When we talk about IT monitoring, we know the core of the topic is keeping systems, servers, applications, and services running with an availability SLA as close to 100% as possible. Yet many companies focus exclusively on the monitoring tools and expect them to do most of the work on their own.

There are premises and best practices around monitoring that rest in the hands of specialists in the field. These premises and practices are critical to the success of monitoring and, as such, deserve the same attention and investment as the tools themselves.

What actually matters for good monitoring?

One of the most important elements of monitoring is a clear definition of its metrics and objectives. This means deciding which indicators are most relevant to your business, which services are core to your operation, and what performance levels are acceptable. Without these clear definitions, monitoring can become ineffective and the alerts generated by the tools can turn irrelevant or excessive, making it harder to identify real problems.

Once those decisions and definitions are in place, the next step is implementing the right alerts. Alerts should be configured to fire only when a real problem occurs and action is required. Excessive or unnecessary alerts can overwhelm monitoring analysts and lead to a constant state of alarm, which can reduce monitoring effectiveness by getting operators used to the alarm state until they stop taking it seriously.

Maintaining accurate historical records is another important point for monitoring. These records let the IT team analyze and identify capacity patterns and trends, while providing an overview of the incident and resolution history. This helps the IT team better understand problems and make informed decisions about long-term solutions, instead of just dealing with immediate issues — the all-too-familiar firefighting.

Finally, regularly analyzing monitoring data is crucial to improving monitoring performance and effectiveness. The data collected can be used to pinpoint bottlenecks, performance problems, and areas for improvement, and it helps the IT team make better-informed decisions about IT infrastructure investments.

How to implement it according to best practices?

Did you notice that all the most important points are common to any monitoring tool, and what changes is how the environments are deployed and operated? Exactly. So while monitoring tools are important for detecting and resolving problems, the premises, processes, and best practices of monitoring are equally — if not more — important, and must not be neglected. Infraops is the right partner to help you clearly define monitoring metrics and objectives, implement the right alerts, maintain and present accurate records, and analyze monitoring data on a regular basis, so your IT environment gets ever closer to that long-sought 100% availability SLA. These are fundamental to the success of IT monitoring.

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