Server Monitoring

What Does Server Monitoring Mean?

Server monitoring is the process of reviewing and analyzing a server for availability, operations, performance, security and other operations-related processes.

It is performed by server administrators to ensure that the server is performing as expected and to mitigate problems as they become apparent.

Techopedia Explains Server Monitoring

Server monitoring can be performed using manual techniques and automated server monitoring software. Depending on the type of server, server monitoring can have different objectives. For example:

Application servers are monitored for server availability and responsiveness.
Storage servers are monitored for availability, capacity, delay and data loss.
Web servers are monitored for user load, security and speed.

Server monitoring also monitors performance and operations of components and equipment at a granular level, including:

CPU utilization
Storage availability
Communication interface responsiveness

Server monitoring’s primarily objective is the protection of a server from possible failure.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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