A good operations monitoring system helps businesses effectively monitor and manage their information systems, ensuring business continuity and data security.
However, with the diverse choices in the market, from imported products, free software, self-developed software by information centers, to locally developed software in Taiwan, businesses need to carefully evaluate and choose the solution that best suits their needs.

Key Considerations for Choosing an Effective IT Operations Monitoring System

➣ Assist system personnel in using automated detection tools to integrate and classify data from various information devices, and establish an alert system to provide the fastest anomaly notifications and debugging (Debug) tracking analysis for information managers.

➣ Choose a suitable IT operations monitoring system that will not cause major problems in overall system operations due to personnel changes. A good IT operations monitoring system not only checks and maintains equipment according to predetermined information equipment items but also provides anomaly event notifications, integrates all system-related information, and establishes standard detection mechanisms to reduce the impact of personnel changes.

➣ In addition to collecting status data from various information devices or system/event logs (Syslog), an IT operations monitoring system must have methods for system simulation testing, depth and analysis capabilities, and must especially record significant system behaviors (e.g., rebooting).

Choosing the right operations monitoring system software is crucial for ensuring the stable operation and efficient management of a company's information systems. The sources of operations monitoring software are diverse: Currently, the sources of monitoring system software in the market include:

➣ Imported products
➣ Free software
➣ Self-developed software by information centers
➣ Locally developed software in Taiwan

Imported Products
Understanding a complete operations monitoring system software requires a long time to research and practice, as well as simulate various statuses and equipment brands.
➣ Most agencies cannot deeply understand their products' applications; if they can understand more than 10%, it is considered good.
➣ The reasons include:
➣ The high cost of technical personnel investment and the inability to transfer and accumulate knowledge due to personnel changes
➣ The inability to fully disclose the design theories and spirit from abroad
➣ Inability to understand the status codes and data source calculation principles of proprietary applications
➣ Technical personnel lack understanding of professional fields in information equipment
➣ Too specialized for specific equipment or systems, making it difficult for general system personnel to learn
➣ Learning time is too long for the user unit, and it may take additional time to write programs (e.g., alert value judgment)

Free Software (e.g., Open NMS, Cacti, MRTG)
System personnel must learn, download, install, and configure on their own based on the operating platform. User interfaces are not user-friendly, and the software often provides only single and simple monitoring items, unable to integrate related information.
Often, the system becomes unusable due to updates to the operating platform version, and usage is frequently terminated due to personnel changes.

Self-developed Software by Information Centers
Software developed by information centers typically targets specific applications (e.g., Linux) and integrates it with free software. Functions are simple and only applicable to specific systems and projects.

Locally Developed Software in Taiwan
Due to the lack of opportunities for local software companies in Taiwan to use large-scale server operating systems (e.g., IBM AIX, HP-UX, SUN Solaris, SCO UNIX), most only use x86 systems such as Windows series, Linux series, FreeBSD. Without long-term research and practical operation, developing software is difficult.

Software developed by local Taiwanese companies is very few, and most of them are modified free software with added user interfaces, without understanding the core operations of the system. This makes system expansion almost impossible.

Project-specific developed applications
For example: Environmental Monitoring System
The Environmental Monitoring System belongs to industrial applications, mainly involving "Digital Signals (DI/DO)" and "Analog Signals (AI/AO)" for input and output, which is very different from the commonly used equipment in information centers, such as servers, operating systems, switches, storage systems (Storage). Therefore, the Environmental Monitoring System operates independently and cannot integrate or exchange related information with the data center's information equipment, nor does it have self-monitoring capabilities.

Only a few professional development companies have the ability to develop and integrate various types of server operating systems and information equipment such as switches.

Summary:

Using foreign products often does not fully consider the specific operating environment and needs of Taiwanese enterprises.
These foreign products may come with high costs and long learning curves, and they have many limitations in localization support and customization needs,
which may not be the best choice for Taiwanese enterprises that need to adapt quickly to changes and solve various problems.

Free software and self-developed software by information centers have advantages in cost control,
but they often struggle to meet the growing needs of enterprises in terms of functionality, system stability, and technical support.
Especially when facing personnel changes, the continuity and reliability of these solutions are challenging.


In contrast, If there is a set of locally developed software in Taiwan, considering the "an engineer often needs to handle multiple technical issues" environment in Taiwan,
these locally developed solutions are designed to be more comprehensive, not only providing rich monitoring functions but also emphasizing system integration and scalability to adapt to the ever-changing operating environment.
Additionally, locally developed software has significant advantages in learning curves and localization support, providing a flexible and reliable operations management solution for Taiwanese information units.