Are you looking for the best Server Monitoring Tools to monitor servers?
These servers are crucial in virtually all online activities, from email checking and web browsing to using mail servers and making debit card transactions at grocery store point-of-sale (POS) systems.
As your organization grows, selecting and configuring server monitoring tools becomes crucial. These tools continuously collect data from cloud-based servers, allowing you to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and detect any problems or potential failures.
Server monitoring tools are essential for maintaining web infrastructure and ensuring optimal performance across various physical or virtual servers. These tools offer insights into server performance, helping IT organizations identify performance problems (e.g. slowdowns) issues as they develop and address issues before they impact service availability.
In this article, we delve deep into the world of Server Monitoring Tools, highlighting their importance and helping you choose the best one to keep your server performance at its peak. With the vast variety of servers out there, understanding “server monitoring” can seem complex—but we’re here to simplify it for you.
What are Server Monitoring Tools?
We already discussed Server Monitoring and its role in impacting server performance. Now let’s dig deeper and learn what Server Monitoring Tools are and how they help in maintaining performance. With server monitoring tools in place, you can proactively manage server health and ensure uninterrupted service delivery to users, apps, and devices. That could negatively impact revenue, the customer experience, and the overall company reputation.
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Why are the Server Monitoring Tools Important?
Servers are the backbone of your IT infrastructure.
- Proactive server management guarantees that possible problems are fixed before they impact users, keeping performance at its best.
- Continuous monitoring Real-time visibility into the system’s status is enabled by the server’s health, which facilitates the identification and prompt resolution of issues.
- Ensuring uninterrupted service delivery is critical for maintaining user satisfaction and preventing costly downtime.
- Timely detection of potential issues enables quick action to be taken, minimizing the impact on operations and user experience.
- Enhanced reliability and performance play a vital role in the overall stability and efficiency of the system, which in turn supports business objectives and growth.
How do Server Monitoring Tools work?
Let’s take a look at how these Server Monitoring Tools work and enhance Server Performance. Here are a few simple steps:
Data Collection
Server monitoring tools collect data periodically. Tools include software applications, agents, or scripts.
Performance Metrics
Tools gather various performance metrics like memory usage, CPU utilization, server response times, disk space availability, and network traffic.
Threats and Baselines
Outlining thresholds for each metric. Alerts are generated when a metric falls below or exceeds these thresholds.
Alerting
Monitoring tools compare gathered metrics to the outline thresholds. Alerts can be in the form of text messages, emails, or notifications to a central dashboard.
Analysis and Response
The team analyzes the situation to determine the root cause. Actions include applying patches, addressing security threats, and adjusting server resources.
Historical Data
Trend analysis is used for capacity planning, identifying long-term performance issues, and resource allocation decisions.
Security Monitoring
Most solutions incorporate security monitoring capabilities.
Setting Up and Configuring Server Monitoring Tools
Setting up server monitoring tools involves several steps to ensure accurate data collection and effective monitoring. Here’s a general guide to help you set up server monitoring tools:
To configure No-IP Basic and Advanced Monitoring:
Login to No-IP.com
Click on the “Server Monitoring” tab under “My Services”.
Click “Actions > Configure” next to your domain.
Click “Add Monitor.”
Select the service (HTTP, FTP, TCP, etc.) you want to monitor from the drop-down menu and click “Next.”
Choose the hostname that you would like to monitor.
Features To Look For in Server Monitoring Tools
When selecting server monitoring tools, it’s essential to consider several factors:
1. Monitoring Capabilities
Look for tools that monitor various aspects of server performance, including CPU usage, memory utilization, disk space, network traffic, and application responsiveness.
2. Broad Coverage
The server monitoring tool needs to access server data. It should support all OS and monitor all services. It must also work with virtual and on-premises systems.
3. Intelligent alarm management
Configuring alarms with sensible thresholds and notifications for errors and warnings should be easy.
4. Extensive root cause analysis
For a server to function, several areas interact with the hardware and operating system layers, as well as the application layer. A good monitoring tool not only indicates that a problem is occurring but also offers the possibility of viewing the problem in context, in which it represents certain dependencies, for example.
