Server Monitoring

Andrew

Happy Customer(Linux Rox)
Hello,

I was thinking about it the other day when my servers went down because of a cPanel update caused apache not to work some how. It was then that my site was down for 3 hours and I had not been able to fix it because I was sleeping. It seems that many people would be interested in this, and it would be a great asset that would set KnownHost far apart from any other hosting company for VPS's. I was thinking that KnownHost should do Port Monitoring, where you select a port (maybe more) such as http port (80) and KnownHost tries to connect to the port. If there is no reply (it pings every minute) then KnownHost would probably get an email from the php script, and it will tell their support that your server is down, and that it would need to be fixed. The support would then quickly fix the problem, and that way your site is not down for 3 hours, but instead down for under 30 minutes or until problem is solved with them. I think this should be brought up in the meeting as it is close to NOC 24/7/365 Server Monitoring. It would be effective, and i am fine with paying 1 dollar a port monitoring as long as KnownHost sees or gets a ticket submitted that the server is infact down and they can find out what the problem is with my VPS.

-Andrew
 
Another thing to ask which I'm sure Jay, Paul or Joel might see this and get mad at me :p but let's say you have a customer who uses hyperspin and configures hyperspin to email knownhost support with a message if a VPS is down after let's say 10 minutes - what would you guys think of this currently?
 
PPC,

That sounds like a brilliant idea, the only thing is what would we put in the email, and where would we send this email?

I was thinking that maybe using that with HyperSpin, that we could send an email with our Client Email, our service (VPS package), Hostname, password, SSH Port. It would be very brilliant that we could be able to do this.

I know that Kayako has email piping, if we send it to the support email with piping it could create a ticket in kayako with our downtime request.

I am even fine with paying extra to have this done by knownhost (but it is just as regular as sending in a ticket).

- Andrew
 
PPC,

That sounds like a brilliant idea, the only thing is what would we put in the email, and where would we send this email?

I was thinking that maybe using that with HyperSpin, that we could send an email with our Client Email, our service (VPS package), Hostname, password, SSH Port. It would be very brilliant that we could be able to do this.

You can - you can create an email template with them for this purpose.

I know that Kayako has email piping, if we send it to the support email with piping it could create a ticket in kayako with our downtime request.

I think the easiest would be to simply configure hyperspin to email support@ or if KH wants something like downtime@ (i.e. creating a separate 'department' in kayako to handle it).

I am even fine with paying extra to have this done by knownhost (but it is just as regular as sending in a ticket).

Right, I think most people would opt to pay for this.

The only concern is let's say you are working on your VPS, and forget to shut monitoring off in hyperspin and knownhost gets a ticket. It could potentially mean a lot of wasted resources. However, this feature, if done right, would be a huge selling point for them.

Regards,
 
PPC,

I would agree it be a good asset to knownhost. I have seen other companies add pro active server monitoring and management, which seems to be a big turn key for todays hosting, as many hosters do not have the time to be at their server 24/7 nor are they at their desk waiting for these things. I have seen the templates with Hyperspin, and would suggest KnownHost to add a new email, called like nospam@nospam.com, which could handle these things. It would be perfect picture ready, and what would be good is if we got discount with hyper spin, because Knownhost has teamed up with Hyper Spin, and it would be very easy if they gave us 1,3,5 minute port monitoring for under 1.99 dollars a port per month. This might bring Hyperspin more customers, and make knownhost customers much more happier.

Also P.S. If your working on your VPS, usually you can set the monitoring off, or you can set maintenance periods which don't affect your uptime!

-Andrew
 
I doubt this would be offered anytime soon IMHO. We have a lot going on and need to stay focused. Also, there are many things to consider when adding something like this such as unneccasary tickets being sent saying the server is down which requires our attention which in turn delays real tickets that are opened. Overall, this does make sense but one thing at a time.

Thanks,
Joel
 
Joel,

Could we still send a ticket if we have already bought HyperSpin, using their automated ISP email for server down request, and send an email to nospam@nospam.com, in the case that it does go down. I now have had 4 days of downtime because of numfile reaching maximum.

- Andrew
 
Andrew,

If you experience daily outages, then it will be better to resolve underlaying problem - if problem is related to resource shortage, then either usage should be adjusted or upgrade performed.
As of today it is possible to send an email to support and it will be processed as long as it comes from authorized email address and contains all necessary access information. However it worth to mention that email ticket submission is not guaranteed and might be disabled in the future as we're getting more and more spam and are forced to spend quite significant amount of time dealing with spam tickets. Putting various email addresses on the web isn't helping to reduce amount of spam we receive, as such posts in this thread were edited a bit.
 
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