Hi Guy's (and Gals)

I'm in the process of starting a webhosting business and I am looking at website monitoring with a few key features.

1 - Complete monitoring (DNS, HTTP etc)
2 - High frequency (At least every 5 minutes)
3 - Able to SMS when issues occur (I live in Australia - must be able to SMS to Telstra GSM Mobiles)
4 - Relatively well prices (Always the clincher) :>

Does such a service exist - can you make any recommendations for companies that may provide at least 1,2 & 4?

Matt

Point 3 is easy. Do Telstra offer an email to sms service? If not, then you might want to checkout http://www.on.net/services/s_sms.html (failing which switch to Optus and a business plan which is substancially cheaper than Telstra and you can get the email to sms).

Other than that, most of the monitoring services offer what you want, but an at least every 5 minutes one is going to cost $$$.

Originally posted by mattonline
Hi Guy's (and Gals)

I'm in the process of starting a webhosting business and I am looking at website monitoring with a few key features.

1 - Complete monitoring (DNS, HTTP etc)
2 - High frequency (At least every 5 minutes)
3 - Able to SMS when issues occur (I live in Australia - must be able to SMS to Telstra GSM Mobiles)
4 - Relatively well prices (Always the clincher) :>

Does such a service exist - can you make any recommendations for companies that may provide at least 1,2 & 4?

Matt
http://alertra.com :)

Toby is a great chap and has bent over backwards for us. We use them for 6 servers. Great service.

Originally posted by joshp
Point 3 is easy. Do Telstra offer an email to sms service?
Yes they do. It's called "Notify me" - https://telstra.com/tcoma/registration/notifyme/welcome.asp?

:D:agree:

I use alertra.com and Site Vigil.

One also worth considering is www.websitepulse.com

Port and URL monitoring
3 minute monitors
US10c SMS messages to Telstra Australia
Pricing is very good

You can sign up for a free trial and then simulate some test failures. We use Alertra and they're good as well, but I think you'll find websitepulse has added benefits and lower costs.

Cheers

Gary

Or basically have a couple of dogs chained to the rack that your server is on and when it stops humming, they start barking madly and alert the datacenter sysadmins. You just have to make sure your watch dogs aren't the types that go after datacanter sysadmins. :D

Ok, ok - silly, but the picture in my mind of dogs watching the servers made me laugh. Then again, I'm a Queenslander. We're amused by simple thoughts. :D

Thankfully I'm a sandgroper, and know full well that dogs can't send SMS messages... :)

Gary

Thanks guys, it looks like websitepulse.com is a great option, I'm sure alertra.com are great but they charge like wounded bulls.

Matt

I think the Humiditiy is getting to you.

Matt

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Or basically have a couple of dogs chained to the rack that your server is on and when it stops humming, they start barking madly and alert the datacenter sysadmins. You just have to make sure your watch dogs aren't the types that go after datacanter sysadmins. :D

Ok, ok - silly, but the picture in my mind of dogs watching the servers made me laugh. Then again, I'm a Queenslander. We're amused by simple thoughts. :D

Originally posted by mattonline
I think the Humiditiy is getting to you.
No humidity here. But I've been "gone" for ages anyways. :D

Originally posted by mattonline
Thanks guys, it looks like websitepulse.com is a great option, I'm sure alertra.com are great but they charge like wounded bulls.

Matt

Hmmm... I ran through their custom service calculator to configure monitoring for one HTTPS URL every 5 minutes. I selected options that make the service comparable with our service, and we're USD 8.00 cheaper per month.

They do offer some really good plans. If you really need everything in the plan, it's a very good way to go - I can't argue with it. The feedback we usually get with plans is that people prefer to just pick what they need.

We will look into this however and see if we can come up with some plan pricing that will be competitive and fair to customers.

Originally posted by joshp
(failing which switch to Optus and a business plan which is substancially cheaper than Telstra and you can get the email to sms).


