Advanced Site Availability Monitoring
How to really know what's going on with your site
Link inaccuracies, missing content, 404 pages, maxed time and service disruptions all become more than annoyances to your users. They become reasons for them to take their business elsewhere. Making sure your hardware is running optimally is step one to optimizing your end user experience. Step two, an important one, is making sure your services are behaving the way you need them to. And it's why we offer and support URL Synthetic Transaction Monitoring and Content Monitoring.Section Navigation
- Reporting & Administation Overview
- URL Monitoring
- MyRackspace® Customer Portal
While our standard port monitoring is a good start, it's not foolproof. A port can show it's available even though the site isn't
functioning for your end-users. Advanced Availability Monitoring goes beyond monitoring basic port availability. It routinely checks
your critical web pages and services to make sure they're working properly. And then quickly lets us know when they're not, so then
we can start working on solving your problems immediately.
All of our monitoring options are designed to focus on the most critical components of your site, and instantly alert your Monitoring Team as soon as anything's amiss. They'll help pinpoint and troubleshoot any issues by reviewing transaction logs and providing you with actionable information. They can even review your historical monitoring data to assess failure patterns and track the impact of changes you make. Plus, with Fanatical Support® working for you 24x7x365, you can be confident your site is not just up, but that it's doing what your business needs it to do.
FTP Retrieval
Checks FTP site availability then attempts to retrieve a specified file. If the file can't be retrieved, an alert is sent to your Rackspace Monitoring Team. Ideal for businesses that rely on FTP sites to do day-to-day business.
The Value
Allows us to know when your users can not retrieve a file from your download site.
Mail Send/Receive
Tests whether a mail user can send and receive email. If the monitor finds the server is unavailable or malfunctioning, an alert is sent to the Monitoring Team. Ideal for sites for which mail is a business critical function or for backend office mail servers. Works with any POP or IMAP service.
The Value
Alerts us when your email is not working.
URL Content Monitoring
Checks a single URL for its availability (not just pinging a port), and then continues to search the page for a predefined string of text. If an identical text string isn't identified, an alert is sent to your Monitoring Team. Ideal for sites that demand uptime, contain several critical pages, dynamic content or complex applications/environments.
The Value
When your website is down, pages don't load or when your selected text strings don't match, your visitors' experience is disrupted, potentially. Rapid alerts and actions can quickly restore their experience.
URL Synthetic Transaction Monitoring
Verifies that your visitors can complete a necessary series of steps successfully and without any site errors. We work with you to create a script of up to five steps that mimics how a user would typically interact with your site. If the steps can't be completed as designed, an alert is sent to the Monitoring Team. Ideal for monitoring e-commerce/shopping cart, auction, and community collaboration sites, as well as sites requiring a log in procedure.
The Value
Excellent for e-commerce sites when you want to know that the checkout process is working for the customer. Synthetic transactions can help identify performance and availability issues before they impact your customers and your revenue.
All of our monitoring options are designed to focus on the most critical components of your site, and instantly alert your Monitoring Team as soon as anything's amiss. They'll help pinpoint and troubleshoot any issues by reviewing transaction logs and providing you with actionable information. They can even review your historical monitoring data to assess failure patterns and track the impact of changes you make. Plus, with Fanatical Support® working for you 24x7x365, you can be confident your site is not just up, but that it's doing what your business needs it to do.
Advanced Availability Monitoring Options:
FTP Retrieval
Checks FTP site availability then attempts to retrieve a specified file. If the file can't be retrieved, an alert is sent to your Rackspace Monitoring Team. Ideal for businesses that rely on FTP sites to do day-to-day business.
The Value
Allows us to know when your users can not retrieve a file from your download site.
Mail Send/Receive
Tests whether a mail user can send and receive email. If the monitor finds the server is unavailable or malfunctioning, an alert is sent to the Monitoring Team. Ideal for sites for which mail is a business critical function or for backend office mail servers. Works with any POP or IMAP service.
The Value
Alerts us when your email is not working.
URL Content Monitoring
Checks a single URL for its availability (not just pinging a port), and then continues to search the page for a predefined string of text. If an identical text string isn't identified, an alert is sent to your Monitoring Team. Ideal for sites that demand uptime, contain several critical pages, dynamic content or complex applications/environments.
