Monitis: Cloud Monitoring Blog

I love to read propaganda. It’s so entertaining.

Xinhuanet, the top news site in China, reports that “most Chinese Internet users believe they will be OK with a no-Google Internet despite all predictable inconvenience.”

So how does Xinhuanet know that? The site cites a survey by the Global Times newspaper, an affiliate of the state-owned People’s Daily, in which 27,000 Internet users were asked “What’s your opinion of Google pulling out of China?” About 84% said they “don’t care.”

Just read how the government newspaper described why Google decided to re-route users to a search site in Hong Kong that it isn’t censoring (on behalf of the government):

“Google stirred up controversy in the world’s media and on the Internet in January when the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, said in a blog that Google might shut down google.cn and its China office due to disputes with the Chinese government and unidentified cyber attacks against its Chinese users.”

You can really tell a lot about the slant of a news story by the language used…”stirred up controversy”…”due to disputes with the Chinese government.” How about discussing why Google’s quitting its search business there: the censorship issue?

It remains to be seen now if China will block citizens’ access to the Google Hong Kong site. For now, it isn’t, according to the The Wall Street Journal.

The way I see it, Google, after threatening to leave China over censorship issues, finally took action because of a cyber attack on Chinese dissident Gmail users – an attack believed to have come from China. That was the last straw for Google.

Why do I care so much about this? The protector in me can relate to Google’s actions. As the owner of a monitoring company, part of my mission is to warn clients of hackers and other threats. You don’t want to let your clients down.

Going head to head with Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is preparing to launch an online store that sells business software integrating with its cloud services. Google will apparently hire third-party software companies to design business software which it will then integrate with and enhance Google Apps.

The Journal quotes unnamed sources as saying this is Google’s plan and that the store, a new and improved version of its Solutions Marketplace, will come online in March 2010. Customers would be allowed to buy Google’s partners’ software on the site, and users will be able to immediately access or use their applications – via the Gmail or Google Docs menus.

What are some of the improvements to Apps that Google’s looking at? Think tinkering that produces enhanced security features, the ability to import contacts, tools to access online files offline. Officially, Google is not talking about this yet: The Journal quoted a Google spokesman as saying that the company is “constantly working with our partners to deliver more solutions to businesses, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”

The new store is seen as part of the company’s business strategy to grow its online software business – and to get customers away from Microsoft programs. After all, Google can’t rely on advertising revenue forever.

But one consequence of this new strategy of relying on outside software developers is that there could be quality issues. I hate to even think of anything negative. But, indeed, concern about storing data online is why many large enterprises are fearful of migrating from internally housed Microsoft applications to cloud-based ones.

So, this could be another reason why it’ll become more important than ever for companies using Google’s suite of software (or Azure or any other cloud platform, for that matter) to employ back-up plans to monitor the reliability of their cloud services and help keep their data available and safe.

Every day we read more about local, national and international governments migrating to the cloud for data storage and applications use. Los Angeles is a well-known example of a city that switched from internally hosted email to the cloud’s Gmail app. Usually, the reasons are to achieve more efficiencies and savings and to give citizens more and faster access to services and information.

But there is another level of discussion around the cloud that government and the private sector is increasingly engaging in. It’s a more strategic, broader view of cloud issues, for example, regarding security standards.

Recently, Microsoft hosted a stimulating roundtable at the Aspen Institute in Washington about cloud computing, and both government representatives and cloud players got a chance to speak their minds – and have dinner, too – according to a Washington Post article.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith spoke about the opportunities that cloud computing presents to them and other cloud service providers. But it’s putting greater pressure on Washington policy makers and Congress to protect companies from attacks on their servers and privacy. Did you know that law enforcement routinely ask for data on the cloud – which is NOT protected from existing privacy protections? Microsoft is clear on what it wants the government to do: update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to apply to protections on the Web. It also wants stronger rules against cyber attacks by reforming the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“Courts are less clear about what is reasonable expectations of privacy when it comes to data that goes to a third-party” server, Smith said at the dinner, according to the Post. Apparently, many in the room said there should be basic privacy and security protections for all consumers.

