- What does Web Service Guard do?
- How can I determine how much website outages are costing me?
- I don’t host my website myself – my website is hosted by a hosting company. Can my site still be monitored?
- Is there software to install that would require webmaster administrative privileges?
- Does Web Service Guard have monitoring services available from multiple locations?
- When do I receive alerts?
- Can I configure a tolerance number of failures to be detected before I receive a DOWN alert?
- Can I view my site’s uptime metrics online?
- How do I know where my site’s uptime statistics stand in relation to other sites?
- What does Web Service Guard have in place to reduce false positive alerts?
- What type of monitoring metrics are available online for viewing?
- What is the cost for monitoring?
- What should I monitor?
- Why should I use Web Service Guard if I can monitor my sites locally?
- What if the Web Service Guard server goes down?
- What type of applications are being monitored?
- Does Web Service Guard monitor all types of platforms?
- How do I view the online monitoring metrics?
- How does Web Service Guard tell if my site is currently up?
- How long does Web Service Guard keep the monitoring statistics for my site?
- How do I add more monitoring features to my account?
- Can I temporarily disable monitoring for system maintenance?
- How do I add additional email contacts for the alerts?
Billing
- How do I get billed?
- What is the billing cycle?
- Is there an activation fee?
- How can I cancel?
1. What does Web Service Guard do? Web Service Guard uses its website monitoring and web uptime monitor service to let people know when their website becomes unavailable for any reason. We provide electronic notification and uptime metrics for websites and servers.
2. How can I determine how much website outages are costing me?
For less than the price of 1 cup of coffee per day, you can avoid the following scenarios!
An accurate answer to this question depends on many company factors, but consider these examples. Online Retails Sales Example Red Canyon Outfitters sells clothing online. Their average daily online sales total is $100,000. 96% of their online sales occur between the hours of 7pm and 10pm US ET.
| Total Daily $ at risk | Period Duration (minutes) | Lost $/minute | Lost $/hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| $96,000 | 180 | $533 | $32,000 |
Using the calculations above, Red Canyon Outfitters stands to lose $533 for every minute, or $32,000 for every hour, that their website is down between the hours of 7pm-10pm US ET. Supply Chain Management Example Midway Auto Parts manufactures automobile parts. Midway’s largest customers are Detroit US car makers. Midway is responsible for delivering the right quantity of various auto parts, at the right time, to the auto makers, according to the auto makers production run schedule. The auto makers publish each day’s production run schedule on their company website. Previous auto maker website outages have caused significant production delays for Midway’s auto maker customers, and have in turn impacted Midway’s daily invoice total. Midway Auto Parts would like to mitigate this risk by monitoring the auto makers’ websites. Midway’s average daily invoice total is $180,000. 90% of these companies’ production and delivery schedules are set between the hours of 7am and 10am US ET.
| Total Daily $ at risk | Period Duration (minutes) | Lost $/minute | Lost $/hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| $180,000 | 180 | $1000 | $60,000 |
Using the calculations above, Midway Auto Parts stands to lose $1000 for every minute, or $60,000 for every hour, that their customers websites are down between the hours of 7am-10am US ET.
3. I don’t host my website myself – my website is hosted by a hosting company. Can my site still be monitored? Yes. Since there is no software to install, Web Service Guard can monitor any publicly available website using our website monitoring and web uptime monitor service.
4. Is there software to install that would require webmaster administrative privileges? No. There is no software for you or your webmaster to install. Web Service Guard provides independent third party monitoring services, and can monitor any publicly available website.
5. Does Web Service Guard have monitoring services available from multiple locations? Yes. Web Service Guard has redundant monitoring locations across the globe that operate in a proprietary cascading failover architecture.
6. When do I receive alerts? You will receive 2 alerts for each outage.
- A DOWN ALERT provides the date and time that the outage began, along with information specific to this outage.
- An UP ALERT provides the date and time the outage ended, along with your site’s 30 Day Uptime metric, and a link for more information.
7. Can I configure a tolerance number of failures to be detected before I receive a DOWN alert? Yes. You can set a number of outage detections to occur before you are notified of an outage. Since Internet network events may occur that cause short lived outages, often less than a minute in duration, this tolerance allows you to configure the Web Service Guard monitors according to your own tolerance for intermittent network events, also known as “false positives”.
