Cloud server monitoring is essential to ensure your server is up and running and performing optimally. The tools to monitor cloud servers range from basic tools to simply check your site is running to those monitoring and diagnosing all aspects of your server:
- Pingdom : This would definitely fall under the basic tools category and is a tool for both cloud and dedicated servers. Pingdom simply checks that that your site is up and running and will email or SMS you if the site is down. In addition Pingdom will monitor the response time of your site although there are no triggers to alert you if the response is longer than a pre-set period.
- CloudKick : CloudKick provides complete monitoring of your cloud server’s Disk, IO, load, CPU, bandwidth, memory and presents it in a user-friendly dashboard. In addition it provides a powerful API to write custom performance logs and tests. CloudKick is compatible with most cloud servers including Rackspace, Amazon, GoGrid, SliceHost.
- ServerDensity : ServerDensity is a monitoring tool which monitors the server’s load, running processes, disk usage etc. A key advantage of ServerDensity is that it provides server snapshots – very often when there is a problem with the server it may have disappeared by the time an admin comes to diagnose and fix the issue. Snapshots allows the adminstrator to review the exact state of the server as of the time when the issue existed.
ServerDensity is compatible with all Linux based cloud servers as it requires the installation of a small daemon (which should be a very simple process) and then the ServerDensity hosted service monitors the diagnostic information sent by the daemon. - CloudTest - CloudTest provides a detailed monitoring tool similar to CloudKick and ServerDensity, however in addition to the monitoring capability CloudTest provides browser based testing of html/AJAX web applications. Through a browser based http or https recorder , system testers can record and then run a test on the web application and receive diagnostic information on the running of the test.