subject: Monitoring Http Solutions For E-commerce [print this page] The World Wide Web has become an invaluable tool for many different purposes. E-commerce has become big business, and anybody with an e-commerce site knows the importance of constant uptime. Web app developers often need to locate bugs. Monitoring HTTP is something that website operators and web app developers can both use to assist them.
There are several different monitoring tools that are free-of-charge. As an added bonus, some of these are even open-source. Many commercial tools are also available.
Protocol analyzers aren't automated, and usually don't have all that many fancy options. Also, they don't decrypt encrypted web traffic. However, they are useful when you have to troubleshoot a site that isn't encrypted, or when just monitoring to see if unencrypted, sensitive information leaks out. If your site is under attack, you can use these analyzers to try to see what the attackers are trying to do.
Several different free protocol analyzers are available for most any operating system. If you run Linux or a BSD-type operating system, you'll find some of them in your distro's package repositories.
Other solutions will keep a constant watch on your website, monitoring for uptime and any problems that may develop. If a problem develops, most of these programs can send an automatic notification via email, instant message, or page.
Your favorite search engine can help you find lots of both commercial and free monitoring tools for just about any operating system. If you use either Linux or BSD, some of these tools should already be in the distro's package repository. If you need help with the free programs, some vendors will supply it commercially.
A newer type of monitoring solution comes as a plug-in for web browsers. These are good for when you don't need the complexity of a full-blown network monitoring setup. Some of them have the ability to decrypt encrypted traffic, which makes them good for debugging web apps for banking or e-commerce sites.
Regardless of which type of HTTP monitoring solution you need, a search on the Web will find plenty of choices.
