Frequently Asked Questions

Q:	I’m being told that my account is expired even after I paid.
A:	It may take a couple of minutes before notification from PayPal or 2Checkout arrives. If you are still experiencing this issue, please contact our support team.
Q:	When trying to upgrade my account, it says I have too many monitors.
A:	Please check the number of locations, check-intervals, and other parameters of your monitors.
Q:	What is the interval for checking the uptime by Mon.itor.us? Is it possible to do this more frequently?
A:	30 minutes. Premium users can lower the interval to 1 minute.
Q:	Is there a way to have an RSS feed for a specific alert instead of all?
A:	No.
Q:	Where can I see a comparison between Mon.itor.us and Monitis?
A:	http://blog.mon.itor.us/?p=440.
Q:	In Monitis, is there any way to get the graphs in image form which are available in Mon.itor.us?
A:	Yes, they are also available in Monitis.
Q:	I tried to add more monitors and it didn’t work. I paid and was billed for an upgrade.
A:	For PayPal subscriptions there is a 2 step upgrade process (it says so in the upgrade form). You need to pay for the difference between your old and new plans (as you did) and also update your current subscription. You have missed this last step.
Q:	Do you also do transaction monitoring?
	Yes, we do transaction monitoring in our premium version.
Q:	What does external monitor mean? And internal monitor?
A:	External monitors let you check your websites or servers from outside your firewall. Different protocols are supported, including HTTP, HTTPs, ftp, smpt, pop, imap, ping, etc. Internal monitors provide internal resource usage information like CPU usage, drive space utilization, memory utilization, etc.
Q:	If I want to check PING and HTTP for 1 URL, does it count as 2 monitors?
A:	Yes.
Q:	Does checking CPU usage and storage for 1 internal server require 2 internal monitors?
A:	Yes.
Q:	Is Monitis free?
A:	No, Monitis is not free, but there is a 15-day free trial.
Q:	How many Monitors can be run in the trial period?
A:	The trial period comes with the full Plus plan. That includes 20 external URLs, 20 internal monitors, and 20 SMS.
Q:	How much does the Premium account cost?
A:	You can check all prices at http://portal.monitis.com/web/guest/prices.
Q:	What's the Amazon Machine Instance (AMI) for?
A:	It provides you servers on an hourly basis. It is hardware as a service.
Q:	If I want to monitor my app I have to buy two services, one AMI service and Monitis, right?
A:	Yes. AMI is for your app. Monitis is for monitoring your app on AMI, and also monitoring the AMI itself.
Q:	I'm looking for something that can monitor our servers and apps on the servers/databases and send a notification to us if there are issues so we can take care of them proactively.  For example, on our MMS server we have an Access database that is running slow because it needs to be compacted and repaired. Will it send an email or IM to IT before someone comes to complain?
A:	You can add an internal monitor to the database to see if it consumes too much CPU.  You can also check other parts of your system that might be running slowly as a result of the slow database.
Q:	Can I set up an alert to be sent if the Access database processes start making other things run slowly?
A:	Yes, you can set a threshold that will trigger an alert.  For example, if the Access database consumes more than 50% CPU, you’ll receive an alert.
Q:	Can I be alerted if my database grows to a certain size?
A:	We can also monitor your hard drive.  If your database grows, the hard drive free space decreases.  You can choose to receive an alert if free space decreases below a threshold.
Q:	What if there's a packet or something stuck in the network connection? Can we have an alert sent for that as well?
A:	You can set up ping checks from your servers to each other or from outside to your server to see if you're losing packets. You can specify, for example, that if 2 out of 5 packets are lost you’ll receive an alert.
Q:	Can we also use this software to keep inventory?
A:	You can set up checks with low level protocols like TCP, UDP etc. in case it is needed with different ports. Regarding software inventory, you can check installed software on Windows machines.
Q:	Can I currently run a scan of all the computers on the domain and get part of the information and put it in a database?
A:	No. Currently you can't do that.  You can check the installed software on the Windows machines where you have installed an agent.
Q:	Do I have to install the agent on every computer for it to work? I have at least 25 computers and 10 servers.
A:	Multiple installations of agents for Linux machines are easy.  It is a bit complicated for Windows. Agent installation takes 1-2 minutes, but only once, because all updates are done automatically without manual intervention.
Q:	How can I convert my Mon.itor.us account into the premium trial?
A:	You need to sign up for a Premium account and add the tests, because there are options specific to the Premium version that Mon.itor.us lacks. If you have too many things added, contact our support team and we will help you.
