Monitoring?

Monitoring is an important component of providing a reliable, professional
service. The two primary types of monitoring are real-time monitoring and
historical monitoring. Each has a very different purpose. Monitoring is a basic component of building a service and
meeting its expected or required service levels.
    "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." In the field of system
administration, that useful business axiom becomes: "If you aren't moni-
toring it, you aren't managing it."
    Monitoring is essential for any well-run site but is a project that can keep
increasing in scope. This chapter should help you anticipate and prepare for
that. We look at what the basics of a monitoring system are and then discuss
the numerous ways that you can improve your monitoring system.
    For some sites, such as sites providing a service over the Internet, com-
prehensive monitoring is a business requirement. These sites need to monitor
everything to make sure that they don't lose revenue because of an outage that
goes unnoticed.