MN506 - Server Monitoring Tools: Availability & Metrics Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of server monitoring tools, focusing on their impact on server availability and performance metrics. The report begins with an executive summary and an introduction to server monitoring, emphasizing its importance in system administration. It then delves into various IT infrastructure-monitoring tools, including Ganglia, Nagios Core, Cacti, Zabbix, CollectD, WhatsUp Gold, and others, offering detailed comparisons of their features and functionalities. The report explores the architecture of Nagios and presents comparative visual data on metrics such as disk usage, CPU monitoring, resource monitoring, and bandwidth monitoring for several tools. Furthermore, it discusses data vulnerability issues in server availability monitoring tools and potential solutions, along with failure prediction capabilities. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and highlights the significance of selecting appropriate server monitoring tools for maintaining optimal server performance and ensuring service delivery. The report is a student contribution to Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools for students.

Running head: SERVER MONITORING TOOL
SERVER MONITORING TOOL
Name of the Student
Name of the Organization
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
IT Infrastructure-Monitoring Tools..............................................................................................................3
Comparison.................................................................................................................................................5
Ganglia.....................................................................................................................................................5
Nagios architecture....................................................................................................................................9
Zabbix......................................................................................................................................................9
CollectD.................................................................................................................................................14
WhatsUp Gold.......................................................................................................................................18
Server availability monitoring architecture...............................................................................................22
Data vulnerability in server availability monitoring tools and solution.....................................................22
Failure Prediction on server availability monitoring tool...........................................................................23
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................23
References.................................................................................................................................................24

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Executive summary
The main aim of the report is to discuss about a number of server availability tools of monitoring
which helps in providing a better performance of the server. A number of organizations face a huge
challenge in their server’s operation which is regular. Al the tools of monitoring have the ability to
reduce the latency of the server, device identification, server health improvement and also monitors all
the equipment of the network. The main job of all the tools mostly tries to avoid the server from
crashing down. It also makes sure that a smooth running is presented by the server. All the different
tools help a lot in performing an appropriate monitoring of all the servers.

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Introduction
A server is specially a system which mostly provides huge number of data, resources as well as
services to the system of the client over a channel within the network. All the servers to the function are
specially configured for receiving all the requests from the clients obtained from the channel of the
network. The server responds to the request which has been received by it with all the information
which are needed. All the different functions of the server include the special permission for the data
access, identity of the requestor verification and also the process of response formatting. All the
different monitoring tools of server are very much important. They are essential for administrating the
system’s working [1]. There is a reporting which is mainly automated and it has the ability of generating
all the checks which are scheduled and also provide several warnings regarding environment of the
server’s working. All the reports which are mostly generated by the software of monitoring keeps a daily
check upon a number of different activities. There are also a number of logins which are quite
suspicious. There are even utilization of resource and also response time which are needed to be
monitored properly. A huge number of layers are seen in the software of monitoring which has the
capability of following a number of protocols in sync which are aforementioned with a number of
applications which are monitored [3]. Each and every software individually possess a particular method
or rather a protocol which is already predefined for approaching the main problem which has been
faced by the system of server. There is an even a check which is done upon the system degradation by
the software within the particular system which has an impact upon the performance of service delivery
as well as provides improvement in the quality of the system stack as a whole [2].
IT Infrastructure-Monitoring Tools
Different IT server monitoring tools are as follows [3]:
 Ganglia
 Nagios Core
 Cacti
 Zabbix
 CollectD
 Icinga
 Spiceworks
 OpenNMS and