8. Can I view my site’s uptime metrics online? Yes. In addition to receiving your site’s most recent 30 Day uptime metric in an UP ALERT email, you can also view your site’s uptime metrics online at http://www.webserviceguard.com once you login into your account.
9. How do I know where my site’s uptime statistics stand in relation to other sites? Your site’s uptime performance will be calibrated against other monitored sites. It will be assigned a benchmark grade found in your account statistics to indicate your sites performance relative to others.
10. What does Web Service Guard have in place to reduce false positive alerts? There are 2 ways you can configure Web Service Guard monitors to reduce false positive alerts: You can configure a number of outage detections to occur before you are notified of an outage. You can configure Web Service Guard’s Dual Check technology to confirm each outage from multiple locations prior to sending an alert.
11. What type of monitoring metrics are available online for viewing? 
For each outage:
- ARS ID: 41
- Outage Begin: 2008-03-31 01:44:43
- Outage End: 2008-03-31 03:50:50
- Outage Duration: 126 minutes
- Event ID:
- Status Code: 0 Method Failed
12. What is the cost for monitoring? Many packages are available for less than the price of 1 cup of coffee per day. Register Now!
13. What should I monitor? Lost online sales, supply chain interruption, reduced customer conversion rate, and diminished customer loyalty are just a few reasons you need to know when your website is down before your customers do. Most web surfers will never visit a website again if their first viewing attempt resulted in an error such as “Page not found”.
14. Why should I use Web Service Guard if I can monitor my sites locally?
- Network diversity – If the server your website is on goes down, and the server is configures to monitor itself, then that server can not communicate when it is down. Web Service Guard will monitor your site operating from servers and network service providers independent of your network service provider.
- Continuous automated monitoring watches your site 24 hours per day, 7 days per week with no rest. Website monitoring is our specialty – we watch your site so you can focus on your business.
15. What if the Web Service Guard server goes down?
- Web Service Guard uses multiple servers at multiple locations around the globe.
- Web Service Guard monitoring nodes monitor each other 24 hours per day, 7 days per week with no rest.
- Web Service Guard is configured with a proprietary automated cascading failover capability. Since each monitoring node has all the information it needs to monitor all customer sites, re-assignment across monitoring nodes is a very simple task, and fully automated.
16. What type of applications are being monitored? Any website or server that is publicly available and addressable via the TCP/IP protocol can be monitored.
17. Does Web Service Guard monitor all types of platforms? Any website or server that is publicly available and addressable via the TCP/IP protocol can be monitored, regardless of server platform or operating system.
18. How do I view the online monitoring metrics? Log on to http://www.webserviceguard.com, your site’s metrics will be visible on the first page with successful login.
19. How does Web Service Guard tell if my site is currently up? Just as Web Service Guard monitors your site to determine that it is DOWN, your site is also continuously monitored to determine when it is UP again. The minute your site is UP again, you will receive an UP alert. Each of these events are logged and stored for reporting purposes.
20. How long does Web Service Guard keep the monitoring statistics for my site? Unlike other monitoring services which have a 30 day cut-off, Web Service Guard stores and provides details of outages for a full year.
21. How do I add more monitoring features to my account? A complete list of services and pricing is available on our pricing page. Add the service that you require. If you are a returning customer enter your email address and new password. Your password will now default to the new password.
22. Can I temporarily disable monitoring for system maintenance? Yes. You can temporarily disable or enable any of your registered monitors for any reason, including system maintenance. This capability is available online at http://www.webserviceguard.com. Login into your account and click on deactivate.
23. How do I add additional email contacts for the alerts? You can add additional alert email addresses by editing your account profile at http://www.webserviceguard.com. Log into your account to add additional email address.
Billing
24. How do I get billed? Your credit card will be billed once per month on your monthly billing cycle. You will receive invoice statements of each month’s billed charges via email to your Point of Contact email address, as created in your Web Service Guard account profile.
25. What is the billing cycle? Your billing cycle is dependent on the day of the month on which you create your Web Service Guard account.
26. Is there an activation fee? No. You will be billed for one month’s service on the first business day that you create your Web Service Guard account.
27. How can I cancel? You may close your Web Service Guard account by sending an email to billing@webserviceguard.com that includes: Your Web Service Guard Account ID Reason for cancellation A valid phone number
