Chapter 8: Monitoring and Backup

Monitoring and backing up servers are usually mundane tasks that are easily overlooked or forgotten. When everything is running smoothly, you may not even think about whether your servers have backed up properly, maybe for weeks at a time. Except in the largest of companies, there usually aren't dedicated backup admins or performance monitoring gurus. In IT, we all wear many different hats and they don't always fit on top of each other. The key phrase here is when everything is running smoothly. Unfortunately, this state of bliss cannot continue indefinitely. Hardware fails, malware and crypto lockers happen, and files are accidentally deleted. Suddenly, those dull chores of due diligence, such as monitoring the health of your servers and making sure you have solid backups, jump from backburner to mission-critical on the importance scale.

There are many third-party tools available for performing functions such as data backups and performance...