When your website is powered by Benchmark, you never have to concern yourself with the server systems that support your site. The
operating system, web serving software, server hardware, network equipment and security are monitored continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (366 on leap years).
A round-the-clock staff of highly skilled system administrators, network security specialists and hardware technicians ensure that your
web site is up and running 24 hours a day on a secure, stable, high performance platform. We guarantee 99.5% uptime and take that guarantee very seriously! Our server center staff work at night so that you don’t need to!
The server housing your web site is monitored proactively to ensure optimal performance and security. When you are assured of a fast,
secure and reliable hosting environment, you can concentrate more on designing your website and growing your business.
System monitoring scripts have been built into the operating system of each server on the Benchmark network. These scripts are designed to
monitor system processes, report monitoring results and fix system problems as determined by pre-established criteria. Round-the-clock network center management of your server makes it easier than ever before to operate a secure,
stable and reliable virtual web server.
The following describes some of the monitors and back-up procedures that are performed proactively on your web server:
Automated Machine Uptime Monitor
Scripts ping the servers every few minutes to make sure that each server is accessible from within and from outside our network. If the
server cannot be pinged, the script pages server center system engineers immediately for rapid correction.
Automated Web Serving Monitor
Automated tools monitor the Apache web server to ensure that it is up and serving pages. Every two minutes, a test page is sent to the web
server. If it does not respond, the monitoring script will reload the web server software. Then two minutes later, it will send a test page again. If there is still no response, then the reload/test scenario repeats itself. After
two attempts, a technician is contacted to take the remedial steps needed to make sure that the server is fully operational.
Automated Disk Space Monitor
Disk space usage is monitored through a script that checks free space on the server hard drive at regular intervals. If available hard
drive space reaches a dangerously low level, server center staff are notified via e-mail. This is to make sure that the drive never fills up and brings the server down.
Automated Memory Monitor
This monitor makes sure that no process takes up more than a certain percentage of server available memory. If a process consumes more
than the maximum allotment, it is temporarily killed off and the situation is reported to server center staff. This prevents any one web site from hogging all the available memory and, conversely, ensures that each web site has
sufficient memory for optimal performance.
Automated Port Monitor
All commonly used ports on each server are monitored to make sure that they are open and to verify that they are actually passing data.
The script does this by requesting data. If the port does not respond, it is restarted by the monitoring tool.
Automated External Monitor
All of our servers and our network are monitored externally. In addition to the internal scripts described above, we use off-network
servers to provide corrective action, notification and coverage for maximum protection of service delivery. Using these off-site machines gives us the ultimate guarantee that we can provide the uptime and reliability promised to
our clients.
Automated Back-up
Server-wide system backups allow us to recover a server in the event of a failure (hardware, user or software related). Please note that
these backups do not relieve you of the obligation to make sure that you have a current backup of your website!
Finally
So there you have it! We monitor your server in every way we can think of from inside and out on a continuous basis around the clock. Our
goal is to solve problems before you even know they are there! Usually, we can. Sometimes, we can't. That is why we have an emergency e-mail address in the support center which you can use to notify our emergency support team
immediately. If you ever have to use it, rest assured that we probably are aware of the problem and already working to get it fixed!
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