And the Federal Trade Commission is investigating privacy concerns on the cloud, as end users often aren’t aware of where their data is being held or what kind of protections are in force.

And then there’s the issue of information borders on the cloud. What kind of rights should a cloud app user who’s living in the U.S. expect when their information is hacked by users in China? “This is really popping and something that will be very disruptive,” said Alec Ross, senior adviser on innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the Post article. “We need to think about who the great actors are and what they do with that information … and then set forth a clear set of values and norms.”

What would I have said if I were in the room, part of the dinner? Something like this: while we wait for the perfect cloud world to arrive, where everyone’s data is safer than Fort Knox, there are ways that businesses can add a little insurance to using the cloud, such as monitoring your cloud provider for reliability, or monitoring your sites and transaction volume. With warnings delivered in a variety of ways, you get some peace of mind that whatever trouble is brewing can be headed off.

There’s a new report out from a very well-respected environmental authority, Greenpeace, that paints a dark picture for cloud computing pollution. I thought it was so interesting because when a lot of people talk about cloud computing they can make erroneous assumptions that the cloud is carbon-free. This comes from the notion that by not having to run and maintain a slew of internal servers, companies reduce their energy consumption – and thus emissions.

Well, the Greenpeace study, “Make it Green: Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change,” says quite the opposite. The study, which dubs 2010 as “The Year of the Cloud” due to the growth of new cloud innovations such as e-readers Kindle and the iPad (not to mention the rising number of enterprises migrating to the cloud to do business), says cloud computing GHG emissions are set to triple by 2020. As more people buy and use Kindle and iPad, there’ll be more need for cloud data centers, and thus more power needed to run them.

Specifically, the report finds that, “at current growth rates, data centers and telecommunication networks, the two key components of the cloud, will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020, more than triple their current consumption and over half the current electricity consumption of the United States. That’s more than France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.

Further, Greenpeace urges the IT industry to convert to renewable energy when possible, for example, solar or wind-powered energy. In a move in the opposite direction, Facebook earlier this year opened a new data center in Oregon, powered by a coal plant in Idaho.

To me, it’s kind of a “Catch-22″ situation when you talk about carbon emissions from the cloud. Yes, there’s definitely a need to explore and adopt alternative energy sources to run data centers, but think of all the trees we’re not cutting down by more people reading books on Kindle. Or, what about all those planes grounded because people are now meeting via SaaS virtual meetings programs? And, yes, companies, especially large ones, are saving by not running cooling systems to keep their servers maintained.

Interested in how much your enterprise is contributing to cloud computing pollution? Well, cloud monitoring reports, for example, number of instances and performance trends, can give you some idea of the resources cloud platforms and services are using to support your business.

San Jose, CA – March 25, 2010 – Monitis, the leading provider of 100% Cloud-based network and systems monitoring solutions, today announced significant enhancements to its transaction-monitoring tool, enabling important new features and reports.

Monitis’ suite of all-in-one internal and external monitoring tools, already the category standard for feature robustness and ease-of-use, is adding to its transaction monitoring capabilities with:

• The ability to show all resources downloaded during the test flow using detailed information like DNS lookup time, first bite download time, and full-content download-time.
• The ability to add transaction-step reporting for different periods and see the average time for each step to discover transaction flow bottlenecks.
• The ability to monitor from a new European location – the Netherlands.

Hovhannes Avoyan, Monitis’ Founder and CEO, commented, “For e-commerce businesses across the Web, there is no better, all-in-one system than Monitis. Our transaction-monitoring continues to break new ground and innovate faster than the rest.”