The Value
When your website is down, pages don't load or when your selected text strings don't match, your visitors' experience is disrupted, potentially. Rapid alerts and actions can quickly restore their experience.
URL Synthetic Transaction Monitoring
Verifies that your visitors can complete a necessary series of steps successfully and without any site errors. We work with you to create a script of up to five steps that mimics how a user would typically interact with your site. If the steps can't be completed as designed, an alert is sent to the Monitoring Team. Ideal for monitoring e-commerce/shopping cart, auction, and community collaboration sites, as well as sites requiring a log in procedure.
The Value
Excellent for e-commerce sites when you want to know that the checkout process is working for the customer. Synthetic transactions can help identify performance and availability issues before they impact your customers and your revenue.
Frequently asked questions
1.
How do I get my free Advanced Availability Monitor?
All you need to do is contact your Sales Representative or your Account Manager to get your first Free Advanced Availability Monitoring Service. You'll be able to choose from URL Content.
For the URL Content Monitoring, please provide the URL of the webpage you want us to monitor and 5 words from the static content of your page.
2. Why is a Monitoring Service so important?
If your website is a critical part of your business, monitoring is always crucial.
Advanced Availability Monitoring Services let Rackspace respond to your website issues and resolve them faster.
3. How is Advanced Availability Monitoring different from the standard monitoring provided to all Rackspace customers?
The standard monitoring included with Rackspace hosting solutions is equivalent to basic URL or Port Monitoring, meaning Rackspace only checks to make sure server ports are responding. It does not let us know if the end user is receiving content the way you intended. Advanced Availability Monitoring, on the other hand, verifies that what is being delivered to the end user is right, and that your business-critical services are running properly.
On many occasions, the content of your webpage can be distorted or somebody can hack into your system and put up content you don't want your customers to see. In order to avoid this, a URL Content monitor should be in place.
FTP File Retrieval and Mail Send/Receive monitors ensure that your site's mail and FTP download services are not only available but working correctly.
4. What if one of my servers isn't hosted at Rackspace? Can Rackspace still monitor my URL?
Yes, we can. Even if a server isn't hosted at Rackspace, we can monitor the URL and contact you when we receive alerts. You will need to provide Rackspace with detailed emergency instructions and contact information since we can not fix the problem because your server isn't in one of our data centers.
5. Can I request customized polling intervals?
Yes, but there is an additional charge for customized intervals. As a default, any Advanced Availability Monitor is polled every 10 minutes. Custom polling intervals can be as frequent as every 2 minutes.
All you need to do is contact your Sales Representative or your Account Manager to get your first Free Advanced Availability Monitoring Service. You'll be able to choose from URL Content.
For the URL Content Monitoring, please provide the URL of the webpage you want us to monitor and 5 words from the static content of your page.
2. Why is a Monitoring Service so important?
If your website is a critical part of your business, monitoring is always crucial.
Advanced Availability Monitoring Services let Rackspace respond to your website issues and resolve them faster.
3. How is Advanced Availability Monitoring different from the standard monitoring provided to all Rackspace customers?
The standard monitoring included with Rackspace hosting solutions is equivalent to basic URL or Port Monitoring, meaning Rackspace only checks to make sure server ports are responding. It does not let us know if the end user is receiving content the way you intended. Advanced Availability Monitoring, on the other hand, verifies that what is being delivered to the end user is right, and that your business-critical services are running properly.
On many occasions, the content of your webpage can be distorted or somebody can hack into your system and put up content you don't want your customers to see. In order to avoid this, a URL Content monitor should be in place.
FTP File Retrieval and Mail Send/Receive monitors ensure that your site's mail and FTP download services are not only available but working correctly.
4. What if one of my servers isn't hosted at Rackspace? Can Rackspace still monitor my URL?
Yes, we can. Even if a server isn't hosted at Rackspace, we can monitor the URL and contact you when we receive alerts. You will need to provide Rackspace with detailed emergency instructions and contact information since we can not fix the problem because your server isn't in one of our data centers.
5. Can I request customized polling intervals?
Yes, but there is an additional charge for customized intervals. As a default, any Advanced Availability Monitor is polled every 10 minutes. Custom polling intervals can be as frequent as every 2 minutes.
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