Distribution Model of Monitoring Tools

Every online business is different and has its own approach to monitoring websites. The biggest advantage of monitoring service is to understand site performance problems and identify bottlenecks before they impact customers. Today, it has become necessary to continuously monitor and test websites to provide best user experience and keep customers satisfied. Website monitoring is offered through several delivery models to meet the wide spectrum of business demands. So, as a business owner, how can you make sense of all the site requirements and find the right monitoring solution to your online needs? Many times, you will not be sure whether you want to deploy & configure the monitoring software specific to your application or just go for the subscription based model where your site will be receiving monitoring services from third party providers.

Before you make the decision, it is important to know various models through which you can avail the services of site monitoring.

Website Monitoring Offered as Subscription

The subscription based model allows you to subscribe for the website monitoring service from a third party provider. It avoids investment on purchase and operational costs on installing, maintaining and upgrading the software. The subscription model gives flexibility to scale up or down the service without worrying much about contracts. You can avail many benefits if your site is subscribed with a quality monitoring service. You don't even need to implement complicated software or wait for extended time to get your account activated. Once the account is set up with the provider, the process of monitoring will start immediately. Unlike the open source or proprietary model where the providers will have limited interaction with the site owners, the subscription based model caters to the long term relationship. It allows customization of monitoring solution based on the business or site design needs.

Website Monitoring as Open-Source

Though open source monitoring tools are free and customizable, they have many limitations in terms of software upgrades and professional support. The option is feasible for getting exposure to variety of services but not a wise choice for profit driven business websites. Also, since security is a concern for open-source software, not many prefer to use it for their websites. Open source monitoring tools may not provide quality and comprehensive monitoring solution like subscription based sevice. They may not address your business requirements and may have limited alerting capabilities. Though they offer software free of charge, sometimes they may charge for support services to ensure trouble free deployment.

Website Monitoring as Proprietary

Unlike the other two, proprietary monitoring tools require purchase and installation of software for testing the website applications. Along with the discomfort of higher cost it poses major restrictions on its use and customization. After purchase, the provider may not take the responsibility for providing support for any technical inconvenience. This model requires well-trained in-house staff to support monitoring service and analyze the performance issues with site components.