Data and analytics are always of much discussion here at Koda Technology and after the Christmas, New Year holiday season we always notice quite an upward spike in new enquiries about our monitoring solutions.
Unfortunately, it is often for reactive reasons. Many CIO’s, IT Managers, System Administrators and DBA's, wish they had taken steps before the break from their environments to monitor and protect their databases.
Cyber Security spending is at an all-time high and in the world we live in today, that is quite understandable as the cost of losing Data is immeasurable. And if we look at statistics from another industry, (the car Industry) this spend is justified.
Security figures from the UK Car Industry show the figure for stolen vehicles in 2002 of over 300,000 drop to fewer than 70,000 in 2015 due to improved car security. (Reference)
However, with all the effort to improve road and driver safety, statistics show that crashes haven’t improved. And like cars the same applies to computer servers, SERVERS CRASH! When?? Oh, probably Monday lunch time the first day of your holidays or Tuesday morning before the meeting of international guests, Who Knows?? Though unlike cars there are multitudes of known and unknown reasons for a database server crash, but as with cars, there is also one constant - human error. (CIO, dated but relevant Article ).
Car sensors and monitoring are being applied more and more to the point where cars can be driverless (within reason) eliminating human operating errors. Human operating errors for cars include - fitness to be in charge, distractions, falling asleep, not paying attention, slow reactions and controlling speed - sound familiar - the same applies to IT environments. Monitoring and AI (artificial intelligence) allow you to have some measure of control over the stability of your system, potentially lowering the percentage of human failures, maybe not perfect but very likely much better in many circumstances.
If your database server environment is powering along without monitoring or relies only on the human factor with home made custom scripts to watch it, there are huge risks for potential data loss.
Our correlating statistics show (as for car crashes) many occur during the holidays, where the human routine changes, unfamiliar situations and/or inexperienced people “behind the wheel”.
For the car industry many have insurance, for the IT industry there is some cyber insurance for security, though for eliminating human error and saving your databases, it is best to increase monitoring to help prevent crashes.
No insurance and it costs, much, much more.
For us monitoring SQL Server environments with Detecta is where we help.
- Customise alert parameters on over more than 100 data points
- Full customisation of notifications and who receives these
- "Cloud" based, offering all the functionality of a Software as a Service solution, flexibility to view on any device at any location at any time
- High-Level Dashboard view for quick monitoring of specific environments for extended support personnel/management (see Evolution of the Dashboard)
- Product supported by the team at Koda Technology with vast knowledge of SQL Server and the concepts and challenges associated with monitoring these systems
Much better in many circumstances, especially when you are away from your environments.
Feel free to contact us and get 30 days free use of Detecta to assist you and your team whether they are away on holiday or at work.
No Surprises!