Experiencing downtime can be a nightmare. No one wants it, but companies constantly struggle with it all the same.
This state of affairs is because several organizations – even today – monitor their systems and IT environment manually to ensure the accessibility and proper functioning of their applications. Since it is humanly near-impossible to monitor 24/7, the likelihood of information about IT downtime and applications-related problems going undetected is high – till the end user reports it.
A specialized service is needed to monitor, and control, a company’s servers, infrastructure, applications and the ERP environment round the clock. Such a service detects faulty or halted functions or sub-processes in real-time, helping correct errors before they occur and/ or users notice them.
This kind of automatic monitoring service gives companies visibility into what is happening and preventing disruptions before they happen. Over time, such monitoring can help reveal patterns, such as whether an application is shutting down at fixed intervals or if an ERP environment is functioning sub-optimally. When such patterns emerge, pre-emptively preventing IT downtime and stabilizing the IT ecosystem becomes possible.
Key benefits of automatic infrastructure application monitoring include:
- Discovering downtime before it occurs
In the absence of automatic monitoring, problems are identified and resolved through manual troubleshooting, a time-consuming process.
For example, simple things like the serial number on invoices or order forms must not expire, especially not in the middle of an invoicing. For instance, automatic monitoring can help keep the finance function of a company informed of the dates of expiry of invoice/ order forms’ serial numbers ahead of starting the actual invoicing process.
- Deploying rapid solutions during downtime
IT downtime that results in incomplete sales orders, lost sales, delayed invoicing and extended work hours to redo work can dent a company's reputation. Understanding a problem’s origin quickly and implementing fixes without delay, irrespective of how difficult the process is when a last-minute incident occurs, can add incremental value to a company’s business. Automatic application infrastructure monitoring makes error identification quick and saves a lot of time during troubleshooting.
- Ensuring a hiccup-free integration between systems
Business systems are increasingly interacting with each other directly, eliminating the need for human intervention.
For example, there is an integration between eCommerce and the ERP system. Once an order is placed in the eCommerce system, it smokes directly into the ERP system to be managed and processed. If there is a disruption in this process, no order will be placed, which carries a risk of bad customer experiences and lost sales.
Especially since the human factor, overloaded systems and/ or connection problems are typical factors which can disrupt inter-system communication, causing problems that may take a long time to figure out, analyze and solve. With application monitoring, awareness about these issues can be raised pre-emptively before they cause serious problems.
- Keeping IT administration and support on track constantly
A 24/7 monitoring system notifies personnel of unanticipated downtime within 4 to 7 minutes of it occurring through an email or SMS. To receive this intimation, a particular sensitivity level is pre-set and when such an email or SMS gets sent, the issue is resolved post haste.
Companies have the option of either taking care of these issues internally or outsourcing the responsibility of monitoring processes and solving problems completely to a service provider who handles their uptime-related activities.
With Columbus as your service provider, your applications get monitored 24/7. Our well-established processes and uptime guarantee provide a high value on your business application investments. Instead of getting a flurry of calls telling you something is wrong, our team of industry, technical and functional consultants collaborate to identify which of the systems are facing functional problems and resolves the incident proactively in the shortest possible time.
Prevent IT downtime, ensure high uptime levels, and 24/7 monitoring and support. Click here for more information.