Q: I am new to Windows server monitoring. How can I set up monitors to watch all important Windows server components and services?
A: IPHost Network Monitor can gather all the data required for Windows Server performance tuning. Every service and/or device requires specific settings.
All the services providing TCP and/or UDP services can be monitored via corresponding TCP and/or UDP monitors. It is recommended to measure the average server response time to set up the mentioned monitor as well as optional PING monitor, in order not to generate false connectivity problem alerts.
System parameters, such as CPU load, memory available, disk space available etc. can be obtained via WMI monitors (note there are Disk Space, File and Windows Service monitors, use those first if possible).
In case of more complex services such as HTTP service (provided by IIS), system parameters monitors, mentioned above along with service-specific monitors (HTTP or Web Transaction Monitor for IIS; SQL monitor for SQL server etc) can be used.
Depending on server roles, other service-specific monitors can be used. In case of built-in monitors do not cover the given type of service, adding WMI providers and/or using Script monitors can help to retrieve all the data required to estimate the service’ state and availability.
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