We first mentioned the upcoming WEDOS EWS project in November last year. It is being developed by a separate team behind our new wedos.as and wedos.online partnership programme. Today we would like to share some news with you.
EWS changes to EWaM
Everything is moving forward quickly and we are really excited about the results. Some monitoring has already been incorporated into wedos.online and we are starting to test it for our services. Well, just recently they had one “successful notch” where they predicted a fatal mistake that was about to happen. The script that was supposed to do something didn’t do it.
If it were some important part of the system, it would be a shame and a financial loss. If we didn’t have the EWS…
With results like these, management is naturally pushing to get the EWS ready for deployment as soon as possible, so the sales and marketing department has already been tasked to start getting everything ready for launch.
That includes coming up with a name. The original EWS (Early Warning System) was a provisional name for the project, so we knew what we were talking about internally. For the public, the name of the service needs to be concise and clear, which EWS does not quite meet.
Technically, it will not be one giant system, but a series of optional preset tests (occasional one-off checks) and monitoring (regular checks). The original EWS was designed to keep track of everything related to the domain, but there is a lot going on outside the domain and we want to give users the opportunity to take advantage of that.
That is why we have decided on the new name EWM/EWaM(Early Warning and Monitoring), which we are already working with. However, it could also be something else. We’ve had a few times with naming a service that we’ve come up with something revolutionary at the last minute.
The focus of the project remains almost the same, we just offer more
The original concept was purely about domain monitoring and everything it can affect. We’ve expanded that a bit. In addition, after the great success of our status .wedos.hosting page, when we started to receive inquiries whether we want to offer a similar status page, we decided to include it under EWM.
Customers with an active EWM will be able to create their own status page that will inform users about the status of the service and what to do if there is a problem. The status page is not meant as an output for availability monitoring, but an information page where the visitor can see in real time if everything is working properly. The status page will allow you to edit text and information, so you can put a contact, alternate link, etc. in case of longer problems.
For this purpose, we also purchased a premium domain status.online from Radix. We wanted something representative and neutral.
For higher paid plans, the plan is to place the status page on its own subdomain. However, this is not a priority at the moment.
What EWM can already do
Currently the system can control the following
Domain availability
Whether the webserver to which the domain points is responding correctly. The test is performed over HTTP(S) and the returned status code is evaluated. Monitoring will not only alert you to unavailability, but also to various site, server and redirect errors.
DNS servers
This monitoring checks the availability and speed of DNS servers. You won’t notice DNS server-related errors. If one doesn’t work as it should, the other will take its place and you won’t know anything. Of course, if the second one falls, it’s too late. EWM keeps track of them all.
MX servers
An email delivery outage can have a big impact on a company’s operations. Smaller companies in particular may not realise that they have stopped receiving emails. EWM will recognize problems with MX and alert you so you can take action.
If you put the outputs from the MX server monitoring on your status page, you can also add a warning about what alternative communication method your customers should choose.
SMTP servers
This monitoring checks if the SMTP server is OK and responds. If it doesn’t work, you can’t send emails.
POP3 servers
You download emails from the server via POP3. A POP3 server failure means that you can receive emails, but you cannot download them to your computer.
With our monitoring, you can immediately instruct your employees to switch to web clients until the situation is resolved.
IMAP servers
You work with emails online via IMAP. These are stored on the server. An IMAP outage means that any changes made on the computer are not “written” to the server.
SPF records
SPF records are currently a critical part of setting up a domain for email delivery. This record tells the recipient which email server to trust. It’s mainly to prevent someone from impersonating you. It is also a condition of increased deliverability for large email providers such as Gmail.
The problem is that all it takes is one typo or a change of settings on the server and the vast majority of those to whom you send an email will delete it or mark it as fraudulent.
EWM monitors the validity of SPF records and their changes.
Other monitoring
In addition to the above monitoring that requires activation, it is also automatically checked:
- Domain presence on blacklists
- Presence of IP addresses associated with the domain on blacklists
- Whether Google does not consider the domain to be compromised/unsafe
What’s still missing from EWM before we start testing
The EWM is being worked on hard and monitoring is being prepared and will be linked to our data sources.
ICMP
ICMP is the first choice for all IT people when the network goes down. It is always useful to monitor the availability of various network elements, including servers.
DNSSEC
Due to the popularity of DNSSEC for .cz domains and the necessity to set everything up 100% correctly, otherwise the consequences can be disastrous for the website, EWM pays special attention to DNSSEC.
FTP
Check the repository via FTP. The aim is to create a monitoring system that would be able to verify whether backups are possible or whether they have actually occurred.
SSH/SFTP
Similar to FTP, but using SSH/SFTP.
Domain manipulation check
We want to give you the ability to monitor all WHOIS records. If there is any change, the registry usually sends the information to the e-mail. However, it makes no distinction as to the severity of individual changes. For example, if a domain owner changes, it has a similar template as a domain renewal, yet this is crucial information.
Other plans
It doesn’t stop there. We expect to add more monitoring and testing after the service is launched based on feedback and operational experience.
Connecting to internal systems and off we go
Although in many ways we consider EWM to be a revolutionary service, we are not planning it as a standalone service. It will exist as an additional service to the domains registered with us in three price categories, depending on how often and what it will monitor and test. For more expensive variants, third-party paid services are used, especially access to special databases.
You can activate the service as a regular additional fee for the domain you have registered with us. It’ll be a click away. After payment, you will receive an email with instructions on how to activate and configure each monitoring system. We try to simplify everything as much as possible and download the data ourselves.
We expect that the first test results will come as a surprise to most customers, and it’s quite possible that they will reveal bugs and problems that you don’t even know about and cost you a lot of money.
The Future
The service will of course continue to evolve. It’s a fairly comprehensive solution and we hope to get more tips for testing and monitoring from the feedback. There are also new technologies that customers are now demanding for their websites that need to be configured correctly.
The EWS monitors everything it can reach from the outside. However, we are already considering another service that would monitor your service with us, where we get our logs and statistics. We can already detect website weaknesses, attacks, scripting errors and incompatibilities. We just need to process this data correctly and prepare the output for you. In case of problems, it saves your programmer dozens of hours of work, and it pays off 😉