5. Ease of use
For a server monitoring tool, it is important to Opt for tools with intuitive interfaces and provide powerful easy-to-use features that simplify configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting tasks. also provides powerful dashboards for visualizing the monitoring data. This makes it possible to see all important areas of a server at a glance and to react immediately to errors or problems.
6. Support policy
Good support is crucial in the enterprise field. Check contact ease during decision-making. Security orchestration is essential to prevent data loss or cybersecurity threats.
7. Cost
You can find both free and paid server monitoring tools. However, there are differences like the free ones usually have no customer support and people rely on community forums for troubleshooting. But such software is also open-sourced and more scalable. Paid options are safe for non-technical users.
5 Types of Server Monitoring Systems
Here are 5 types of Server Monitoring systems each tool is designed specifically to monitor or analyze how the server performs or if the results it provides are even reliable for the organization to use and many other underlying aspects that we may overlook but the systems won’t.
Agent-based monitoring tools:
For these tools to gather and send data to a cloud-based platform or central monitoring server, agents must be installed on each server. They provide thorough insights into resource usage and server data.
Agentless monitoring tools:
Agentless monitoring solutions do not require the installation of agents on servers, in contrast to agent-based tools. Rather, they employ remote data collection methods such as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
Application performance monitoring (APM) tools:
APM tools monitor app and service performance on servers, providing insights into response times, transactions, code diagnostics, and user experience.
Network monitoring tools:
These focus on monitoring network infrastructure, including routers, switches, firewalls, and network traffic. They help identify network issues such as congestion, packet loss, and latency.
Log monitoring and analytics tools:
They analyze log files generated by servers, applications, and network devices to identify irregularities, security threats, and operational issues. They provide insights into system events, errors, and user activities.
Cloud monitoring tools:
specifically designed to monitor the performance and availability of cloud-based infrastructure, services, and applications. They provide visibility into cloud resources, usage patterns, and cost optimization opportunities.
Comparative Analysis of 10 Leading Server Monitoring Tools
Depending on your company’s demands and unique IT architecture, each server monitoring tool has its own set of features and perks that make it more or less appropriate for your needs. We’ve compiled a list of the best 10 server monitoring tools to assist you in making an informed choice. We’re here to make selecting the best software easier for you because we know how complex it may be to ensure seamless performance.
Datadog
The first of the 10 Server Monitoring Tools, we’ll be discussing is Datadog. This is the cloud-era platform used by organizations of all sizes and industries for security, analytics, and monitoring that developers, IT operations teams, security engineers, and business users use.
The SaaS platform offers cohesive, real-time tracking of our customers’ complete technology stack by integrating and automating log management so you can quickly search, filter, and analyze your logs for troubleshooting and open-ended exploration of your data application performance monitoring, and infrastructure monitoring.
Datadog enables digital transformation and cloud migration, drives collaboration among development, operations, security, and business teams, accelerates time to market for applications, reduces time to problem resolution, secures applications and infrastructure, understands user behavior, and tracks key business metrics.
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Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- Toyota
- Sainsbury’s
- Sony
- HashiCorp
Icinga 2
Another very trusted Server Monitoring Tool is Icinga 2 for small enterprises which offers stability to big businesses, an open-source Server Monitoring Tool that provides thorough details on the apps and infrastructure you currently have. Icinga 2 is an Icinga branch and monitoring service that depends on Web 2 to function. Incinga 2 monitors using both SNMP and direct methods.
Because of its versatility, customization is possible through extensions and plugins, and third-party tools are easily integrated. allows for deployment over several locations and supports distributed monitoring all while keeping centralized control. Reduces downtime by high availability features like active-passive clusters and failover procedures.
Icinga 2’s flexible alerting, thorough monitoring of different infrastructure components, and performance data collecting add to its appeal and make it a great option for businesses looking for advanced monitoring solutions.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- Siemens
- Audi
- Vodafone
Zabbix
This is another all-in-one open-source server monitoring tool that is Developed to keep an eye and monitor your entire IT infrastructure performance such as networks, servers, virtual machines, and cloud services quite efficiently.
Zabbix allows you to customize network management settings and track server availability and performance. Provides a powerful API for automation and integration with other applications and historical data analysis to identify trends and forecast future needs.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- University of OSLO
- ORACLE
- Mitsubishi UFJ Information Technology
New Relic
New Relic is another leading server monitoring tool today that provides an all-in-one platform that is built In over 25 global locations, an estimated 25 million engineers contribute to the ever-growing landscape of software development. and sold as a unified experience and invented cloud APM for application engineers. Great in observability and source of truth for all engineers to make decisions with data across their entire software stack and the software life cycle.
