Pierluigi Paganini September 21, 2012

System administrators are extremely busy people, so they will be very pleased to know that cloud-based server monitoring solutions can save them a considerable amount of time. In addition to helping you to reduce your heavy workload and be more productive, cloud-based server monitoring can also have a variety of bottom line benefits for companies.

Let’s delve a little deeper and see how cloud-based server monitoring can really speed up your day.

Automatic network optimization

Networks, whether large or small, are complex and having your IT staff attempt to optimize them is setting them a mammoth task. Manually ensuring that antivirus solutions are updated, backups completed successfully, disk space is adequate and peering into the working of Windows® services can absorb a huge amount of time. As a result, many system administrators simply skip the task altogether, only examining their network when things go wrong.

While server monitoring software can automatically run a wide variety of customizable checks on your system, cloud-based solutions speed things up even more by having a rapid deployment and no maintenance and updating requirements. There is no software to install, no hardware to source, or even network configurations to tinker with. This means you can be up and running in minutes, without the worry of compatibility issues. Even better, you can add in remote workstations and servers with just a few clicks, rather than spending hours working out specific configuration settings and ironing out compatibility issues.

Simplicity and reduced costs

Not only will cloud-based server monitoring solutions save you time in their set-up and deployment, but they won’t soak up hours negotiating over the IT department’s budget either. Because cloud-based solutions operate on a low cost, subscription-based model, they keep costs low and predictable. As there are no software or hardware costs to factor in, for underlying infrastructure, this solution allows you to convert capital expenditure into operational expenditure.

Apart from the great news about saving money, cloud-based server monitoring solutions are also designed to remove complexity and configuration issues, enabling less experienced administrators to handle network optimization. This frees up time for more experienced staff to work on more productive projects.

Stay in touch with your network

Cloud-based server monitoring solutions also provide system administrators with the ability to stay in touch with their network, even while they are out of the office. While most good network monitoring solutions will notify you of critical events through text-based messages or email, cloud-based solutions allow you to respond to these notifications quickly by enabling you to log in to a management console through a web-enabled device. In this way you can see what is going on with your network in real-time, taking action to resolve network issues before they become serious problems.

There are additional time-saving benefits that cloud-based server monitoring  solutions bring, such as automatically deployed updates and upgrades, as well as the ability to try out new features in just a few minutes. In fact cloud-based server monitoring solutions not only free up system administrators for more useful tasks, but they also help IT departments to do more with less. You’ll find that the time you buy with this solution provides a very rapid return on investment.

About the author: Jeff Smith writes for GFI Software Ltd, a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs.

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