When external systems or services (like software or physical real-world systems) need to be monitored or controlled, the Orax SDI Automation & Wide-Area-Monitoring module may be used to do the job. This module can be used for data integration, system and network monitoring or device/security monitoring and control. Monitoring a system means that feedback is retrieved in the form of metrics on a daily, hourly or other interval. A metric is a measure of some sort, usually compared against a threshold or value to determine the health of the metric. The SDI monitoring system makes use of "Agents", which are software programs (or hardware devices) to harvest metrics in intervals. A metric that is uploaded to the monitoring server is analysed and saved for reporting. A metric can be configure to log Service Calls, send SMS's or Emails and show current and historic information in reports.
SDI monitoring is used to find errors proactively and feed reports. Agents are deployed on remote systems and managed centrally through the Orax SDI Portal. The system is efficient, effective and has a low Cost-of-Ownership. Agents and metrics can be deployed to harvest data from remote systems for system or process integration.
Please note that Wide-Area-Monitoring by definition was not designed to harvest small interval (less than one minute) metrics over Wide-Area-Networks, but rather a greater interval overview (eg. 5 - 15 minute intervals). The system makes use of the HTTPS (SSL) protocol to allow secure uploading of metrics over different networks and firewalls.
Note that using Wide-Area-Monitoring as a service to customers or in a larger capacity will attract additional costs in terms of usage.