Server Monitoring Software

PRTG Network Monitor is advanced server monitoring software which lets you check both basic server uptime and detailed usage statistics on all types of servers and your entire network, including:

• web and application servers
• databases
• file servers / FTP servers
• mail servers

... and more other servers used in business

Server monitoring software generally starts with fairly minimalistic features and gets more as it gets more advanced (and expensive). For example, for a web server, a sequence of increasingly more sophisticated checks might be:

• Is the web server machine up and responding to ping?
• Does the web server respond on port 80?
• Does the web server report an HTTP 200 response code ("success") when accessing the home page on port 80?
• Does the web server respond with the proper content when we access a particular page on the server with known content?

All versions of PRTG Network Monitor, regardless of the price or license level, let you perform all of these checks.

Briefly, there are ways for web servers to be perceived as down by users but as active and healthy by unsophisticated server monitoring software. This is typically catastrophic, because it will cause the sysadmins to not get messages alerting them that the server is down until users start to complain, often hours into an outage. For example, poorly configured servers or applications might report an HTTP 200 on the home page but the content might be "Database connection refused!", which will not endear your company to customers attempting to buy your product.

(One can easily have such a result even if the database is being monitored separately: for example, if a firewall configuration change makes the database port inaccessible from the web server. The database will still be running and responding to requests, but the web server will be unable to reach it, resulting in a "silent" downtime. Trust us, we've seen even more amusing failure modes than this.)

This is why PRTG Monitoring Software offers intelligent sensors which go beyond "Is the server up?" to answer the question you really care about: "Is the server working?"

Check Web Server Performance Using Paessler's Server Monitoring Service

PRTG Network Monitor is a powerful internet monitoring software, which lets you monitor web server performance and many other important network parameters without having to use an external server monitoring service.

The PRTG network server monitor offers an intuitive user interface that you can access from anywhere, using any web browser. The server monitoring service supports a wide range of protocols, such as HTTP, HTTPS, PING, PORT, DNS, SMTP, POP3, FTP, etc, and includes the possibility to check for content or to control whether a transaction can be processed. If the web server should be slow to respond, not respond at all, or if another check should fail, the server monitoring service triggers a notification (email, SMS, etc.). In addition, you will receive monitoring reports on a regular data, and you can view detailed reports and graphs online.

A freeware edition is available, which can be used for basic web server monitoring.

The NetFlow analyzer capability is useful if you are using routers and switches by Cisco: these network devices provide detailed pre-aggregated traffic data which PRTG can read and display.

Start Using PRTG For Server Monitoring

Using a good server monitoring software makes managing a network much easier. Good monitoring tools should give you a complete overview of your network, alert you to possible problems, and allow you to monitor various locations. When buying network software, you should make sure that all the functionality you need is included, so that you do not need to buy expensive add-ons later in order to make the most of your monitoring software. Last, but not least, the networking software should also be easy to set up and use.

A freeware version of the networking tools is available for basic monitoring needs. Need more sensors to monitor a larger IT infrastructure? See our commercial licenses here.