Q:	Does Mon.itor.us have the ability to send out SMS alerts in addition to email alerts?
A:	Yes, you must add your SMS number and purchase credits.
Q:	How long does it take for data to start showing up on the Monitis page?
A:	Data should appear in a couple minutes and update every 5 minutes.
Q:	Will data only load if it exceeds the thresholds that I've set (e.g. If the CPU goes over 50%)?
A:	No. The threshold is required to receive alerts.  If the threshold is reached, an alert will be sent.
Q:	Can you explain the Free and Page Size Limits on the Memory Monitor please?
A:	Free is the free RAM available.  Page size is the blocks of RAM.  Everything in RAM is stored in pages.
Q:	I'm interested in offering Monitis to some of my customers but I'm wondering how many monitors I would need per customer.
A:	You can select a custom plan.  You can specify the number of monitors you need, and you can adjust this at any time.
Q:	Do I need separate monitors for CPU, memory, and connectivity?
A:	Yes, each monitor is a single metric.
Q:	What items can be monitored on a server?
A:	CPU, Memory, Disk Space, Load Average (Linux only), System Events (Windows only), and Processes (Windows only).
Q:	I registered for a trial account, but cannot see the download time for different components in one page. I want to see the download time for the whole page and each component.
A:	You can use transaction monitor to see the download time of each component.
Q:	Firefox keeps asking me to install your recorder plug-in.
A:	Install it once. You should then see it in the Tools menu.
Q:	We are looking for a service like Gomez. We want to test website performance from different cities all over the world.
A:	We currently have 7 locations available for website performance checks (US, UK, Panama, Australia, China, Germany, Amazon US).
Q:	Is it possible to test the speeds of different servers? I have 10 flash pages hosted on 1 server and 10 flash pages hosted on another - can Monitis test how long it takes to download the pages from each server?
A:	Yes, you can do that with a transaction monitor.
Q:	What does External Monitors 8 mean? Does it need to be the same domain? What does it check?
A:	You can check up to 8 URLs using the HTTP protocol. They can be different. It is up to you.  We support 12 protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, IMAP, POP, TCP, UDP, SIP, and PING. You can also check the existence or non-existence of a certain text on the page.
Q:	Can I enable both email and SMS alerts for the same monitor?
A:	Yes, just add your e-mail account, confirm it, and set up the notification rules.
Q:	Is there a way to receive alerts continuously when there is an issue detected by a monitor?  Can I receive alerts every 5/10 minutes until I receive a restore message?
A:	Yes.
Q:	What is NOK?
A:	NOK means failure.
Q:	When upgrading my plan I got asked about the options “sub account” and “EC2.”
A:	A sub-account is a read only account that can view but not change certain modules of your account. Other contacts can only get notices and messages.  EC2 is Hardware as a service provided by Amazon.  Monitis provides monitoring for users of cloud computing who want to monitor new server instances. Unless you’re utilizing cloud computing, you don’t need to know about EC2.
Q:	For visitor tracking, is there anything I need to do besides copy the given code into my page?
A:	No.
Q:	Do you have a public facing page for your services that allows me to create a page that my customers can see?
A:	Yes.
Q:	Where can I see a demo for load testing?
A:	http://webloadtester.com/sample.pdf
Q:	What types of monitoring templates do you provide out of the box to reduce false positives?
A:	We provide external monitoring which can check 13 different protocols externally from 7 different locations worldwide.  External monitoring has advanced notification rules where you can notify contacts after successive failures from several locations in order to reduce false positives.
Q:	What about monitoring for specific products, such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, Server IIS, etc.?
A:	There is currently no monitoring specifically for Microsoft products, but you can use our internal agent to monitor your Windows machines (CPU, Processes, Memory, Hard drive, etc.).
Q:	Do you have an API?
A:	Yes we have an API for fetching data from our service.
Q:	What type of API do you provide?
A:	REST API, with XML or JSON responses.
Q:	Where can I find the WSDL for the API?
A:	http://portal.monitis.com/web/guest/resources
Q:	Is there a way to load a multi-step customer script with your solution? We are looking for a tool to test an application that includes form-based authentication.
A:	Currently no, but it will soon be possible.
Q:	How many email accounts can be set up to notify for an external monitor?
A:	Unlimited.
Q:	I understand how I can use internal monitors to check each other, but what if I have just one machine? I can’t ping it externally but want to monitor it and make sure it is still working.
A:	You can install an internal agent on that machine.
Q:	We have multiple sites/domains within our Group Network. Would these count as External or Internal monitors?
