Thursday Afternoon on the Phone about Web Server Monitoring

You've probably had one of those phone calls before, if you have been in business for any period. I mean, even if you have been alive and respiring and in a position to possess a phone-or even sit by one-it's doubtless come. Perhaps it was some lady with a zippy Northeastern accent and a promise that your auto guaranty would not expire if you bought the product she was selling. Perhaps it was a man and his Southern drawl letting you know that you could invest a touch of money in a newly-founded credit union and receive great returns. Whether bonafide or not, they can be annoying-at least, that is what I was thinking when the phone call came this Thu.

He promised that his service would ensure that I knew when my servers were not performing at their best. He promised that they they had competitive pricing, even if I would have liked to go for a larger package. He promised a minimum of one hour intervals in sweeps by his web server monitoring. As we talked, I began to sense exactly what that catch was.

It came to me when he said that my web servers routinely ran 99.9 % of the time problem-free. I stopped him and told him that such high performance proved that I did not need web server monitoring-and that is when he stopped me and began explaining. Over the course of a year, he said, that 0.01 % of the time that my servers stopped working would suggest that my servers had 8 hours of down time. I pulled up my calculator application and did some fast math-forgetting that here I was, being suckered in to a sales call-and saw that he was right. That's when he started explaining things I would like to share with you. Because even if you have had one of these phone calls before, I need to explain to you why I was fooled by it. I would like to explain what it was that made me decide to invest in the services of a web server monitoring company.

It was the logic. If my servers go down for 8 hours each year, that's eight hours that I'm not building my brand. That is why web server monitoring was so necessary to my business. If my servers went down for an hour each during peak service times on the 8 most crucial working days in my calendar year, that could mean thousands of folks missing my service and goods.

And even if I were not as good-sized a SOHO business as I am, that could hurt. Think about it next time you get one of those phone calls. Maybe you ignore the recordings asking for donations to obscure PACs, but when it comes down to something like web server monitoring, which tips the balance in your business, you listen and you learn and you act.

For more information on web server monitoring, visit Observepoint.com .