Server Density updates – dashboard, alert history and notifications
We have just pushed out an update to our server monitoring service, Server Density. A few weeks ago we spent a lot of time going through every page in the app and this is the first set of UI changes as a result. We’re also including updates to our backend processing, read on for more details.
Customisable dashboard
The dashboard was designed back in the days of just a few metrics and no plugins. It’s had a few iterations since then but to use it as a general status display for your server infrastructure, it really needed more flexibility.
Enter the new dashboard functionality, which allows you to reorder servers and choose which metrics to display. You can remove a server from view by editing it in the Servers tab, reorder the servers by dragging the handle in the top right corner and add metrics using the button at the bottom of each server.
All metrics are supported, including those with multiple options like disk usage (choosing the mount point) or RabbitMQ (choosing your queue name). Plugins are also supported. Your preferences are saved on a per user basis so everyone can build a dashboard to their liking.
Alert history
Our original UI was very simple – for a long time we’ve only shown the last 5 triggered alerts on the dashboard. Now, you can view a full history of each alert triggered over any date range you specify. Just click the History link next to an alert from the Alerts tab. This is the first part of more detailed information about your alerts which we have been storing for a long time, but are now able to expose properly through our UI. Note the link only shows if the alert has ever been triggered.
Notifications backend
Although there’s nothing to see and no shiny UI, the notifications back end is just as important because it’s what processes all your alerts and sends notifications off. We have pushed out improved processing daemons which are now able to handle more alerts, faster, so you will notice that notifications reach you much sooner after an alert is triggered and notification processed.
We are also now trialing a different e-mail backend – Postmark. We have been using their excellent service for some time for our transactional e-mails – payment notifications, signup e-mails, password resets but we have now just switched on using them for alert e-mails too. Since they specialise in e-mail delivery and allow us to use more complex things like bounce detection and domain keys, we can be sure that messages are getting delivered to you promptly. And when there is a problem it makes it much easier to troubleshoot.
If you open the headers of an alert e-mail from us you’ll see their magic at work! This removes the need for us to run our own mail server, which are notorious for problems, and gives us a cool UI to track e-mails we sent. My only concern is the pricing per e-mail – it could add up to quite a large number at our volumes of mail, something I shall be keeping an eye on.
Other tweaks
We’ve made various other tweaks to the UI (including auto login!) that you’ll hopefully notice using the app, with more to come in the future!
