effectively be used to monitor serve performance. This technology must provide a wide variety of information on a single screen and provide the least hitches that have minimal overheads in operation and functionality (Laplante, P. A., & Ovaska, S. J., 2012).
A server monitoring tool must be able to provide its functionality to all terminal computers that are connected to the organization’s network within and outside the central monitoring point. It should be able to keep track of several activities. The concern however is how the information can be integrated and viewed on a single screen. It should allow the monitoring of multiple servers. For an effective single screen console, 8 to 256 computers running on similar or different operating systems can be monitored from the same screen. Such a tool must among other things provide a server Console Switch with either an 8-port or 16-port version or one that features an On-Screen Display (Olups, R., 2010).
Advantages
- This it is easy to use and maintain and provides a high level of agility
This console requires a single administrator and therefore the overheads brought by agent based monitoring tool such as data variation across several agents are minimized. This tool provides optimized data that can be relied on to manage your servers from a single screen.
- Functionality
A high level of functionality on a single screen in managing network tools, server tools, virtual devices and other IT infrastructure components. These functionalities include:
Network fault management
The system will provide email and SMS notification while utilizing intelligent alarm correlation with color coded alarms. Real time graphs and Switch port mapping will provide the administrator with first hand information about the whole network on a single click. This aspect helps in ensuring that any faults along the network are detected early and solved in time to avoid associated disasters. The target is to reduce the magnitude of failure by putting early mechanisms that will act as the shield to such problems (ManageEngine, 2013).
Application management and monitoring
The tool provides an effective end user monitoring. It ensures that the Transfer control protocol is in line with the organizational policies and thus providing the highest level of data security along the transfer line. By using a single screen, it becomes possible to compare how different terminals share or distribute data along the network and incase of any misalignments, the system can effectively show that using real time graphs and data flow charts.
Network monitoring
This functionality offers a quick and easy to fix method of determining the network flow across all business entities while providing mapping mechanisms that describe the whole network on single screen (ManageEngine, 2013).
Device and router monitoring
The single screen console provides an efficient platform on which routers can be easily managed while taking into perspective how they operate in to link with each other and with the servers. Having enough knowledge of the router mapping cannot be possible when done on independent screens specific to each router. This console would therefore provide the general router information such as routing bandwidth across the network (Laplante, P. A., & Ovaska, S. J., 2012).
Performance management
The single screen console provides a simple interface for monitoring and controlling the performance metrics. This is done through virtualization monitoring that is not limited to hardware or application technologies. It is therefore easy to integrate with the system.
- Managed service providers
The tool allows for managed service providers. This is done through consolidating important information from all servers located at various multiple sites into a single screen from where a single system administrator can control and monitor all servers (Olups, R., 2010).
- Monitoring IP addresses
The system provides an easy and efficient technique for monitoring overlapping IP addresses. This eliminates the need for terminal machines to change their IP configurations. Cross-site IP address conflicts are easy to manage from a single screen than when the monitoring console is available on different screens especially when each screen offers different functionalities related to the same network (ManageEngine, 2013).
- Seamless integration:
The console offers seamless integration with all modules of the multiple servers hence providing a platform that can allow quick quantification of issues related to the network traffic, applications, wireless devices and your Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure. This ensures that multimedia sessions over the internet are properly monitored and distributed in manner that takes into account the business policies. Telephony services cannot be overlooked as it serves the most efficient communication tool in business. Therefore monitoring VoIP infrastructure from a single screen reduces the complexity of managing and maintaining the infrastructure.
- Global view:
The single screen console provide the administrator with a global view of the system logs, events, alerts, traps which are critical for security of the servers while also ensuring that issues such as bandwidth utilization, disk space utilization, response time, interface monitoring and CPU usage across all servers is optimized in relation to workload (Olups, R., 2010). From a single screen, all these issues can be easily accomplished as the administrator is provided with a clear analysis of all servers being served by the console. Systems where there are different screens monitoring specific events require a platform to integrate all of them in order to acquire reliable data. This would provide an overhead in the case where there is only one system administrator.
Disadvantages
- High risk in case of failure
The single screen interface provides the highest risk levels since the failure of the console system would mean that there all server functions and applications remain unmonitored including security issues. Multiple screen consoles would otherwise distribute the risk along the monitoring system specific to each functionality or application.
- Lack of in depth system or server analysis
Critical performance issues require in depth analysis which in one way or another is quite hard to include on a single screen. The urge to include all information in a single screen would compromise the value of analysis.
Local data storage
Using MegaCorp Storage Area Network is a much easier way of storing information in the case where the systems being monitored by the console are distributed across regions. The MegaCorp SAN provides a more secure and easy to monitor application. The data is stored in a private cloud that would be controlled from a central location but still available as replicated copies to all servers. Such a system would in an instance eliminate the need to put up security infrastructure that would be made more complex by the distributed nature of the multiple servers (Laplante, P. A., & Ovaska, S. J., 2012).
In essence, the Megacorp SANs coupled with the Network-Attached Storage that it offers would not only provide the simplicity of installation but also reliability in operation and with great capabilities for future expansion. One particular aspect of the Megacorp SAN is its ability to provide data storage to all servers using different operating system while providing mechanisms for relating the data. If this was to be handled manually, then the system administrator would be burdened considering the burden hanging burden of monitoring the multiple servers on a single screen.
References
Laplante, P. A., & Ovaska, S. J. (2012). Real-time systems design and analysis: Tools for the practitioner. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley-IEEE Press.
ManageEngine (2013). Server Monitoring | Server Monitoring Software :: OpManager. Retrieved from http://www.manageengine.com/network-monitoring/server-monitoring.html?gclid=CKmSn5f7n7sCFYZd3godji8ADA&gclsrc=aw.ds
Olups, R. (2010). Zabbix 1.8 network monitoring: Monitor your network's hardware, servers, and web performance effectively and efficiently. Birmingham, UK: Packt Pub.
