Alexander Lamb wrote:


> I am implementing a very simple script to ping web servers or
> services (to monitor how our environment is functionning).

This thread seems to thrashing around a bit.

By what criteria do you establish how your environment is  
functioning? Once you know that you can look into how to monitor  
those criteria alone and no others.

A 'ping' is really testing the network and web server responsiveness  
(assuming the ping task is simple). You can't separate those.  
Establish a base line and compare to that. I'd think that if the  
network or server is stalling for any reason you'd like to know, and  
when comparing to a base line you have a chance of detecting that.

The application responsiveness is probably best measured on the  
server by the application itself, possibly by recording the time  
between first touch on the app through to the close or flush of the  
socket. You'd have to ask the application to report on this.

Cheers,
Bob

----
Bob Hutchison          -- blogs at <http://www.recursive.ca/hutch/>
Recursive Design Inc.  -- <http://www.recursive.ca/>
Raconteur              -- <http://www.raconteur.info/>