startup_Server(No Operations) refers to a process or work environment in which there is no infrastructure or application operations organization in the process of IT environments becoming automated and abstracted. While it may seem to be at the far end of DevOps, startup_Server can also serve as an intermediate step for early-stage startups without operators to transition towards DevOps.

Startups and Service Quality

Startups are no exception. All participants in running IT service-based startups, especially the development team, are highly sensitive to the quality of the service. Startup developers pay a lot of attention to code for the quality of the service. However, even if the code is of high quality, it cannot solve the problems that occur in the actual operating environment.

In particular, startups are vulnerable to server-related problems. Many startups spend half a day or more resolving problems that occur on their servers and sometimes realize the problem later than their customers. To ensure that IT services run with optimal performance and to prevent errors, automated server monitoring is essential.

Startups and Server Monitoring

The most important aspect of service quality is the absence of interruptions caused by failures and ensuring that customers do not experience inconvenience due to the service's performance. Server-related failures are a critical issue in terms of quality, as they can lead to service downtime. When using cloud services, the responsibility for physical server failures falls on the cloud vendor. However, service disruptions caused by server issues can still occur, and most server-related problems tend to accumulate over time. Without regular server monitoring, not only are these issues not preventable, but they also require a significant amount of time for resolution. In addition, there are many other reasons why server monitoring is essential.

The trend of startups not establishing dedicated operations teams has been growing stronger in recent times, primarily due to the impact of cloud technology and DevOps. DevOps has empowered many developers to gain experience in continuous integration and deployment of service code, and developers are now capable of directly managing servers in cloud environments.

5 Reasons Why Startups Should Use Server Monitoring

1. Prevent issues through proactive analysis.

Proactive analysis of IT systems helps prevent major issues. Monitoring server performance patterns and regular statuses is essential for identifying system inconsistencies and understanding correlations. Without monitoring, it becomes impossible to analyze issues that have persistently increased memory usage over an extended period. It is also not easy to identify the cause of the problem even after a failure occurs. It's crucial to address issues through monitoring before customers experience any inconvenience.

Continuous monitoring of the system allows for taking actions before the problem occurs through alert signals that are set automatically or manually. These activities not only improve the quality of the service but also reduce the burden on the development team.

2. Reduce Downtime and Prevent Business Losses.

Many startups rely on customer reports to identify issues, which can be a critical problem. Downtime is a very important factor in businesses, so the start of downtime should be immediately detected. Even if an issue is discovered and resolved within 10 minutes, if it went unnoticed for 5 hours, the downtime effectively becomes 5 hours and 10 minutes.

Prolonged service downtime not only has an immediate impact on the business but also erodes the long-term trust of customers in the company. Server monitoring helps reduce the scope of issues, making it a valuable tool for minimizing downtime.

3. It Can Improve Productivity and Performance.

Monitoring servers is not limited to resolving current issues but also enables identifying areas that require future improvements. Server monitoring encompasses both server resources and network resources. Through server monitoring, you can analyze the correlation between server resources and network components. When using cloud services, adjusting servers and networks based on monitoring and analysis results can be a valuable approach.

4. Monitoring Helps Define IT Upgrade Plans and Budgets.

All servers have a lifecycle. The required server capacity varies every year. If you are using cloud services, this capacity can change on a monthly, weekly, or even real-time basis. Predicting and changing strategies through monitoring is an effective way to operate servers.

5. Enables Data-driven Insights and Decision-making

Server monitoring is an important factor in formulating and shaping IT strategies. As performance and costs in the IT environment can be exchanged in real time through the cloud, the business aspects of server monitoring have become even more critical. The IT environment should continually evolve to provide the best service to customers. In an environment where the business demands of technological change rapidly change, failing to track what IT assets are doing and delivering can hinder improvements.

When a startup's CTO or someone from the development team wants to know about the service's server environment, analyzing the IT environment directly becomes a challenging task without monitoring components. Monitoring is essential to understand how the IT environment is performing and what is being done to minimize risks.