5 Steps to Take After a Web Application Alert is Sent

So youve taken the time to research the ideal Web application monitoring solution, and youre finally ready to take charge over the operation and performance of your critical business applications. While you may think the hard work is over, the true work doesnt begin until the monitoring solution goes live. However, before you fully deploy your monitoring solution there is one final step – determining what should happen after an error alert is triggered. For many enterprises, this is among the most difficult steps as you must ensure not only the proper persons are notified, but also the alert provides ample information designed to enhance the speed of which an error is corrected.

Step One – Establishing Effective Monitoring Agents

The most effective way to get the most out of your monitoring alerts is selecting the best metrics to monitor within your application infrastructure. Because many Web applications are unique in terms of infrastructure and use. Because of this, the type of metrics you must monitor can dramatically vary. This being noted, there are several metrics you must always monitor. These include both physical and virtual components. For example, the health of physical components, such as CPU, Memory, Disk Usage and virtual components, such as transactions between requesting browsers and responding databases.

Step Two – Server Health Information

When an error alert is triggered, its important to determine the health of your Web and database servers. There are many instances when an error regarding specific components are directly influenced by the health of your servers. While your monitoring solution may monitor your servers, make sure the alert notifications also come with current server statistics. This helps determine whether or not your servers are the true culprit of your malfunctioning application metrics.

Step Three – Run Synthetic Scripts to Isolate Error

The use of synthetic testing is invaluable for many reasons; however, in terms of correcting an error after an alert notification is sent is among its most powerful uses. By executing specific synthetic testing scripts, youre able to identify specific errors within the application, which may help identify the root cause of specific errors.

Step Four – Patch the Error for Immediate Fixes

As an error is caught, the most effective way to provide immediate correction is by implementing a patch. This may be in the form of a Windows patch or a Linux update. While patches may not be an effective permanent fix, they can provide corrections that are necessary to keep an application up-and-running. Remember, if you decide to use a patch, you must immediately begin working on a long-term fix.

Step Five – Review Reports for Long-Term Health & Re-Run the General Processes Again

Regardless of the monitoring solution, it should provide you with in-depth reports. These reports are essential for determining the overall effects an error has on the performance and stability of your applications. Now, you must take the error reports and utilize them to help safeguard your application from similar errors. Now that you know what went wrong, you should make sure that you re-run any monitoring programs. There are a number of programs that you can schedule to do this for you. EveryStep is one example  (you can read more about their web application monitoring program here). You an also use Selenium and a number of other programs.