LeanSentry, a lightweight monitoring service with an improved cloud based architecture and several diagnostic features has been updated with support for smart alerts, which automatically notify users via e-mail whenever a new development takes place with regard to the application being monitored. As a developer, you have to inform which servers, urls and errors need to be monitored and LeanSentry will deliver reports through e-mail.
LeanSentry also automatically highlights important errors in both e-mail and dashboard to enable developers to focus only on those errors which requires attention including support for Windows 7/8 , and Windows Server 2008/2012. The latest update also includes a new server dashboard, resource overload diagnostics, classic ASP support and multiple accounts.
In an exclusive interview to InfoQ, Michael Volodarsky, a former Microsoft Program Manager for ASP.NET and IIS and Chief Technology Officer, LeanServer shared his views about the various aspects of LeanSentry.
InfoQ: Can you share with us the main purpose of LeanSentry?
To assist IT/devops running production Windows applications with daily application monitoring and troubleshooting activities. LeanSentry offers our platform expertise, automated to save them tons of time in dealing with the common production problems.
InfoQ: In what way does the usage of LeanSentry helps developers?
By improving their awareness of the application's health in production, and drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to find and troubleshoot problems.
InfoQ: What is the main advantage of the recently introduced smart alerts?
Alerts drive reactive workflow for devops by detecting problems / helping respond to them. Smart alerts solve the problem of too many/too few alerts, by intelligently selecting whats important to the user and not overwhelming them with a deluge of irrelevant alerts.
Last but not least, LeanSentry's alerts provide a comprehensive overview of each problem, and automatically diagnose its root cause whenever possible.
InfoQ: What is the purpose of highlighting important errors in daily e-mail?
Most applications have errors on a consistent basis, and its hard to know which errors demand action. LeanSentry automatically identifies relevant errors, such as new errors, significantly increasing errors, and so on, and proactively recommends errors for the user to review.
InfoQ: Can you share with us how LeanSentry is different from NewRelic?
LeanSentry is an expert performance monitoring and diagnostic service specifically for Windows web applications. It brings a lot of analysis and diagnostic know-how to help users solve problems and improve Microsoft web apps.
New Relic is a general profiler/APM tool that does not provide platform-specific diagnostics. Also, LeanSentry is based on lightweight Windows monitoring protocols, can be completely agentless, and does not use an application-loaded profiler (which a lot of people consider unacceptable in a production environment).
InfoQ: Does the usage of LeanSentry improves performance of applications?
Yes, by pointing out performance problems, and providing proactive guidance on improving performance.
InfoQ: Is it possible to monitor ASP.NET/IIS applications deployed under a shared hosting scenario?
Not at this time. LeanSentry requires administrative access to the server. However, we have multiple hosting clients who deploy LeanSentry.
InfoQ: Is it necessary to purchase separate licenses for each server?
LeanSentry offers an affordable, pay for what you use billing model where it automatically charges per server on the day it was used. No licenses are needed.
InfoQ: Can you disclose the future roadmap?
In Q2 2013, We are focusing on rolling out more diagnostics and expert insights that help users improve their web applications, and drive their reactive workflows for detecting/diagnosing application problems. Post that, we will be looking to add ways for users to build more value on top of our platform - API integration, load testing, automated recovery for problems and so on.