Monitis launched new free broken-links monitoring service - Links-Checker. Links-Checker provides the following benefits for website owners, webmasters and web administrators: 1. Free, unlimited URL checks, 2. Free and unlimited email and instant messenger broken link notifications. 3. Possibility to get SMS alert notifications right on mobile phones. 4. Instant deployment, no software, so server setup, no maintenance needed. 5. Constant product updates seamless for end users 6. Increased page load speed by removing requests to missed images, css style sheets. Often users add third party libraries which may contain images, icons which maybe missed but browser still request them each time. Removing such request may improve performance. 7. Detects dysfunctional pages by identifying missed JavaScript or flash files or libraries so early detect possible broken functionality 8. Improved user experience by detecting broken page design due to missed images and style sheets. 9. Don't get penalized by search engines with reduced page ranking due to 404 errors. More at http://links-checker.com

On-demand EC2 Monitoring

Monitis on-demand Amazon EC2 monitoring includes the following features: 1) monitor status of launched Amazon virtual server instances and trigger events and notifications 2) monitor total number of running servers in Amazon cloud and inform users when number exceed certain threshold 3) Automatically start monitoring of newly launched servers based on user-rules. Start monitoring web servers, databases, mail servers, TCP ports, telnet and SSH access and more dynamically without need to manually add each monitor and notification rules per server 4) Automatically install Monitis agent on new servers and start monitoring server performance metrics and resource utilization: CPU, memory, storage and processes. Again notification rules can be enabling to inform about low resource situation. It will help to predict and prevent possible outages 5) server failure notice. There is always a possibility to lose server in Amazon cloud, users can be early notified about such case and can take measures. 6) Virtual servers configuration monitoring. More at http://monitorcloud.com/monitorcloud

free monitoring services

Monitis is launching a line of free network monitoring services. Early adopters can sign-up for invitation.

Monitis with Chrome

Google's Chrome browser is an ideal candidate for Monitis products. Its Web 2.0, AJAX-powered interface works like a charm on Chrome. 

Monitis started partnership program

Monitis provides systems and network monitoring as a service. Recently Monitis launched a partnership program at http://monitis.com/MSPN .

Monitis can monitor:

CPU Memory Virtual Memory Disk space Server process resource utilization Network device Website Web services Web application logic Database

Email VoIP TCP/IP and UDP SNMP device Web traffic SSH/Telnet Buffered memory Cashed memory External availability Web page load speed Customer sensors

How to use Monitis for Search Marketing

More at Monitis blog

Montis to feature major user interface overhaul

Monitis significantly improves usability of its monitoring application by adding menu tool bar. Now the navigation is much more easy and intuitive. Users still can use old navigation.

5K Mon.itor.Us Agent Downloads

Mon.itor.Us announces 5,000 downloads of its Windows Smart Agent. The agent monitors hardware resource utilization per service and per process on Windows machines and notifies about abnormalities detected. Smart Agent also allows to use any of the customer machines for local monitoring. It is useful particularly for intranet applications and networks monitoring.

The agent based service is one of key differentiators for Mon.itor.Us. In contrast to other web uptime monitoring service, Mon.itor.Us not only provide external both also internal systems monitoring service, delivering one-stop solutions for webmasters and website owners. When it launched in March 2007 skeptics were predicting very limited usage of this feature because of security concerns. The facts although talk differently and 5k downloads proves that users really like this easy to use hosted service.

Mon.itor.Us premium service Monitis provides more advanced agent both for Windows and Linux machines.

50% discount on Monitis yearly plans

Monitis offers 50% discount on Basic and Plus yearly plans. Limited time offer expires Jan 7th, 2008.

One more usage scenario for Monitis internal monitor: how to check office/home connectivity

Although Internal Monitis monitoring was primarily designed to check Intranet applications and server resource utilization, it could also be used to check overall office connectivity. After being installed on a computer within the office network, a ping/http check can be added with an external URL e.g. www.google.com. The widget view will then show latency of connection in real time.

5 Monitors for Ultimate Business Performance: Part 5 Transactions Monitoring

5. Transactions (a.k.a. Application, Web Workflow, Functional) monitoring – monitors not only single web page but sequence of web screens and user actions. It allows checking functionally of web application logic and measure the performance of web transactions. A test script should be developed in order to perform such checks, either by automated recording of user actions or by writing the code manually. Monitis recently beta launched a transaction monitoring feature which allows to record, edit by hand, and debug test scripts. After recoding the script can be deployed on the server and then will be running on regular intervals. Users can see total execution time of script, but also can drill down to execution time per each step. In case of failure Monitis will send an alert. It also records screens which did not pass via checkpoints, thus allowing understanding the problem of failure later on. Finally it provides breakdown of load time per each component of the tested web pages.

