Proactive Backup Monitoring
Last year there was consternation in the IT world when a study from Anthesis Group and Stanford University found that 30% of the world’s servers were “comatose”—they were plugged in and running, but they hadn’t done any useful work—or anything at all–for at least six months. That translates to a $30 billion investment worldwide that’s being thrown away, and that’s just for the cost of the servers. Electricity and infrastructure costs were also significant. Sometimes these servers were purchased to ensure adequate peak demand coverage, but they were never actually needed. Other servers had been abandoned when an application was decommissioned, but were still turned on, actively drawing power, and slurping up lots of energy.
A backup environment needs transparency
Data center inefficiencies can be costly, but unfortunately they’re very common. Software that clarifies what’s really happening can make data center procedures less risky, more predictable, and much more economical. Proactive backup monitoring, for instance, provides details about the health of every aspect of the backup system, including what’s happening with backup servers. Rocket Servergraph Professional includes a monitoring report specifically for servers that displays status by server and has drill-down capabilities that provide details for ailing servers.
Accurate capacity planning can be fatal to zombies
One of the reasons for the proliferation of comatose zombie servers is a lack of accurate capacity planning. Proactive backup monitoring makes it easy to see storage trends and improve forecasting. Historical data is one of the best ways of predicting how fast storage of every type will fill up. Servergraph assists in identifying real storage needs and avoiding accumulating servers that do nothing but waste space and resources.
Servergraph Professional, zombie hunter
With a physical server, it’s possible to decommission it and forget to repurpose it, but virtualization makes it even more easy to lose track of servers. Servergraph keeps tabs of everything in the backup environment and ensures that none of the backup hardware is sleeping on the job. Expensive waste can hide in almost any facet of the backup process, and proactive backup monitoring like Servergraph can identify and make it easy to correct problems. Servergraph’s “hog” report, for instance, can identify resource hogs and wasted storage space. Redundant backups can be eliminated, saving time and space. Servers and drives that aren’t pulling their weight can be identified and diagnosed.
Alerts can be configured so that nothing falls through the cracks
Proactive backup monitoring doesn’t just ensure that waste is avoided. Servergraph issues real-time alerts when problems occur, allowing the situation to be resolved immediately. Alerts can be customized to meet the unique needs of each environment. Servergraph categorizes missed backups so that diagnostics are easier.
Servergraph can enhance almost every aspect of a backup environment
Servergraph offers an extensive selection of informative reports and helpful dashboards to keep everyone in the loop. It decreases risk in the backup environment while improving planning and efficiency, and it can assist in the identification—and elimination—of comatose zombie servers.
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