Do you know the address for optus mobiles? I can never seem to find it. :(

04xxxxxxxx@sms.optus.com.au ?

Originally posted by nitecoder
The feedback we usually get with plans is that people prefer to just pick what they need.

I did a comparison first too before posting Toby, because we've had no problems with your service. I was just throwing up another option.

With websitepulse, because you can pick the protocols (we have others methods in place to check some ourself) for a fixed price and then add a few bucks per host, it works out a little cheaper.

But at the end of the day, cost is not the main consideration and both of these services are well worth it.

Cheers

Gary

Originally posted by net-trend


Do you know the address for optus mobiles? I can never seem to find it. :(

04xxxxxxxx@sms.optus.com.au ?

Not sure - don't use thier email-to-sms. Go to http://www.info2you.com.au - you may get it there. Failing which, ring them and ask :)

mattonline,

Check out www.mousewatch.com out of the UK. Offer a free account along with pay. Not bad and their service can send an sms at specified intervals. Depending on if you pay or not. Free account tags every hour. Also download a copy of Servers Alive. Not a bad little product. Little bit of a setup, but it will do quite a bit for a free program.


Good luck!

opps, got it backwards, sorry. its http://www.watchmouse.com.
:rolleyes:

watchmouse is uber-expensive, and the other service mentioned is also more expensive than alertra

I think at the end of the day it's safe to say Alertra wins hands down, atleast out of the 3 service providers mentioned in this thread

It all depends on requirements. For one server Alertra would work out cheaper. To get the major ports on a server checked by Alertra every 5 minutes, you're looking at $32.40 per server. With Websitepulse the same is $24.00, or you can have ten monitored for $52 (compared to $324). Websitepulse offers additional devices at $3 each, rather than a total cost per device.

Cheers

Gary

Originally posted by Editor
It all depends on requirements. For one server Alertra would work out cheaper. To get the major ports on a server checked by Alertra every 5 minutes, you're looking at $32.40 per server. With Websitepulse the same is $24.00, or you can have ten monitored for $52 (compared to $324). Websitepulse offers additional devices at $3 each, rather than a total cost per device.
If you contact Toby at alertra, they'll write up custom scripts for multiple servers. We have 6 servers monitored there and it's very cost effective. Also haggle a bit. He likes that. :D

It would have to be a good haggle from $324 to $52... :)

Gary

Originally posted by Editor
It would have to be a good haggle from $324 to $52... :)
You'd have to ask Mrs Aussie Bob, Gary. She's the expert there. :D

BTW, I think I heard Toby saying something about adding Ips from QLD to their .htaccess file after dealing with me......;) j/k

I did offer some space for an Australian base to widen their scope, but I don't know what happened there. It got lost in the chat when Toby was setting up the open viewing pages. We should put those links back up I think.

Cheers

Gary

I mean no disrespect here, but if Alertra's base stations were on 'servers' like yours, I don't think their service would be that reputable.

I'm not saying your servers 'suck' Editor, but they're hosted at Techex if I'm correct (http://www.techex.com.au/ - the website speaks for itself).

If I were paying $32 usd for monitoring services then the base stations better be on dedicated servers, located in high quality datacentres such as the Optus or Webcentral NOC.

Saying that you offered them some 'webspace' on one of your servers to share with your ultra cheap hosting plans is a big turn off for any potential alertra customer.

Alertra rep, where ARE the base stations located while we're on the topic?

I wasn't referring to space on the server where you'll find our site/forum/etc. I was referring to a different dedicated server on uunet in Brisbane where we also hosted a much bigger monitoring service than any of the ones we're discussing here. I believe their pricing started somewhere around $150/mth, and it was part of a complete global solution with monitoring "stations" in many countries.

The loads and processes of these monitoring systems are no major problem for the smallest specs of webservers.

You should ask questions first mate, if there's something you're not sure about.

Cheers

Gary