Making the case for web app monitoring.
The Case for Monitoring Web Apps
What are web apps and why should you be monitoring them? That’s an interesting question, but one that you should know the answer to if you operate a website! This site is designed to provide you with some information about web app monitoring: what are web apps, how do they work, and what are the best practices for monitoring? Without further ado, let’s get take a look at some of this information.
Understanding Web Applications
First of all, a web application is any type of application software that operates in a web browser and relies on the browser itself to render the application. Web applications are not the same thing as mobile apps… in fact, they are totally different, although they accomplish some of the same purposes. Mobile apps may be what people think of when they hear the word “app” or “apps,” but web applications are just as popular, if not more, than mobile apps. What is an example of a web application? Well, a shopping cart on a website is an example of a web application. When you add or remove items from a shopping cart, you are interacting with a web application. Another example of a web application is the video player on a site like Hulu; whenever you watch a video on Hulu, you’re interacting with a web application. So, web applications don’t seem so strange now, do they?
Understanding Monitoring
With that said, if you run a website, you’re probably already familiar with web applications and what they do, but you may not be familiar with the idea of web app monitoring and why that’s important. Web app monitoring isn’t just some type of abstract idea, it’s a real thing and it’s useful in a lot of different ways. Web app monitoring typically involves using an external server in order to test your web applications at a specified interval in order to ensure that they’re operating properly. If your web app goes down or isn’t functioning properly, you can be alerted that there’s a problem. There are a number of third-party services that offer solutions like this, or it’s also possible to set up another server to do this. Either way, it’s an important thing to make sure that your web apps are functioning properly and correctly. Think of it this way: if you have a website where you conduct eCommerce, and your shopping cart is down, you could be losing money by the minute. If you are monitoring your shopping cart, you might know there’s a problem exactly when it occurs, and you can take action to fix it instead of waiting and finding out days later when the complaint emails start to come in from customers.
Hopefully now after reading even just this information on the home page you have a better idea what web application monitoring is, how it works, and why it’s important. Feel free to take a look around this site and take in all the tips and information here to help you better understand the world of web app monitoring.