A:	If the domains are open to the public, you should use external monitors.
Q:	Are notification messages customizable?
A:	No.
Q:	Can I try SMS notifications during the trial period?
A:	Yes, you have 20 SMS available during the trial.
Q:	Can Monitis monitor Linux servers?
A:	Yes. Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Sun Solaris.
Q:	Does your service alert via Google Talk?
A:	Yes it does: Google Talk, Yahoo and ICQ.
Q:	If I decide I need more of a given monitor type, how do I incrementally add them?
A:	You upgrade from within your account.
Q:	I signed up for a 15 day free trial but couldn’t find SNMP capabilities.
A:	MonitorSNMP is currently used as a free tool.  Sign up at monitorsnmp.com
Q:	How much load do the agents create on a server?
A:	They create almost no load. About a couple MB of RAM.
Q:	How do I enable my EC2 monitoring, and how much does it cost?
A:	You need to sign up for a Monitis account.  Then check the prices here portal.monitis.com and click Get Started.
Q:	In my web program I can create and destroy EC2 instances dynamically. Can I monitor those instances automatically once they’re created?
A:	Yes.  This is the main function of EC2 monitoring.  You can monitor the number of running instances and get alerts if this number reaches a threshold. If you enter your Amazon account credentials and upload the key we can automatically enable CPU, memory, drive, processes monitoring on each new Amazon instance.
Q:	Can I use my company logo on reports?
A:	Currently you can on public reports. If you create a Report and make it public you can add your logo and URL. But for weekly and daily reports we haven't added that feature yet.
Q:	We're serving a lot of static content out of EC2. Can we monitor all of the URLs, and how is the price calculated?
A:	Yes you can monitor all URLs.  Use External Monitoring. You can find the prices at http://portal.monitis.com/web/guest/prices.  Each external test will cost $0.25 per location. Each internal test, like CPU, Memory, or other, will cost $0.50.  EC2 monitoring will cost $5.00 per instance
Q:	Would it be possible to license Monitis and run your service on our infrastructure?
A:	Yes it is possible. Contact us to discuss further.
Q:	I noticed that you offer OEM. Where can I get more information about that?
A:	We are providing monitoring services for both external and internal resources. For internal monitoring we provide a downloadable agent that has to be installed on your network and can monitor your network devices.  Now we also have a hardware device that includes the agent that you can plug into your network. We offer OEM partnerships, so if you need a monitoring service to be integrated with your service, you can be a reseller of our product under your own company name.
Q:	We currently specialize in Hardware and Hosted desktop solutions. I have been asked to evaluate your service because we needed something to monitor the servers at our hosting center and I’ve been reporting to my boss my findings. We would like both internal & external, but the problem with Monitis internal scanning is that it requires agents and we would like it to be agent-less so that it can detect hardware connected to the network.
A:	Our agent works using agent-less technologies. You have to install the agent only once in your network, and you can monitor your other network devices without installing more.
Q:	Where can I download the recording tool for transaction monitoring?
A:	You will find the instructions here: http://portal.monitis.com/web/guest/transactions-monitoring
Q:	Is the agent compatible with Windows server 2008 R2 64b?
A:	Yes.
Q:	I have a SMTP server that is open on our firewall only for certain sources. What IP addresses should I open it from to allow your service to monitor it?
A:	US - 208.76.244.82 UK - 213.165.245.114        PA - 190.5.236.105   AU - 210.8.212.42             DE - 80.190.241.157        CN - 123.124.22.10        Amazon US - 75.101.139.173
Q:	Is there an advantage to having Amazon US?
A:	Amazon US is mainly for users of Amazon Cloud Services EC2.
Q:	Does Webloadtester handle javascript/ajax intensive webpage load testing?
A:	Yes, there is an option for embedded resources.
Q:	Is there a limit to the number of sites I can monitor using free external monitoring?
A:	No.
Q:	How much does Monitis cost?
A:	The cost depends on the number of websites to be monitored, check intervals, and the number of locations to monitor from.  You can see prices by clicking Products and then Prices at Monitis.com.
Q:	I don't understand the monitoring frequency.  Why is it 5-60 minutes instead of just 5 minutes?
A:	We show the range to communicate that it’s flexible. A user can specify the frequency for each specific monitor.
Q:	Can I import 15,000 URLs with the free version?
A:	No, it is not possible to bulk upload in the free version.  You must import the URLs one by one.  Bulk Upload is available in the Premium version.
Q:	Is there in API in the free version?
A:	Yes, there is a limited API in the free version.