Monitoring & Reporting

Many processes and applications within your IT landscape require detailed monitoring, ranging from the temperature in your server room to the effectiveness of your virus scanner. While essential components such as servers must be monitored round the clock, others require only periodic checks based on past experience and previous reports. Components considered essential include hardware, processes and applications ensuring system security or which could result in disruptive downtime if they fail. Monitoring software makes sure you have a clear overview of them all, keeping an eye on all predefined parameters and alerting you when something goes awry.

One typical example of the monitoring software we carry is Paessler’s PRTG Network Monitor, which oversees server and network services as well as local resources. It functions on the basis of monitoring sensors and intervals which you yourself define in advance. If a problem is detected, the system issues an alert, either by e-mail or as a text message or app push notification. This allows the person in charge to take appropriate action to stabilise the situation.  Paessler also enables you to measure the ambient temperature and humidity of a room. Not only that, you can even monitor hospital devices and older, BUS-connected machines as part of the Industry 4.0 revolution.

Monitoring programs should not only detect and report issues, but also document them in a database. This is crucial for ensuring continuous operation in the long run, as it allows you to identify patterns in system failure or performance fluctuations. These patterns offer clues as to the origin of the problem. Another consideration when monitoring your IT systems is data security. Our Bechtle online shop offers various monitoring software from providers such as Symantec, SolarWinds, Paessler, 8MAN and LogPoint. LogPoint provides solutions for log management, log analysis and SIEM—and can even be used for non-IT systems.

8MAN proposes a useful solution for assigning access rights, with additional options such as security monitoring letting you extend monitoring to user-accessed files. LogPoint was developed in Europe for security information and event management (SIEM), a new type of reporting that will soon be required by law. Instead of sensors, SIEM monitoring relies on the normalisation and analysis of log files, which exist for any computer-controlled system. If information security, operational insight and application security are a major concern for you, LogPoint offers the solution.