About Monitis All-in-One Monitoring Platform

Monitis is a 100% Cloud-based, comprehensive, yet flexible, IT monitoring solution that consolidates backend, application, and cloud monitoring in an all-in-one, central monitoring service. The platform is easily customizable and may be used for managing of all kinds of IT assets such as websites, servers, routers, switches, VoIP devices, DNS, databases, processes and any other IP devices.  Monitis provides users with a comprehensive view of their system’s health and performance. 

About Monitis

Monitis believes that the Cloud is the biggest thing to happen in IT management since IT management. Having seen this vision early, Monitis is now the global leader in developing this market.  It is the first affordable network and systems monitoring solution based 100% in the Cloud.  More than 50,000 customers from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to government agencies and educational institutions have chosen Monitis to reduce system downtime, improve the productivity of their IT staff, and reduce operational expenditures. 

Monitis was founded in 2005 by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs and fed-up and worn-out developers who were tired of complaining about the limits of software-based tools, while inspired by the promise of the Cloud.  Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Monitis is lead by a team of IT professionals with deep experience running enterprise-grade IT businesses, as well as starting and selling several IT start-ups.  Using a global workforce, particularly its R&D team based in Yerevan, Armenia, Monitis is poised to move from strength to strength.  At present, it has a loyal and enthusiastic user community of 50,000, and an average month-on-month revenue growth of over 10%.

Contact:

Monitis Inc.

Sales & Marketing Department

info@monitis.com

http://www.monitis.com

US & Canada Toll Free: +1-800-657-7949

UK + International: +44-845-527-3346

France + International: +33-48-607-9035

2880 Zanker Road Suite 203

San Jose, CA-95134

USA

A recent article I read on cloud computing risk asks a good, basic question that I think every company should consider when weighing the benefits of migrating to the cloud: cloud computing: Are the advantages of Cloud computing compared to in-house management of data worth the risks or not?

This writer was referring to the security breaches and data privacy violations that have plagued cloud providers, for example, the recent breach of Gmail by Chinese hackers that we aimed at that country’s political dissidents.

Sure, your company can figure out the IT cost savings and efficiencies inherent in switching to cloud computing, and like many other companies, you may even hit your financial goals. But what “cannot be put into the financial statement or projected costs savings are the unknowns in your company’s brand protection should something go wrong,” the writer says. “Other considerations are litigation, insurance (risk) costs, and other service liability claims that could arise.”

The simple fact is that the more information about or from you stored in central repositories and accessed from single-source environments, the more risk that cloud computing suppliers assume. Add to that the significant pressures on companies today to cut their IT costs, determining how much risk a company undertakes managing information and intellectual property.

What kinds of risk do companies assume when migrating to the cloud? Data centers operated by third parties “invite more than just criminal intent, including government oversight, profiling, personal attack, manipulation and legal litigation,” says the article. Government oversight and the mining of data by “big brother” is a particularly scary notion – and the legislation governing this is so confusing and willy-nilly that I’d say it’s a safe bet that if it’s not written down that a government agency can’t do something, it’ll be done.

What shocked me when reading this was the author’s statement that “cloud computing service providers like Google are exposed to legal and financial risks that could lead to their demise.” That’s a pretty extreme statement, and rather than get into whether I think that could happen or not, my advice to any company considering migrating to or expanding cloud usage is to focus more on prevention.

Instead of taking the “sitting duck” attitude, do everything proactively that you can to prevent service interruptions, hacking, security violations and other disasters happening to you.