Amid this transformation, businesses are increasingly reliant on tools like New Relic to gather real-time insights into their software performance, enhancing customer experiences and supporting stability. With the server monitoring software from New Relic, you can get real-time system insights in less than five minutes of setup.
New Relic offers a secure telemetry cloud for comprehensive metric, event, log, and trace monitoring, alongside robust full-stack analysis tools. Its predictive user-based pricing and open-source integrations allow engineers to integrate observability into their workflows effortlessly.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- Shutterstock
- Toyota
- Airbnb
LogicMonitor
LogicMonitor is a SaaS-based unified observability and one of the 10 server monitoring tools and is a fully automated cloud-ready operating model with a rich and useful user interface that brings diverse IT and development teams together to solve complex problems, innovate faster, and improve the operational efficiency of critical IT services.
LoginMonitor allows you to see all your notifications in one place. It connects with on-premises, cloud-based, and international servers to monitor all functions instantaneously It does not require that you install something on each resource within your infrastructure. LogicMonitor will notify you of everything from your CPU to RAID controllers and other hardware.
There isn’t a better option than Logic Monitor if your devices are distributed geographically and all of your locations have internet access.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- HelloFresh
- TOPGOLF
- Schneider Electric
Nagios XI
Another one of the very reliable server monitoring tools to choose for your enterprise and IT businesses is Nagios XI a Network Monitoring Software that helps your company with comprehensive applications, services, and network monitoring in a central solution. Nagios is mainly concerned with network traffic, application performance, and server metrics. Agents are deployed on the components it monitors as well as the network elements to gather data.
Moreover, Nagios can establish a connection with network switches or other parts by utilizing the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to inquire about their condition. It uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) protocol to interact with Windows-based products and get data from them.
Nagios can be downloaded in a bundle with packages designed specifically for each Windows or Linux-based product.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- Sunrise Telecom
- Everwatch Global
- NASA
- PayPal
WhatsUp Gold
Another of the 10 server monitoring tools WhatsUp Gold, developed by Ipswitch (acquired by Progress Software in May 2019), lets you find and fix network problems fast – usually before end users notice. It provides automated workflows, network capacity planning, and hybrid environment monitoring.
WhatsUp Gold’s web-based mapping interface allows users to view real-time network availability and performance for both on-premises (WUG)designed for IT enterprises that help them manage their IT infrastructure and network activities and MSP and cloud-connected devices.
WhatsUp Gold is a network discovery tool that can find any device on the network, physical or virtual. It provides a single interactive map for IT admins to view, and analyze bandwidth consumption, also manage cross-device connections, monitor application performance and network traffic, and control change processes.
Its easily customizable drag & drop dashboards let you see the detailed status and performance of every device both on-premise and in the cloud send alerts via email, web, SMS, or Slack for any activity outside the set range.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- Dell
- Cisco
- IBM
ScienceLogic
ScienceLogic is a good fit for IT companies looking for simple, and secure Server Monitoring Tools to deploy and can easily be integrated with a wide variety of IT Operations. Users can quickly map connections and track changes thanks to the highly flexible platform, which also provides them with context and visibility over their IT infrastructure and its components. As a result, they can save time, cut costs, increase productivity, and make wiser business decisions.
With ScienceLogic, users can monitor the performance of services, apps, and resources from a single console, regardless of their hosting environment. The platform also offers network management features that provide actionable insights into network resources like LAN, SDN, WAN, and firewalls.
This server monitoring tool enhances infrastructure deployment by identifying crucial components, putting best practices into practice, and improving app health and performance monitoring for business operations. This server monitoring tool uses software that can monitor endpoints, collaboration stack, and call quality.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- KeyBank
- KBR
- National Institute of Health (NIH)
SolarWinds virtualization manager
One of the great server monitoring Tools IT companies have preferred using since 1999 is the SolarWinds Virtualization Manager, a multi-platform monitoring solution that works with IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS setups. Virtualization Manager dashboards offer vital performance, capacity planning, and storage metrics for easy access and accurate system needs prediction for future scaling or planning.
