Mathias Hengl is a PRTG developer and monitoring expert at Paessler AG. He explains in an interview where failures might occur – and explains why especially lean-Startups should attend to monitoring.

A startup receives a visitor onslaught in just a few hours. How should the IT team react?

Mathias Hengl: Every normal user rush has a fast-rising curve and goes through various system phases over a period of time, contrary to DoS attacks. There’s an early time window where you can see that a capacity overload will occur soon, but the users don’t yet notice anything. Then comes a phase where the users notice that the system is slow, but user transactions can still be executed. The website might be a little slower for the user, but everything is still working.

In order to respond immediately, one has to know what happened, and where – hopefully before the users find out. If I notice that my system is going to be overloaded half an hour before the users notice, I can easily take countermeasures without noticeable downtime.

What good is half an hour?

Mathias Hengl: If I know the source of the problem, I can react to the situation directly. For example, we recently had a case where we decided to shut off the website compression. By doing this we were able to free up CPU on the web server and avert imminent down time.

This fast reaction increased the time window available to counteract the problem – for example, by connecting an additional web server or by having queries from a different country be processed by a local web server.

In order to do this, though, you have to know where the problem lies as early as possible; otherwise you end up chasing after the problem, which can create more problems: I quickly add another webserver – and then my database crashes. Searching for errors takes time – which ultimately costs revenue. The more relevant information I have, the faster and more efficiently I can react.

And if I don’t find a fast solution on the technical level and downtime isn’t avoidable?

Mathias Hengl: Then you still have the option of actively communicating with your users. Use Facebook and Twitter to communicate that you’re currently experiencing difficulties and things might be a bit slow. Most customers are understanding. They are quicker to be upset if they don’t know what is going on.

In this respect, a monitoring system is the foundation for effective and meaningful communication. It’s also important to not be too vague with the communication. Just saying that the site or system is down doesn’t usually satisfy customers. If you can say instead that there is an issue with the database, you are communicating to your customers that you aren’t searching blindly for solutions, but that you are actively addressing the problem.

“A Monitoring system is the foundation for effective and meaningful communication.”

Where could the IT system fail?

Mathias Hengl: An IT system is comparable to an onion. An onion consists of several layers, where each layer is separated by a thin skin, comparable to network and firewall components. There are usually four layers: the access layer with internet/provider connection, name resolution and load balancing, the web delivery layer with the web or application server, the processing layer in which processes and housekeeping activities are executed and the data management layer with databases or files.

Overloading can occur between each of the layers. If I have millions of small queries, my provider might not be able to handle them all. Or I might have a large bandwidth but my network card is maxed out by the number of queries. Or so many orders come in that the instances aren’t able to keep up with the checks. This can lead to real catastrophes – the user gets the ‘OK’ that the process is complete, but the data management isn’t able to keep up with the incoming information and important data gets lost.

Every startup should know where its weaknesses lie and what might lead to a failure.

Many startups work with external service providers, like cloud providers. They must have established monitoring systems, right?

Mathias Hengl: That’s right. Many startups work with external service providers and rely on their partners. The founders have enough other things to do. They want their product to become established on the market and work on their business model. Unfortunately, service provider systems fail sometimes, too. We recently had a case where the cloud systems as well as the cloud provider’s monitoring failed due to overloading.

This is like blind flying for a startup. This is especially bitter if it occurs in a crucial phase. Startups usually have more than one partner and therefore don’t have one specific monitoring system, but in order to act efficiently, you should have all your information in one place.

Besides, the technical partner might claim that there are no problems on his side. In that case, you’re pretty well trapped and can hardly argue if you don’t have your own data. In contrast, if you’ve set up your own monitoring, you just have to send your technical partner a diagram with monitoring results and ask what is going on. That’s why monitoring is a useful tool for communicating on partner level as well.

“Without knowledge of the actual situation, I cannot react. And that requires data.”

What problems could arise with cloud services?

Mathias Hengl: The cloud gives startups the impression of security. However, even cloud services can have problems. For example, a machine crashes and no new machine is started. As cloud resources are often shared, load peaks are reached more often. Security holes may arise and cloud snapshots could get deleted by a third party. Of course, these are the exceptions, but they do come up again and again. You can’t just pretend they don’t exist.

To say it plainly: there is definitely nothing wrong with working together with a cloud provider. The important thing is to ensure that you are always 100% capable of acting.

Lean startups survive because of their ability to act flexibly. Isn’t professional monitoring a little oversized? Doesn’t it weigh down the startup?

Mathias Hengl: It actually does the opposite. Professional monitoring makes every startup more capable of acting. Without knowledge of the actual situation, I cannot react. Monitoring unfortunately does not have a good reputation. Many IT professionals associate monitoring with added expenses, slower systems and constant, extensive maintenance. However, that comes down to the selected system. The system should be simple, efficient and suitable for the company, should support the IT department and check the right things.

Thank you for the interview!