Implementing Software Monitoring and Error-Detection Tools

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Constant vigilance of your network and applications is essential for high availability. Software-monitoring tools and techniques allow you to determine the health of your system and identify potential trouble spots before an error occurs.

This section assumes that you have selected software that supports the high availability features you require. Not all software supports features such as redundancy or clustering. For an application that requires 99 percent uptime, this might not matter. An application that requires 99.9 percent or greater availability must support such features. Monitoring tools can reveal performance trends and other indications that a potential loss of service is eminent before an error actually occurs. If an error does occur, monitoring tools can provide analytic data that administrators can use to prevent the problem from happening again.

Before deploying software, check the application’s hardware requirements and consult the documentation or software vendor to be sure the application supports online backup. When your monitoring tools detect a problem or error in an application, online backup allows you to fix the problem with no disruption of service.