This server monitoring tool includes a VM capacity planning feature designed to help you predict CPU, memory, network, and storage needs for your Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere environments. Without requiring different tools for each hypervisor, it offers an easy-to-use solution for analyzing and debugging performance issues unique to VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V.
SolarWinds VMAN, an IT tool, provides a past performance analysis to speed up the troubleshooting view of configuration data, enabling IT professionals to identify changes in their virtual server environment over time. Easily monitor the state of the whole system, including the server, virtual, and storage architecture, and solve specific, connected issues from a single pane of glass.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- Verizon Communications Inc
- TEKsystems
- Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp
ManageEngine
This is the last of the server monitoring tools discussed, it is a combination of a variety of tools, including network performance monitoring, router monitoring, VMware monitoring, system health monitoring, and others, Occasionally, ManageEngine’s server monitoring tool will check those servers are up and running at maximum efficiency using the SNMP and WMI protocols.
Additionally, it will preserve all of your data for troubleshooting and historical performance tracking, negating the need for various server monitoring programs.
ManageEngine automates end-user and IT support desk ticket management. Users can create tickets via phone calls, emails, and websites.
Trusted by some of the world’s leading companies
- FedEx
- Coca-Cola
- Volkswagen
Emerging Trends Shaping the Future of Server Monitoring Technology
- AI Integration: AI will be used by Server monitoring tools to anticipate and stop problems.
- Edge Computing: Infrastructure on the edge will be monitored as well.
- Containerization: Server monitoring tools will need to provide specialized support for monitoring containerized environments such as Docker and Kubernetes.
- Hybrid Cloud: Cloud and on-premises monitoring done seamlessly to multiple cloud servers.
- Automated Remediation: Self-healing features for automated remediation that cut down on downtime.
- Predictive Analysis: Server monitoring tools will use predictive analytics to anticipate future performance trends and identify potential bottlenecks or capacity issues in advance.
Final Thoughts: Which Server Monitoring Tool is the Best?
We have provided our readers with a very comprehensive analysis of the Top 10 Server Monitoring Tools and discussed their features and use cases. Server monitoring tools play a critical role in ensuring the optimal performance and reliability of web infrastructure.
After reading the article, business owners will be convinced how crucial these tools are for them to keep a close eye on their servers to avoid any potential disruptions that could negatively impact the user experience and service availability.
With the rapid pace of technological advancements, staying up-to-date on the latest trends and monitoring strategies is more important than ever.
By implementing effective server monitoring tools and techniques, businesses can maintain optimal server health and drive success in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape. It is important to experiment and find what works best for your unique business needs.
FAQ’S
Why are Server Monitoring Tools important, and how do they work?
Server monitoring tools monitor server health and performance by tracking metrics like CPU usage, memory usage, disk space, and network traffic. They detect potential issues, identify performance bottlenecks, and provide real-time alerts. This proactive strategy ensures the effective operation of applications and services, minimizes downtime, and maximizes resource utilization.
How can I set up and configure server monitoring tools for my infrastructure
Follow these steps to set up monitoring tools
To configure No-IP Basic and Advanced Monitoring:
Login to No-IP.com.
Click on the “Server Monitoring” tab under “My Services”.
Click “Configure” next to your domain.
Click “Add Monitor.”
Select the service (HTTP, FTP, TCP, etc.) you want to monitor from the drop-down menu and click “Next.”
Choose the hostname that you would like to monitor.
What are some frequent problems that companies experience with server monitoring, and how may those issues be resolved?
Common challenges include data overload, false alerts, scalability issues, and the complexity of managing multiple monitoring tools. Address these challenges by fine-tuning thresholds, using intelligent alerts, consolidating tools, and regularly reviewing configurations.
What factors should be considered when selecting server monitoring tools?
When selecting a server monitoring tool, organizations should consider factors like scalability, ease of deployment, customization, integration, alerting, reporting, and support for diverse environments.
Is there a right time to use Server Monitoring Tools?
Yes, there is a right time to use server monitoring tools, and ideally, organizations should implement them as soon as they deploy critical infrastructure components such as servers, databases, and networking devices. monitoring of server health is crucial for organizations during growth, infrastructure changes, or increased workload demands, ensuring uninterrupted service delivery and optimizing performance.
