Monday, January 15, 2007
PortSensor Server Monitoring -- Now Free for General Use!
Hey there!
I'm happy to say PortSensor has now fully scratched the itch we felt while using our previous server monitoring tools over here at WebGroup Media.
I'll be honest, there was a dark period in the history of our company where the majority of server issues were being brought up by customers before we even noticed them.
It wasn't negligence, we just always have more R&D projects going than we have people. While that alone is a terrible excuse, the situation was exacerbated by the fact our previous tools didn't realize the real problem -- we had better things to do than constantly check a browser window or inbox. With these other monitoring tools, at best, we were finding out about issues around the same time as our most active hosting customers noticed their sites performing poorly.
That's why we approached PortSensor differently. It's a desktop tool that shows a green, yellow or red LED in your systray. As the status changes a non-intrusive pop-up lets you know what's going on. You can set up your own notifications without an administrator's help.
If you're away from your desk, PortSensor works like you'd expect -- it can fire off an alarm or send you an email. You can also nest notifications so a monitor like disk space emails your desk at 80% utilization or your cell phone at 90%.
So that brings me to our real question. PortSensor is great, why aren't more people using it?
After some discussion, inside and outside WGM, our team felt like the current free version (1 server with 5 sensors) probably isn't conducive to getting a feel for everything PortSensor can do. It's definitely not enough to become acquainted with how great SSH sensors are for monitoring metrics like disk space, load and processes on Unix-based machines. A lot of people hadn't even tried SSH Sensors or Custom Notifications.
We thought about raising the sensor/server limits, but decided to do one better. PortSensor is now free for full functionality and unlimited sensors across unlimited servers. The sole exception is currently Custom Notifications which let you set various thresholds on a sensor with a responding action. That's now the pivotal feature between 'free forever' and 'help pay our rent'.
We'll happily generate a trial license for anybody who wants to explore the Custom Notifications functionality. And that's exactly what we'll do as a bonus for everybody who downloads PortSensor and provides some info on the little survey we have up on the site.
And hey, if you think we've pegged the wrong culprit and you'd like to add some comments, the forums (http://www.portsensor.com/forums) and my inbox (jeff AT webgroupmedia.com) are always open.
The downloads are updated on the website!
-Jeff Standen, Project Lead
I'm happy to say PortSensor has now fully scratched the itch we felt while using our previous server monitoring tools over here at WebGroup Media.
I'll be honest, there was a dark period in the history of our company where the majority of server issues were being brought up by customers before we even noticed them.
It wasn't negligence, we just always have more R&D projects going than we have people. While that alone is a terrible excuse, the situation was exacerbated by the fact our previous tools didn't realize the real problem -- we had better things to do than constantly check a browser window or inbox. With these other monitoring tools, at best, we were finding out about issues around the same time as our most active hosting customers noticed their sites performing poorly.
That's why we approached PortSensor differently. It's a desktop tool that shows a green, yellow or red LED in your systray. As the status changes a non-intrusive pop-up lets you know what's going on. You can set up your own notifications without an administrator's help.
If you're away from your desk, PortSensor works like you'd expect -- it can fire off an alarm or send you an email. You can also nest notifications so a monitor like disk space emails your desk at 80% utilization or your cell phone at 90%.
So that brings me to our real question. PortSensor is great, why aren't more people using it?
After some discussion, inside and outside WGM, our team felt like the current free version (1 server with 5 sensors) probably isn't conducive to getting a feel for everything PortSensor can do. It's definitely not enough to become acquainted with how great SSH sensors are for monitoring metrics like disk space, load and processes on Unix-based machines. A lot of people hadn't even tried SSH Sensors or Custom Notifications.
We thought about raising the sensor/server limits, but decided to do one better. PortSensor is now free for full functionality and unlimited sensors across unlimited servers. The sole exception is currently Custom Notifications which let you set various thresholds on a sensor with a responding action. That's now the pivotal feature between 'free forever' and 'help pay our rent'.
We'll happily generate a trial license for anybody who wants to explore the Custom Notifications functionality. And that's exactly what we'll do as a bonus for everybody who downloads PortSensor and provides some info on the little survey we have up on the site.
And hey, if you think we've pegged the wrong culprit and you'd like to add some comments, the forums (http://www.portsensor.com/forums) and my inbox (jeff AT webgroupmedia.com) are always open.
The downloads are updated on the website!
-Jeff Standen, Project Lead
