Today, the technology invented for robotics, military, Aeronautics, and Space Administration is slowly and gradually finding its way to wide areas. Did you know, that the Internet without which the world can’t run, its initial purpose of development was for the Military? Talking about the software industry, the Software agent application has been another advancement in the realm of the software industry, ranging from software development to robotics and server management. Software agents especially for Servers are a great way to modernize server management and it has its own set of benefits. Even if your Server does not come with any of such Agent Applications, it’s worth knowing about it. Thus we bring you, all about agent applications for monitoring servers.
In today’s post, we will check what an is Agent Application, the benefits of an agent application for monitoring servers, the list of common monitoring agent apps, and its port-related information. So, without further due, let’s dive in.
What is an agent application?
Do you have a Server and you observe the performance metrics in graphs or a backup snapshot that is ready to restore as an incremental or stack of backups somewhere in the server dashboard? You may also see dedicated WHM, cPanel, or Plesk control panel buttons that take you to the control panel of your Server. This all is an endowment of an Agent Application in your Server. Now coming to the topic, an Agent Application especially in Server management is a software program or a service that communicates between UI and the Backend. In a way, we can say it interacts with the Server dashboard and the backend of the Server.
Agent App runs on behalf of the user of the Server to complete tasks requested by the user without needing the user to take extra actions. This means the Agent applications are used to listen for task requests from the UI dashboard and run those operations locally on the VM without needing Users’ manual intervention. There are several other components of a Server which has the same functionality as the Agent Apps. For instance, a daemon service on a Linux VM can be considered an Agent App that performs tasks in the background without direct user interaction but their context differs. The agent applications we are talking about are mainly for the monitoring service that you can also deploy on your Server.
Benefits of Agent Application for Monitoring Servers
The Software agent application has several benefits regarding server management. They are listed below.
1) With agent applications installed, this provides performance metrics to the UI dashboard of your Server.
2) Agent Application for Server management can help user tasks to be completed. This includes password change, sync, or upgrade downgrade events. This feature is mainly up to the Agent App if it’s made that way.
3) Having an agent app on your Server would let the UI dashboard work flawlessly with the Server directly. Let it be a WHM button on your Dhasbord or backup restore functionality. This feature is also an addon and varies between agent apps.
4) Since the agent app allows remote monitoring and management of the Server, you don’t have to manually log in to the Servers to check its resources.
5) With Agent app, provides greater transparency and control of more capabilities and services.
List of common software agent apps
Software agent apps can play a vital role in your Server management. It is worth knowing that it does not come preinstalled unless your Server provider does it. In the market, a few server providers provide the Server that comes with an Agent App installed and a few don’t. If you own a Server, you just want to check with your Server provider regarding this. You can also install a plugin called Munin to do the same job for you. One must understand that it’s all up to the Server provider, whether they wish to deploy a market-present agent app solution or build one of their own, especially for their server products.
1) Nydus-ex and ex-API pair Agent
Nydus is a one-of-a-kind Agent application for monitoring that takes care of your tasks and server monitoring options. This agent application might be limited. You may want to verify the agent application support before you purchase the Server from the Server providers. It is worth noting that, GoDaddy’s Server solution has a Nydus agent app that comes pre-installed.
2) Qualys cloud agent
Qualys Cloud Agent is another broader IT enterprise-level agent that gives you the power to deploy the monitoring on various Operating systems. You can give this agent a try on your system from the link here. Remember, you should know what you are doing!
3) New Relic
New Relic is a DevOps tool, DevOps engineers utilize this tool to monitor performance and spot new changes. Since it is a cloud-based tool that helps you manage servers, it is worth using this one. You can review the documentation here.
4) Datadog
Datadog is an alternative and competitor to New Relic. It offers an enhanced user experience with end-to-end visibility. Sources like metrics, logs, activity, even, ts, and traces are supported with DataDog. This would be a paid service tool which you can ask for a demo here.
5) Sensu Go
Sensu is an agent-based tool that you install on your organization’s infrastructure or personal Virtual Machine. The Sensu backend gives you a flexible, automated pipeline to filter, transform, and process alerts and metrics. You can give this a try from the link here.
What port do they rely on?
Not all agent applications like Sensu, Datadog, or Nydus need to rely on the same port. Each of these applications can be configured to use different ports. This is based on their specific requirements and the system configuration they’re installed on. The choice of port can depend on a variety of factors, including the specific needs of the application, security considerations, and the availability of ports on the system. It’s always a good idea to check the documentation for each application for specific information about port configurations.
Conclusion
Agent apps can achieve multiple purposes not just for monitoring. Several services in Linux act as agent apps but their applications would be different. In the market, there are several agent app solutions that you can deploy, or just get in touch with your Server provider to ask them the same. This concludes All about Agent Applications for Monitoring Servers. What Agent Application do you have on your Server, and what do you like the most about it? do let us know in the comments section below. If you need any help or have any suggestions to make, then do reach us via the contact page here. Happy National Save The Eagles Day!
