December 18, 2007

Customer and prospects sometimes ask us if we use our own software here at Heroix for application performance and network monitoring, and the answer is yes. We use Longitude to monitor our production servers and critical applications and alert us when a problem is detected. Besides helping us keep our own IT house in order, it gives our engineers a first-hand view of what you experience when you use our software. We think it helps us deliver better support and, in the long run, better monitoring software.

Recently Longitude detected that our ftp site was down during a weekend so it notified the engineer on call. No one likes to have their weekend interrupted (especially once Sunday football TV coverage starts), but given the hours that our customers and prospects keep, someone may be trying to download the software at any time. However, in this case, the problem was just a transient lapse in network connectivity. Longitude recognized this, and sent a “problem clear” message five minutes later. Our engineer could stay in front of the TV till the clock ran out!

Longitude does this “closed loop” monitoring using Action Rules. An Action Rule defines the actions (Email, SNMP trap, or OS command) that will be executed when specific events occur. Action Rules can be very specific, or very general. For example, you could have Longitude send you an email if you are unable to reach a specific server, or if memory is low on any monitored server. You could even tell Longitude to email you for any critical event on any server – including servers that may be added at a later date. Similarly, Longitude can take corrective actions based on general instructions, such as restarting any service that has stopped, or specific instructions, such as executing application-specific scripts. And, as we see in this case, Longitude can notify you or take an action when a transaction-related event is cleared. This is a powerful capability that is very easy to administer within the Longitude Web Interface.

Posted by: Dick Levin, VP of Development