What systems or programs have you used for monitoring application and server status, and how did you configure them?

For monitoring the health of applications and servers, I used the following systems:

• Prometheus + Grafana: Prometheus collects metrics from applications and servers, and Grafana visualizes them on dashboards. The configuration includes setting up exporters (e.g., node_exporter for servers), alert rules, and creating dashboards.

• Zabbix: a monitoring system with agents on servers. I configured monitoring templates, triggers, and notifications.

• ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana): for collecting, storing, and analyzing application logs. I configured log parsers and dashboards for visualization.

• New Relic / Datadog: SaaS solutions for monitoring application and infrastructure performance. I set up integrations and alerts.

Example of configuring Prometheus for a Python application:

1. Add the prometheus_client library to the application.
2. Export metrics via an HTTP endpoint.
3. Configure Prometheus to scrape metrics from this endpoint.

from prometheus_client import start_http_server, Summary
import random
import time

REQUEST_TIME = Summary('request_processing_seconds', 'Time spent processing request')

@REQUEST_TIME.time()
def process_request():
    time.sleep(random.random())

if __name__ == '__main__':
    start_http_server(8000)
    while True:
        process_request()