Anyone here use a hosted monitoring solution and have any recommendations for or against?
We're looking to supplement our current Nagios implementation, but have something entirely decoupled from our network infrastructure
i was actually looking for the same thing...
we're checking out Pingdom, and Site24x7
so far no clear winners
yeah, I don't like Pingdom for some reason..  also it is pretty expensive for what it is
the only things we really need are sms+email alerting and URL monitoring
I've got cloudkick monitoring http, https, and ping on my vm, but it looks like they are in the middle of a transition to becoming "Rackspace Cloud Monitoring"
since our in-house monitoring system takes care of the rest, we just want to know if customer-facing sites are not responding
henderb: yeah, that kinda rules them out
and illustrates one of the problems with SaaS providers
what problem is that?
that they can just randomly decide that the service you use is deprecated, forcing you to migrate
ah, LOL, yeah
either to their new SaaS system, or to someone else
right
kinda like the problem of migrating Slicehost customers to Rackspace Cloud, and all the IP renumbering outcry that came with it
yeah... people hate renumbering
so that problem exists in *aaS (any service ;)
We're renumbering our office so we can switch from business-grade (hah) cable + a T1 backup line to a much nicer E100 line
it's only ~16 IPs, but that's difficult enough, I couldn't imagine doing an entire cloud
not a fan of pingdom, I usually just setup a remote app to monitor from the outside
http://wasitup.com/ is not too shabby
E100 line?
yeah, something the local providers offer, it's a 100Mbit ethernet port directly to the premises
nice!
where are you located?
less hassle for the provider, as they don't have to worry about CPE and translating the signal to whatever they use on their fiber etc
downtown Vancouver
ah cool
About how much does better service like that cost? Our office is only 4 blocks from the Pittock IX in Portland and I keep wondering what it would take to get fiber or something and move our comcast to backup duty
I don't see the bills, so I have no idea
it's definitely more than "business"-grade cable/DSL, but generally the SLAs are much better
my last job had 10Mbit symmetrical fiber, with no transfer cap
it never went down in the five years I managed it
Lefty: what medium are they using to deliver the 100 Mpbs, fiber? copper?  coax ;)
I believe it's fiber to the building, and then they distribute it via copper from the demarc downstairs
roger
really the only difference is the signalling used
yeah
Lefty: nice, another vancouverite?
portertech: aye!
Lefty: where you working?
local?
airg.com
on Melville
Lefty: nice, do you guys ever lend out your office space for local meetups?
Not that I know of, but I've only been here a couple of months
relocated?
or just job swithc
recently hired
Lefty: i've used pingdom for quite a while and have been happy with them
you could always put a nagios box on an arp vps to monitor your external facing stuff
anyone have experience with the pub/sub capabilities of redis?
considering it for real-time notifications...
up_the_irons: I've played w/ it
portertech: any good?
nice and lightweight, simple queuing
high throughput, since it all resides in memory
and you get some persistence
depending on settings
ah
interesting
http://redis.io/topics/pubsub
<3 those docs
yup, already looking at those :)
the doc for the "ping" command is interactive ;)
re persistence, only works when making your own fifo, not pub/sub
roger