So, what can you do? An end-to-end solution is what’s needed, in my view, including:

EXTERNAL END-TO-END MONITORING, including:

• Monitoring Frequency – from 1 minute to 60 minutes
• Multiple Check Locations – America, Europe, Asia and Australia
• Custom Monitoring Locations – possibility to setup your own monitoring locations
• No False Alarms – failures verified across multiple locations
• Monitors Websites, EMail Servers, Firewalls, VoIP, Databases, Domain Name Servers, Routers, Web Servers from end user perspective
• Supported Protocols – HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, SSH, PING, TCP, UDP, SIP, MySQL, DNS
• Web Page Content check – specify string to be checked for existence/non-existence on web page
• WebMap view – see all your servers and web sites in the single map view

SERVER AND NETWORK MONITORING, Providing Information on:

• Windows – CPU, RAM, Disk Usage, Processes, System Events, Installed Software
• Linux – CPU, RAM, Disk Usage, Processes, Load Averages
• FreeBSD – CPU, RAM, Disk Usage, Processes, Load Averages
• Solaris – CPU, RAM, Disk Usage, Processes, Load Averages
• SNMP Support – MIB browser, OID monitoring, SNMP Trap

APPLICATION (TRANSACTION) MONITORING, Offering:

• Monitis Transaction Recorder – record your web application flow
• Load time of each component of the page – check load time of each component of your web application
• Detailed troubleshooting – drill down multiple layers to find the root cause or component of the problem
• Multi-step support – multi-step application flow support
• Problem alerts specifying failed step – get immediate alerts specifying the step of your transaction where failure occurred
  

CLOUD STORAGE MONITORING Amazon S3:

• Monitor number of buckets – be aware when you reach some number of used buckets
• Monitor bucket size – find out disk utilization of your bucket or all the buckets in total
• Monitor objects in the bucket – find out how many objects exists in each bucket or in all of the buckets

CLOUD MONITORING of AMAZON EC2, RACKSPACE, Including:

• Monitor number of instances – be aware when you reach some number of EC2 running instances
• Monitor instance utilizations – CPU, RAM, Disk usage, Processes, System Events, Load Averages, Installed Software
• Policy specification – allow automatic deployment of internal agent on every new instance

GENERAL MONITORING Services:

• Instant Failure Alerts – E-mail, IM(Yahoo, GoogleTalk, ICQ), SMS, Twitter
  
• Schedule maintenance – define downtime periods during maintenance windows
• Escalation – escalate continuing problems to different staff members
• Alerting periods – specify alerting periods per contacts
• Performance Trends – graphical and table representation of performance and availabiliity over time(Current Day, Last 24 hours)
• History – option of digging into historical data
• SLA Reporting – detailed reporting with SLA metrics(Yearly/Monthly, Yearly/Weekly, Monthly/Weekly, Monthly/Daily
• Public reports – show your uptime to your customers
• Public widgets – show your uptime on your web site
• Weekly e-mail reports – get averages of the week by e-mail
• Daily e-mail reports – get averages of the day at the end of the day
• Monthly e-mail reports – get averages of the month in a monthly summary e-mails
• Time zone selection – adjust alert time zone
• Export results – export results in PDF/CSV in order to analyze them
• Timeout specification – specify timeout acceptable for your web site
• Failures From – specify monitoring locations affecting alerts(OR/AND condition is available)
• Continuous Alerting – get alerts until an issue is resolved
• Notify when back up – enable/Disable recovery alert
• Access Management – provide different level of access to your employees, customers
• Monitis API – fetch all the data directly without web access
• Monitis CLI – Monitis command line interface provides you library for fetching the data from your shell

San Jose, CA – March 18, 2010 – Monitis, the leading provider of 100% Cloud-based network and systems monitoring solutions, today announced a major overhaul and upgrade of it’s user interface designed to make the world’s most innovative suite of monitoring tools even more user-friendly.

First-generation and second-generation internal and external monitoring systems have been notoriously complex and difficult to use. When it launched, Monitis’ third generation suite of monitoring tools fundamentally changed this dynamic. With it’s latest UI upgrade, the user experience has been made even simpler. The new changes include:

• A new internal monitoring wizard. The new wizard helps users get set-up faster with no complexity or hassle. The steps in the new wizard are now easier to follow and now enable simultaneous setup of multiple agents (bulk add) and of multiple test types (CPU, process, etc).
• New options in the toolbar. The toolbar now enables users to change the number of columns, enable/disable flash charts, and collapse/expand modules directly from dashboard’s toolbar. The Help section has also been revised.
• Improved visibility and access in the tab bar. The size of the tab bar has been increased, allowing users to see more tabs without scrolling. The tab carousel has also been improved, making it more convenient to scroll and switch between tabs.
• Significant performance enhancements for IE users.

