File Monitor Software for Server and Activity Monitoring

A file monitoring system is a piece of technology or system of processes used to monitor and detect modifications made to important server files. A file monitoring system is designed to inspect system files to see if and when they were modified, how they were modified, and which users made the changes. It can also help you decide if altered files need to be restored to their original format, since you can see if the edits made to them were unauthorized.

Sometimes, file monitoring will be referred to as file integrity monitoring or change monitoring since it involves validating the integrity of an operating system by checking to see if files were changed for an improper reason, unintentionally or otherwise, or led to performance problems.

A file monitor works by tracking important file attributes, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Files core attributes
• Files configuration data
• Files credentials
• File security and privilege settings
• File content
• File size
• Hash values

By tracking these critical attributes, a Windows file activity monitor can better detect any changes made to important files or system configurations.

When a file monitoring system is first installed, it’ll look at the entire environment to determine a status quo file baseline. With an established baseline, the file monitor can better track any file changes deviating from the norm. After the baseline is recorded, the file monitor will begin monitoring file attributes by comparing the current file status against the baseline file data. If any noteworthy differences are spotted between the current and baseline data, alerts can notify users of potential file integrity issues.

File monitoring helps users maintain and validate the integrity of operating systems and application files. In a large environment, it can be difficult to track changes in file characteristics like their size, count, and extension in real time. File activity monitoring can help organizations remain in the loop when modifications or unauthorized access occurs to a critical system file, regardless of whether the change was successful, the attempt was malicious, or changes led to system performance issues.

By monitoring the changes made to files on a network, users can gain helpful insights to help keep large networks both organized and better demonstrate compliant since changes and modifications can be extracted to provide actionable intelligence and used in creating auditable reports.

File monitoring software allows admins to track changes to files within servers and distributed environments using several automated, streamlined features. A file monitor is designed to create a baseline for comparing file characteristics against future changes. File monitoring software can also send alerts on file changes that can be set up to notify on specific file conditions, so you only receive critical alerts for issues you care more about.

File server performance monitoring tools can also provide contextual insights into file changes. Tracking file activity can be a complex task with huge security implications. However, monitoring tools can help users turn raw file monitoring data into actionable intelligence.

File monitoring software also has the ability to be flexible depending on the IT environment you need to monitor. It can be set up to monitor everything from servers and network devices to point of sale systems and workstations.

While most file server monitoring tools offer limited coverage to track files across different OS and clouds, IT teams can use SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor to monitor applications, servers, and virtual environments, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

SAM file access monitoring software is designed to help make file server performance monitoring easy by offering a high level of simplicity and automation for file monitoring. With SAM, you can monitor file characteristics—from size and age to content and count—in real time to quickly detect file changes. SAM also offers custom alerting, so you never have to worry about file monitoring causing alert fatigue. With SAM’s file monitoring solution, users can create custom alerts complete with complex nested conditions.

SAM is built to enable IT teams to monitor their server environment from end to end, with available monitoring templates for over 1200 vendor applications, servers, databases, and infrastructures. These templates can also be customized or generated as needed. With more autonomy over how you want to track your file changes, SolarWinds SAM is designed to support your business needs.