Who should use it: business owners, webmasters, IT operations, QA and web developers.

Usage examples: a tool for regression tests of live production or pre-live development servers, functional monitoring to make sure main application flows are functioning, performance management and tuning.

How Web Developers Can Keep Customers Happy

Website designers and web application developers provide support for the sites they developed. Most of the companies are small and don't have large marketing budgets, so they relies on word of mouth generated by happy customers. Developers typically either host or have VPN access to customer sites and when customer experience problem with the site they call web developer and get problem fixed. And customer satisfaction very much depends on their website uptime and service level provided by the web developer.

There is way for developers to improve customer satisfaction. Using Monitis internal monitoring, web developers can setup monitoring agent and perform customer server monitoring right from their location. By checking all the nodes between end user and server they got complete and exact picture and early notification about current or upcoming problem.

Combined with external monitoring, internal monitoring may provide more proactive way to handle problems. Even if it is intranet application, developers can use VPN connection for monitoring the application. When customer calls developer he will be please to hear “yes, we know the problem and already working on it.” Or developers may call their client and say "we notice an issue on your server and will fix it now." Moreover, by monitoring nodes, developers may quickly identify problem and fix it, thus increasing their productivity and reducing mean time-to -repair (MTTR).

5 Important Website Metrics Business Should Monitor

1. HTTP Uptime. HTTP uptime monitoring is important because each time website is down it a) reduces website ranking by search engines b) reduces website traffic and income c) waste PPC budget

2. External HTTP response time. Response time is a measure for user experience. When website is slow it significantly reduces user satisfaction.

3. Web Traffic Statistics. It is important by itself to analyze website visitors demographics, used browsers, referrers, etc. But it can provide more insights if combined with other metrics. For example web traffic measurement together with HTTP checks may help to find load problems when site performs slow in case of increased traffic, or together with search engine monitoring it will help to understand who is referring to your site and how much the traffic depends on the position on Google and other search engines per keywords which drive traffic towards your site.

4. Search Engine Position. Internet marketers need to watch daily website position in major search engines for sometimes hundreds of keywords which relates to website content. It helps to fine-tune search engine optimization campaigns and do competitive analysis.

5. Social Media references (Buzz Monitoring). Social Media and book-marking sites are getting more importance as a way to bring more traffic and conduct online PR campaigns for building Internet brand and reputation.

Ideally you need to have all these metrics real-time at the same dashboard in order to have full picture of your website performance. Monitis provides on-demand http and web traffic monitoring; Semonics service from the same vendor provides search engine and social media monitoring, MyBuzzMonitor could also help to stay informed and also show your reputation to your website visitors via live widget you can place into your blog or web page.

7 Website Checks to Ensure Reliable Service

Most people only understand http ping checks by Web site monitoring. Monitis premium website monitoring provide options for deeper and comprehensive checks. In case of running business critical website, it is important to apply these checks in order to reduce downtime, increase web traffic and search engine ranking. Here is a short checklist:

1. Add ping test to your Server
2. Add Http tests to Home Page.
3. Add HTTP checks to other critical pages especially with dynamic Content. Especially important to add URL checks for password protected pages. Advanced Monitis HTTP/HTTPS checks allow to check also password protected pages and form submit reply pages (e.g. using POST). So for example if it is web mail, rather than just check home page, site owner may create a demo user and check page validity after login.
4. Add ping tests to firewall, router and other nodes between your website and public network. That way you can quickly find the issues. In case if your router disconnected then there is no need to check website. You can find intermediate node IPs via for example traceroute. You can check your network devices using ping or telnet protocols. Some devices also will provide HTTP interface so you can check also via HTTP.
5. Add DNS checks for your domain. In same cases your website could be completely reachable although your lose visitors because of issues on the name server.
6. If you have access to your web server then download and install internal Monitis agent (Linux or Windows) and add CPU, Memory and HDD checks. You can also add checks for Web server, and Database process. In that case you can see your server bottlenecks and fix them even before your website goes down. You can also add http checks within your firewall in case of web services which are not visible from outside.
   
7. If you have Database you can add external Database checks. Just make sire you enables access from our monitoring IPs.