Hovhannes Avoyan, Monitis’ Founder and CEO, commented, “We already had the easiest-to-use all-in-one monitoring suite on the market. With our most recent UI overhaul and upgrade, we’ve gone from strength to strength. As per usual, we’ve been relentless in our pursuit of ways to help IT managers and system administrators save time.”

About Monitis All-in-One Monitoring Platform

Monitis is a 100% Cloud-based, comprehensive, yet flexible, IT monitoring solution that consolidates backend, application, and cloud monitoring in an all-in-one, central monitoring service. The platform is easily customizable and may be used for managing of all kinds of IT assets such as websites, servers, routers, switches, VoIP devices, DNS, databases, processes and any other IP devices.  Monitis provides users with a comprehensive view of their system’s health and performance. 

About Monitis

Monitis believes that the Cloud is the biggest thing to happen in IT management since IT management. Having seen this vision early, Monitis is now the global leader in developing this market.  It is the first affordable network and systems monitoring solution based 100% in the Cloud.  More than 50,000 customers from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to government agencies and educational institutions have chosen Monitis to reduce system downtime, improve the productivity of their IT staff, and reduce operational expenditures. 

Monitis was founded in 2005 by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs and fed-up and worn-out developers who were tired of complaining about the limits of software-based tools, while inspired by the promise of the Cloud.  Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Monitis is lead by a team of IT professionals with deep experience running enterprise-grade IT businesses, as well as starting and selling several IT start-ups.  Using a global workforce, particularly its R&D team based in Yerevan, Armenia, Monitis is poised to move from strength to strength.  At present, it has a loyal and enthusiastic user community of 50,000, and an average month-on-month revenue growth of over 10%.

Contact:
Monitis Inc.
Sales & Marketing Department
info@monitis.com
http://www.monitis.com
US & Canada Toll Free: +1-800-657-7949
UK + International: +44-845-527-3346
France + International: +33-48-607-9035
2880 Zanker Road Suite 203
San Jose, CA-95134
USA

San Jose, CA – March 11, 2010 – Monitis, the leading provider of affordable, easy-to-use, 100% Cloud-based, network and systems monitoring solutions, today announced that it has launched a totally new and completely revamped website.

This addition caps a 12 month period in which Monitis has doubled its user base, won the 451 Group’s prestigious “Most Innovative Start-up” award for 2009, and driven a development schedule and roll out of one game-changing product after another.

According to Founder and CEO Hovhannes Avoyan, “Our Cloud-based, SaaS-driven, all-in-one suite internal and external monitoring tools is so far ahead of the game, that likely for the last 12 months and certainly for the last 6 months, there has been absolutely no comparison between the value and difference-making features we offer and the rest of the competition. Yet, until now our website didn’t reflect our radical advantages. As of today, this is no longer the case. We finally have a site worthy of our offering.”

The core of the new Monitis site is already live and a bevy of new features and additions will be streamed on-line in the weeks to come.

About Monitis All-in-One Monitoring Platform

Monitis is the only service which provides Cloud Monitoring from the Cloud.  It is leading a new era of systems management tools – the Cloud generation.  Monitis is a 100% Cloud-based, complete, and flexible IT monitoring solution, offered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Monitis consolidates backend monitoring, application monitoring, website monitoring, and cloud monitoring in an all-in-one, central monitoring service. The platform is easily customizable and may be used for managing of all kinds of IT assets such as websites, servers, routers, switches, VoIP devices, DNS, databases, processes and any other IP devices.  Monitis provides users with a comprehensive view of their system’s health and performance. 

