The concept of the Domain Name System (DNS) can be a confusing subject even to skilled and experienced system administrators. DNS is the system used to abbreviate Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which are in the form of numbers, to memorable, user-friendly names. These Domain names address systems on TCP/IP networks (e.g. the Internet) by certain Web applications, such as browsers. This system enables computers to communicate using numeric addresses and computer users to use simpler names, for example, “www.google.com” and “www.yahoo.com,” to call up services, including websites and email servers on the internet.

How Domains and the Domain Name System Work

When you type a domain name into your browser’s address bar, your computer (or client) sends the name to a publicly accessible computer called a DNS server. This server contains a database mapping of human-readable names to their corresponding numeric addresses. The DNS server sends back a response to the client computer and informs it of the IP address of the target system you would like to access, thus enabling it to send the request directly to the target. Through a process known as recursion, the DNS server may also request the IP from other DNS servers.

You may want to measure any given server's response time for any reason, but the most common one is to gain a better understanding of the visitor's experience by using external testing locations. Another reason would be to ensure that the website is accessible by your clients. By performing a visitor emulation, you can determine the status of the server and get additional statistics based on the time it takes for each one to complete.

Web servers are vital to ensure your website is up and running. Yet sometimes, there can be hiccups in service, and the response time of your web server can change drastically. Slow server response time can distinguish between a reliable website that anyone can access and a website that drives users away, perhaps from your competition.

Here's a brief example: domain and hosting provider GoDaddy recently experienced downtime with their servers, resulting in thousands of websites either being down or responding slowly (or even just hanging, never loading the page). As a result, GoDaddy had to go through an extensive PR mess to get everything fixed. They also had to deal with a crowd of angry business owners who relied on their servers to make a living.

In almost every industry, customers expect to learn most information about a company from their web site. Consumers increasingly use a company’s site to place purchases, pay bills, and seek customer support.

Smart leaders of companies also utilize their website to track current and potential customers and learn valuable information about them. With catalogues and long sales pitches over the phone on the decline, and cloud computing very much already here, it’s important that your online presence is solid.

Performance and availability monitoring plays a crucial role for the health and overall wellbeing of  the modern business infrastructure. However, there still exist some common misconceptions associated with remote website and server monitoring practices. We hope that by revealing the real facts, we will help you make an educated decision so that you can use the optimal arsenal of remote monitoring tools to your advantage.

You need to monitor all your resources

Monitoring every single piece of network hardware is not, by all means, mandatory. Monitoring more than what you really need is neither time- nor cost-efficient. Business-critical systems usually represent only a fraction of your infrastructure. Involving people with intimate knowledge of your IT ecosystem in the decision making process will save you money and time. One of the great features of agentless monitoring solutions is scalability. If you are not quite sure about the resources you need to monitor, start with the basic service and a limited set of servers, or websites. You can always expand and spend on remote monitoring when you need it.