DIRK PAESSLER
Securing Your Online Business Success
With Network Monitoring
European Shareware Conference 2004, Strassbourg
Overview
Securing Your Online Business Success With Network Monitoring
• The needs of the sample Shareware Company „Big P Solutions“
• Network diagram of „Big P Solutions“
• Sample Events and their handling - based on real life samples
• Analyzing historical monitoring data - based on real life samples
• Monitoring is not enough! Be prepared!
• Top 5 reasons to monitor your network
• Getting started with freeware products from Paessler
Sample Shareware Company „Big P Solutions“
Big P Solutions
• creates and sells shareware software
• Since >90% of marketing and sales is conducted online, the business
success depends totally on the reliability of the server systems involved
Systems involved in business transactions
• Web server: www.bigp.com
• Online shop: hosted by www.shareit.com (Element 5)
• Download URLs: hosted at www.getafile.com
• Leased line: connects office LAN with the Internet (with firewall)
• Mail server: located in the office LAN
Redundancy/Backup Systems
• Backup web server: www2.bigp.com
• Backup mail server: mail2.bigp.com
Big P Solutions - Network Diagramm
Big P Solutions – Network Monitoring Setup
Sensors to monitor
• PING: All servers, routers, etc. (also several „hops“ on the main TCP/IP routes)
• HTTP&HTTPS: web server, ShareIt*, getafile*, backup website, provider‘s website*
•
SMTP&POP3: primary, secondary mail server
•
Traffic&Bandwidth: web server, leased line
• Custom: e.g. trial key generator CGI, server disk space, mail queues, etc.
•
Use common sense when configuring sensors on other company‘s servers. Keep CPU and bandwidth usage to a minimum!
Sample Events and Their Handling
Notification 1: www.bigp.com is down (HTTP connect failed)
• You receive a notification via email, SMS, soundfile, popups, etc.
• Since you also monitor routers/hops en-route and your provider‘s site, you
know right away whether there is just a general network problem or a
problem with yo