About Monitis

Monitis believes that the Cloud is the biggest thing to happen in IT management since IT management. Having seen this vision early, Monitis is now the global leader in developing this market.  It is the first affordable network and systems monitoring solution based 100% in the Cloud. 

Besides Monitis’ enthusiastic and loyal user base of 50,000 customers from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to government agencies and educational institutions, Monitis has won rave reviews from the technology analyst community. Recently, because it’s Cloud-based monitoring helps companies reduce system downtime, improve the productivity of their IT staff, and reduce operational expenditures, Monitis was named the Most Innovative Start-up for 2009 by The 451 Group at their annual Client Conference.  

Monitis was founded in 2005 by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs and fed-up and worn-out developers who were tired of complaining about the limits of software-based tools, while inspired by the promise of the Cloud.  Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Monitis is lead by a team of IT professionals with deep experience running enterprise-grade IT businesses, as well as starting and selling several IT start-ups.  Using a global workforce, particularly its R&D team based in Yerevan, Armenia, Monitis is poised to move from strength to strength.  At present, it has a loyal and enthusiastic user community of 50,000, and an average month-on-month revenue growth of over 10%.

Contact:

Monitis Inc.

Sales & Marketing Department

info@monitis.com

http://www.monitis.com

US & Canada Toll Free: +1-800-657-7949

UK + International: +44-845-527-3346

France + International: +33-48-607-9035

2880 Zanker Road Suite 203

San Jose, CA-95134

USA

In a piece I read on Networkworld, I was reminded just how much virtualization will become a successful component of cloud computing – and vice-versa.

Let me explain. There may be myriad definitions floating around out there about just what exactly is the cloud, but the goal of the cloud is very clear: to vastly improve the cost-effectiveness and dynamic provisioning of IT services. Better, faster, cheaper, says the story.

And to be even clearer about the value of the cloud, virtualization is included in the top considerations of what is most important in the new computing environment. Of course, virtualization is not a new concept (consider the existence of virtualized mainframes, VPNs and LANs). But in today’s computing world, almost every aspect of IT can be virtualized, including servers, desktops, applications, storage, network switches and routers.

The story also predicts that, more and more, we’ll see Input/Output on network switches, appliances such as WAN optimization controllers (WOC), application delivery controllers (ADC) and firewalls become virtualized.

While this all might seem pretty matter-of-fact to IT folks, the point here is that sometimes we have to take a step back and look at the broader view of how the cloud is changing almost every aspect of enterprise computing. Amazing!

Do you have a vision of IT staff disappearing as cloud computing develops and ushers in more automation and self-functioning tools? This implies that there won’t be anything to manage in a network.

In a recent InformationWeek blog that I came across, the author says that about three-quarters of the systems people she spoke with at a recent end-users conference were concerned about losing their jobs to the cloud.

I think this is a worst-case scenario (and a downright scary story) that IT folks are conjuring up. What will likely happen is that roles will change – not go away – as more expertise is needed in managing an enterprise’s eventual and measured migration to the cloud.

Systems administrators and networking professionals will be responsible for helping their organizations transition to a new IT environment, as well as for ensuring that there is a smooth migration path from an on-premise network to a hybrid environment (which would include on-premise, a private cloud and some components of a public cloud.)

To prepare for greater cloud computing management roles, IT folks can learn how to work more closely with other business units within their firms, and to help them understand new requirements, limits, and benefits of the new model. These “soft skills” have “often been lacking in IT organizations,” says the author. But soon enough, they’ll be critical – because cloud computing naturally involves the collaboration of several different business units. After all, it is a major change in the way a company computes.

So the reality really is that IT roles will grow from solely maintaining a network to more strategic roles in order to assist their organizations in managing the new cloud computing infrastructure.

IT folks can also prove themselves valuable in helping their organizations monitor service level agreements (SLAs), uptime statistics, data breaches and other cloud performance indicators. Taking on the watchdog role will bring new respect and appreciation from upper management.