If your server crashes at 3 a.m., will you know about it? If you only get alerts via SMS or email, you might not wake up and your server could be down for hours. Husband-and-wife team Roger and Jessica Stewart wanted to fix that, so they started Alertyx, a server-monitoring service that will also call you and tell you what broke, right when it happens. They’ll even file a ticket with your service provider for you, so you can get back up and running faster.
The Stewarts say they designed Alertyx from the ground up to meet their needs, because nothing else out there was. The service provides both TCP and UDP monitoring, with free calling alerts in 22 countries. The free account limits alerts to one per 6-hour period, while the premium account offers calling alerts anywhere in the world, with unlimited phone, SMS and email notifications so you and your whole team will know when your server goes down. The premium account doesn’t have a premium price, though; alerts are just 25 cents each. The first 100 GigaOM readers who sign up for an account will get premium service free for a month: Enter coupon code “GIGAOM.”
Very unique and useful. Tried and it worked neatly!
Is this service just checking if the “port” of that application is up or is it doing more monitoring? Checking for port is a trivial job – most live servers have another machine dedicated to do ‘port health checks’ by scanning- its a simple cron job – sending SMS/email is achieved by writing 5-7 lines of perl code script. If it allows application monitoring, thats nice (example, port may be up, but application is not responding, so you can’t just do a port scan – you need to understand if it is sending you valid data back)
if it works, its worth every cent. will definitely suggest it to my clients too.
Phone call alert is neat. I liked UDP monitoring, definitely come in handy as media servers proliferate. Thumbs up alertyx team
I like the punch-line .. we wake you up, very clever indeed.
I’ve tried Alertyx and I wasn’t all that impressed. However, I’ve extensively tested three much better online website monitoring services – Wormly, Site24×7 and Pingability – the results of which you can find here:
http://opinionroad.com/2009/07/12/website-monitoring-services/
Feedback about the article is very welcome.
Wow, that is a very nice website design!
But from a technical point of view it is disappointing, as it does not offer any decent transaction monitoring services. I not only need an email when the site is down, but also when “only” a certain feature (e. g. shopping cart) breaks. For this, AlertSite with Dejaclick and AlertFox with iMacros are*** by far*** the best offerings. AlertFox can even monitor Ajax and Flash applets, which we find very useful.
Have to agree with Justin that this is not unique or new. I have used Wormly with success. There were a few cases of false positives but all in all a very good experience with Wormly.
You guys are missing the point. It’s all about phone alert and no above website mention offers such a service. I tried alertyx and very impressed. It call me and TTS they used is very clear sounding. It called and greeted me with my name and what service was failed. Simply mind blowing.
One of the main considerations in choosing a website monitor is the network of locations from where website is monitored so that one can get to know if the website is not accessible from a particular location. At this point of time I do not see the mention of monitoring locations in alertyx website.