Quick, Customizable Windows Server Monitoring Tools

Windows monitoring refers to monitoring Windows operating systems, servers, and applications within an environment, typically using software. It’s an important, ongoing process any administrator needs to prioritize because it can help ensure all devices—especially servers, which allow for reliable, secure networks—are in good health and optimally performing.  

By staying on top of systems and device health by using application and Windows server performance monitoring software, administrators can better track health metrics for each device within the infrastructure. This can allow them to minimize network downtime and better maintain the proper levels of service required for daily operations.

Windows server monitoring revolves around the regular collection and analysis of performance data and event log files to help ensure all services and devices are operating efficiency. The metrics and log data Windows server tools capture can include key performance indicators (KPIs), such as the availability of applications and network connectivity, and CPU and memory usage. 

Windows server performance monitoring tools can also collect information about other metrics, such as data from log files and event logs, which can be used to detect anomalous behavior. By proactively analyzing these metrics through a Windows server monitoring software application, administrators can gain a better sense of the health of their infrastructure, which in turn can lead to being able to predict potential performance problems before they become full-blown issues.

Windows monitoring is important for ensuring underlying IT services are in place and performing as expected, so an organization can remain operational. Windows servers are often designed to be able to handle large amounts of network traffic and heavy workloads, which means their health is vital to a company’s ability to operate.

By preventing loss of service or network downtime, IT departments are keeping the technological infrastructure healthy. Windows monitoring server tools can allow users to maintain optimal network availability, efficiency, and performance through the quick detection and prevention of errors and anomalies that could lead to downtime or system failure.

Windows monitoring tools collect data from agents installed on various devices across the network, including servers. Agents are lightweight pieces of software that collect information about the performance metrics of the server and send them back for analysis to the central server running the monitoring application.

By analyzing performance metrics, Windows monitoring tools can help users reduce—if not outright prevent—the effects of network slowdowns and outages or issues related to device health.

Once the monitoring metrics are centralized, a Windows server status monitor should be able to present relevant information to admins in different formats. This may include a dashboard with visibility into the performance of a Windows environment through charts, graphs, or more advanced analytics tools. The tool may also include mapping capabilities offering a visual overview of server and application relationships. 

Many Windows server performance monitoring tools include alerts to notify admins of potential issues, along with streamlined response features enabling instant troubleshooting actions. In addition, Windows monitoring tools should allow admins to easily create reports, customized to show the information about Windows server health they’re interested in tracking.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor is a software application designed to allow you to conveniently monitor your entire environment—and remotely reboot servers and kill processes—from a single interface. SAM allows you to monitor a wide variety of important analytics, including essential server environment metrics like CPU usage, disk utilization, and idle time on Windows servers.

SAM’s intuitive user dashboards come with a variety of visualization features, allowing you to easily examine network topology and server dependencies. These dashboards also offer in-depth control over trigger conditions for alerts across your managed nodes, such as setting severity levels, checking frequency, and other conditions. In addition, you can perform drag-and-drop, cross-stack IT data correlation for faster identification of performance issues. 

SAM includes more than 1200 built-in monitoring templates for monitoring Windows systems, applications, and plugins. SAM also features out-of-the-box report templates built to provide straightforward visibility into Windows server status, which can help demonstrate compliance with regulatory and data security standards.

SAM also includes a capacity prediction tool designed to allow users to more accurately plan for server capacity and optimize their current infrastructure with the ability to test hypothetical network configurations.