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 WhatsUp Gold.
Ganglia is a special software which has been designed for all the different systems of computer
possessing high speed of the performance. It is a particular software of monitoring having its source
open [4]. The system’s architecture is huge distributed. It is seen to be based upon a particular design
which is mostly hierarchical having its main target upon the cluster federation. This particular tool helps
a lot in providing support to all the microprocessors. It even provides support to the operating system as
well.
Nagios Core is also another monitoring tool which has its source open [6]. It is both cost effective as
well as customizable and all the metrics which are particularly offered by this tool mainly monitors the
server’s performance. The core part mainly provides a very limited number of features of monitoring.
Spiceworks is another monitoring tool of server which in mainly written upon the rails in Ruby. This
particular tool searches for all the devices of IP addressing and even offers a base of the knowledge. It
even offers with a number of insights into all the devices of SNMP, services as well as switches.
Cacti is particularly a front ended tool possessing with the capacity of managing collection of data.
Data gathering occurs by the utilization of a particular script which is mainly external which actually feed
all the metrics [5]. It is rather a tool of graphing for the system of data which has the capability of
generating a number of graphs for any type of data set which has been provided. All these graphs can be
created from a particular element of the infrastructure involving both the balancers of load and also the
servers.
CollectD is mainly a software which can be used in a number of different operating systems and it
mainly seeks and clearly identifies all the bottlenecks within the performance. It also has the ability to
predict the overtime of load within the system and also generates an alert. This particular software can
be integrated with a tool of graphing. It stores al the collected data in a number of formats like the files
of RRD.
Icinga is a software which provides a full new attribute of API which is known as REST API which
allows integration of a number of extensions very easily [7]. All these extensions do not require any type
of change in the core at all directly. It can be considered as an extension of Nagios.
WhatsUp Gold is a particular software which mostly provides an interactive map which is quite
comprehensive. The interactive map is actually about the entire infrastructure of the entire network [8].

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A warning based upon the real time and also a number of alerts are quickly generated and the particular
system ensures for the performance optimization.
Zabbix is a server tool of monitoring which mainly checks the time taken for responding for all the
different services like HTTP. It is considered as a solution of a particular organization which is equipped
with a huge number of characteristics [10]. It also possess the capability of providing commercial
support as well. It even checks the total uptime which has been taken for different services which are
responding.
OpenNMS is another software monitoring tool which has the capability of supporting functionality
which has a simpler serving [9]. It is to be kept in mind that this particular software allows only a limit of
about ten devices. It allows login to a single specific user only.
Comparison
Ganglia
Disk usage

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Figure 1: Disk Usage
Source: (Created by Author)
CPU Monitoring
Figure 2: CPU Monitoring
Source: (Created by Author)
Resource Monitoring

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Figure 3: Resource Monitoring
Source: (Created by Author)
Bandwidth Monitoring
Figure 4: Bandwidth Monitoring
Source: (Created by Author)

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Process Monitoring
Figure 5: Process Monitoring
Source: (Created by Author)

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Nagios architecture
Figure 6: Architecture of Nagios
Source: ([12])
The above architecture describes how Nagios software monitors and generates a number of
alerting services for the total infrastructure. It has the capability of monitoring both the services and the
host which are particularly specified by all the different users [11]. There is a special system for warning
which gives an alert whenever any kind of problem will be detected and finally the main problematic
issue will be resolved. The NagiosCore also invokes a number of checks which are very much active upon
the plugin in a periodic manner and that plugin is seen to be provided with huge number of data
regarding all sorts of cases which mostly requires a check. The plugin is mainly connected to the Apache
which is mostly controlled by the CGI and the result is finally displayed.
Zabbix
Disk Usage

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Figure 7: Disk Usage
Source: (Created by Author)
Process Monitoring

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Figure 8: Process Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)
CPU Monitoring
Figure 9: CPU Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)

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Bandwidth Monitoring
Figure 10: Bandwidth Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)
Resource Monitoring

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Figure 11: Resource Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)

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CollectD
Disk usage
Figure 12: Disk Usage
Source: (Created By Author)

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CPU Monitoring
Figure 13: CPU Monitoring
Source: (Created by Author)
Process Monitoring

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Figure 14: Process Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)
Resource Monitoring
Figure 15: Resource Monitoring
Source: (Created by Author)

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Bandwidth Measuring
Figure 16: Bandwidth Measuring
Source: (Created By Author)
WhatsUp Gold
Disk Usage

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Figure 17: Disk Usage
Source: (Created By Author)
Process Monitoring

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Figure 18: Process Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)
CPU Monitoring
Figure 19: CPU Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)
Bandwidth Monitoring

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Figure 20: Bandwidth Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)

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Resource Monitoring
Figure 21: Resource Monitoring
Source: (Created By Author)

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Server availability monitoring architecture
Figure 22: Server monitoring architecture
Source: ([1])
It can be observed from the above diagram that the monitoring server has four branches in total
which are the application, windows agent, service and the linux [12]. The monitoring tool of the server
monitors the total procedure for any kind of discrepancy. As shown in the figure, the data generates all
the reports which in turn generates alerts and hence maintains the service.
Data vulnerability in server availability monitoring tools and solution
It has been seen that there is a special tool of scanning which is mainly revolutionary for all kinds
of vulnerabilities within the server. It is named as Comondo HackerProof. With the help of this scanning
tool, there is a reduction of the abandonment of cart and regular issues of vulnerability scanning also
[13]. It also involves a number of tools of PCI and drive prevention by attack. Each and every monitoring
tool is equally held responsible for certain overtime and task as well. There are more than one users

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who are accessing the particular server. Hence, all such tools of sever monitoring are needed for
countering all kinds of vulnerabilities within the server in the market.
Failure Prediction on server availability monitoring tool
The performance of the server is considered as one of the essential metric which is needed for
the system evaluation. Failing to predict the health of the server may result in huge crashes and even
may lead sometimes to a loss of data as well [14]. Tools of monitoring help a lot preventing any kinds of
crashes of the server by the detection of the health of the server. It can also be detected by the flow of
data.
Conclusion
A huge number of servers are being run by several enterprises for the delivery of several
services to all the clients. All the tools of server monitoring are capable of monitoring the server’s
performance in a proactive manner. Several enterprises are seen to have faced issues while selecting an
appropriate software by keeping in mind about several metrics like the service availability and the
hardware. All the different monitoring tools of the server are capable of monitoring the system of the
server very closely.

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References
[1] J. Shetty, S. Saxena, G. Shobha, and J. Rastogi. Monitoring OpenStack Services Using Nagios.
In Emerging Research in Computing, Information, Communication and Applications (pp. 485-495).
Springer, New Delhi, 2015.
[2] J. Hernantes, G. Gallardo, & Serrano, N. IT Infrastructure-Monitoring Tools. IEEE Software, 32(4), 88–
93. doi:10.1109/ms.2015.96, 2015.
[3] K. Alhamazani, Ranjan, R., Mitra, K., Rabhi, F., Jayaraman, P.P., Khan, S.U., Guabtni, A. and Bhatnagar,
V. An overview of the commercial cloud monitoring tools: research dimensions, design issues, and state-
of-the-art. Computing, 97(4), pp.357-377, 2015.
[4] R. Gilligan, Bollard, G. and Sutton, G., Mastercard International Inc. Method and Systems for
Monitoring Changes for a Server System. U.S. Patent Application 15/618,032, 2017.
[5] F. octo Forster. Collectd, a daemon for collecting system performance statistics, 2015.
[6] A. Nelson. Performance Tuning best pracitces and performance monitoring with Zabbix, 2015
[7] M. Adam. Evaluation and implementation of CEP mechanisms to act upon infrastructure metrics
monitored by Ganglia (No. CERN-STUDENTS-Note-2015-172), 2015.
[8] N. Schagen, K. Koning, H. Bos. And C. Giuffrida, Towards Automated Vulnerability Scanning of
Network Servers. In Proceedings of the 11th European Workshop on Systems Security (p. 5). ACM, 2018
April.
[9] A. Cardoso, CJV. TEIXEIRA, and JS. PINTO. Architecture for Highly Configurable Dashboards for
Operations Monitoring and Support. Studies in Informatics and Control, 27(3), pp.319-330, 2018.
[10] S. Hilt, and P. Lin. Leaking Beeps: A Closer Look at IT Systems That Leak Pages. Trend Micro, Sept
2016.
[11] S.A. Guarnieri, M. Pistoia, and O. Tripp, International Business Machines Corp. Certifying server side
web applications against security vulnerabilities. U.S. Patent 8,943,599, 2015.

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[12]S. Biswas, "A Guide to Monitoring Servers with Nagios - Boolean World", Boolean World, 2019.
[Online]. Available: https://www.booleanworld.com/guide-monitoring-servers-nagios/. [Accessed: 19-
Apr- 2019].
[13[M. Chandran, and J. Walvekar, Monitoring in a Virtualized Environment. GSTF Journal on Computing
(JoC), 1(1) , 2018.
[14]H.J. Syed, A. Gani, R.W. Ahmad, M.K. Khan, and A.I.A. Ahmed, Cloud monitoring: A review,
taxonomy, and open research issues. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 98, pp.11-26, 2017.