Frequently Asked Questions

What is IsMySystemUp?

IsMySystemUp is a system designed to keep watch over other systems, and alert you when there is a problem.

What Does IsMySystemUp Do?

Essentially IsMySystemUp pretends to be a user and tests you systems by attempting to connect to your web site, e-mail server, etc. If there is a problem, you are notified.

Depending on the type of test you choose, IsMySystemUp will connect to a web server (http and https), an e-mail sever (SMTP, POP, IMAP) or PING your server to see if your server is alive.

Each server can have multiple tests. The choice of tests is up to you.

What can IsMySystemUp test?

IsMySystemUp can test web servers (http and https), e-mail servers (SMTP, POP, IMAP), network alive (PING), DNS servers and more.

Each server can have multiple tests. For example if you have one server that has both a web server and e-mail server, IsMySystemUp can test both services on the same server.

How Am I Notified?

By e-mail. We recommend that the e-mail address you use is not your internal e-mail address, since if your connection or server goes down so does our ability to notify you.

We recommend using an e-mail tied to your cellular phone. For example, 8885551212@messaging.sprintpcs.com. For more information on notification click here.

Why not just have my own system email me a status report daily?

A daily "AOK" email soon becomes so boring that employees typically stop reading it within a week (the "tedium effect"). Functionally, this means no one is fully attentive to system status.

Also, new or temporary replacement personnel may or may not fully understand their assignment. When the server or backup system fails, external monitoring is your backup.

If I sign up for the free trial, am I obligated to pay anything?

There is no obligation to pay anything for the first 30 days. If after the 30 days you wish to continue having your systems monitored, you will have to provide us with your billing information and we will begin charging you on the first day of the 2nd month.

Before your 30-day trail expires we will send you a reminder letting you know it is about to expire.

Is it safe for you to be testing my servers with all these tests?

Yes. Our most frequent test only connects to your system every minute. If your servers or systems cannot handle this load please contact our professional services group for assistance.

The only possible side effect of our testing is the extra traffic can add extra traffic (hits) to log files. There are ways to filter this out of your logging. See our FAQ item "How do I prevent logging of IsMySystemUp traffic on my systems?" for information on filtering out IsMySystemUp testing traffic.

When my server goes down, can you help me fix the problem?

Our professional services team is available to assist in solving issues. Pricing for professional services is available by contacting our consulting group at consulting@ismysystemup.com .

We have a full service professional consulting team that has decades of experience in application development, network design, firewalls, security services, servers (file, web, etc.), backup and disaster recovery and planning.

How can I schedule downtime for my services when I know they will be offline.

You can login to your account and set specific time windows when the server or services will be online, omitting the time when the servers will be down.

What is the difference between Basic SMTP testing and Full E-Mail Loop testing?

Basic SMTP testing only tests to see if the server is alive and responds to a connection request. Full E-Mail Loop testing connects to your server then sends an e-mail that will be sent back to our system. In this way we are not only testing to see if the e-mail server is alive, but its ability to receive and send an e-mail in a timely matter. See ourt Knowledge Base article Setting up Full E-Mail Loop Testing for more information.

What is the difference between Basic HTTP testing and Extended HTTP testing?

Basic HTTP testing will connect to your web server and attempt to download the web page you specify. Basic HTTP then looks for a special code (the response code) from the server and does not look at the content of the page. Basic HTTP testing is useless. The reason is many error pages and ISP expiration pages return the 200 OK response code leading most Basic HTTP testing to think everything is okay.

We feel so strongly that Basic HTTP testing is useless that for the same price as Basic HTTP testing we offer Extended HTTP testing.

Extended HTTP testing not only looks at the response code, but will also search for a specific phrase that you specify. See our Knowledge Base article Recommendations for Phrase Searches in Extended HTTP Testing for more information on testing with phrases. Typically, the phrase is at the very end of the page not only testing that the page is returning some data but the enitre page.

Extended HTTP testing is even more important on dynamic or database drive sites where the page headers, footers and copyright notices may all be correct but the content is empty becuase of database problem.

Extended HTTP can also test secure (SSL) web sites and will check for SSL certificates that are invalid or out of date.

What are DNS tests and why do I need them?

DNS testing is very important for several reasons. Even if your web site is up and working properly, misconfigured, corrupted or expired DNS entries can prevent connections to your system.

As part of your DNS testing we can also test for domain records that are going to expire.