Server Density Review - Server Management Couldn’t Get Any Easier
Server management these days are a ton easier than it used back in the day. Nowadays, however, we have something else we need to keep our eyes on, the server processes and statistics. Often times, us server admins can be greeted with critical services like BIND and MySQL being randomly shut down as we speak.
Not only server admins need to monitor our services, but we also need to see how our server is doing as a whole. You might chuckle if I tell you this, but I have a good 20+ apps on just my iPod touch that are for server administration and along with that, I have many web-based server/website management apps. It's not that I want these apps, it's for the fact I need them. I need to see why my server is running slow, I need to see what's taking up all of that memory, and lastly, I need to see the current stats.
Server Density created by Boxed Ice is a part of my applications installed on my iPod touch and it even has a full-fledged web app! Server Density is a server monitoring solution geared towards the simple or advanced server admins to know how and why their server(s) are acting the way it is, along with viewing lots of statistical information in real-time.
I've been using Server Density for around two weeks, and I have to say, it's already saved me a couple of times. But how about we get on with that later and let's start the full review?
The Dashboard
The dashboard, or the main start page of Server Density, is extremely easy to use and is very customizable. You're even able to set it to monitor all kinds of different things.
You have a nice list of your servers and you can see their opened alerts if they have any. We'll get more into these alerts later in the review, but all you need to know for now is that they're there.
On the same page, you can see the last five triggered alerts and even view a snapshot of the server when it happened. A snapshot is just a list of running processes at the time, some statistical data that's found on your dashboard, along with some other information.
The dashboard is the main center for live data. How about we take a look at the past data?
Statistical Graphs
Server Density offers a wide range of different types of graphs to help you see how your server is doing. The graphics built into Server Density are extremely powerful while giving you a total of twelve graphs you can look at.
One other feature of the graphs is that you can hover over any portion of the graph and view the data at that exact moment. It's very helpful if you need to diagnose some things and need exact numbers and times. You can then take that time, go to your server logs, and see where the problem is. And I'll be honest, I've done that and it worked very well and helped me find the issue.
Just a small side note, but the graphics built into Server Density are not Flash powered... thank you! I'm all in for Javascript-based graphs! They're fast and they just work.
Service Support & Reliability
You may think a service like Server Density might be hard to support on practically any operating system, but because Server Density is coded in Python, it allows compatibility on any OS that you can install Python on.
You shouldn't have any problems supporting Server Density no matter what operating system you may be running. They have packages for practically every popular Linux operating system and of course, they have support for Windows, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD. They even have an option so you can manually install Server Density too.
Server Density, for the most part, is an extremely secure and rather reliable system. If there are any problems, David Mytton, founder of Boxed Ice, will get to it ASAP and even post the issues on his Boxed Ice service status blog.
Mobile Support
Server Density has native applications built for both Android and of course, the iPhone. I was only able to test the free iPhone app, but overall, the iPhone app works great! David did say they were wanting to renovate the iPhone version though.
For the Android version, I cannot speak for it. Mainly because I only used Android for about an hour total. There is a QR code there that you can scan to download the free application. If you have an Android device and SSH access to a server, feel free to give Server Density an install and tell us what you think in the comments below!
Although there's one drawback to the mobile version, at least on the iPhone. The graphs don't display everything and you cannot view all the same live information that you can get on your dashboard. Hopefully they're thinking about adding that support in the next version.
Alerts
While the alert system is powerful, you need to set it up. If you can open up the image to the right, you'll see all these "process not running" alerts. These alerts I needed to manually enter; I even had to find the process name for every one of them.
It would be very nice if Server Density probed my current running processes, which it can, and scan it for processes that are trackable with alerts. While I was setting up all of my alerts, I added in some processes that are only there when you're connected to the server. I don't know what processes are like that, and if Server Density took care of that, I would of never had any such trouble with creating them.
I really believe that this alert system is a huge feature in Server Density and could easily be expanded. As for now, I can only hope for an alert systems with the features that would be great to have.
Advanced Features
Not only is Server Density's features powerful, but they also have some advanced features geared towards the ones who're wanting some extreme additions. You can set up Server Density to collect data from Apache, MongoDB, MySQL, Nginx, RabbitMQ, and Microsoft SQL Server. To set up all of these extra status configs, it's very easy to do and it's not a pain at all. You just need to get your hands a bit messy in some config files and the terminal. But if you're using Server Density in the first place, you should already be fine with that.
It's not only that you can add different status configs to Server Density, but you can even create your own plugins that work along with Server Density. I have no custom programs that I can use to test this feature, but while looking at their documentation, they really have lots of help files here to guide you through creating a plugin.
Server Density even has a vast amount of API functions for those who want to integrate their API with their custom system.
Overall
It's a fact that Server Density is made for both the hard-core system admins to your typical users. Server Density is extremely simple to install, it's easy to set up its alerts and even custom status configs, and it's even a breeze to set up your own plugins and access its API functions.
If you're wanting a powerful way to monitor your server while your at your computer and while you're on-the-go, take a look at Server Density because it's for sure fitting my needs.
Are you going to leave your server unmonitored or are you going to install Server Density to always be in control of your server?
Fore more information on Server Density, you may check out their website below:
Stalk me on social media! Any other way would just be creepy…
Follow me: