“Before Uptrends, we didn’t have insights into our real uptime, but now we do.”

Ortec Finance provides SaaS (Software as a Service) services for its quantitative solutions for increasing efficiency, reducing costs, maximizing profits, and limiting risks as much as possible for their global customer base. The Ortec Finance solutions use desktop or web-based applications that their customers rely on every day. We spoke with Erwin de Winter, Head of Operations, to find out more about Ortec Finance’s operation and how they use Uptrends to maintain their system’s uptime and ensure its functionality.

What is uptime without function?

Erwin and his team use a lot of uptime monitors to maintain their high SLA (Service Level Agreement) requirements, but they also use Uptrends' Web Application Monitoring to ensure that their entire infrastructure is sound and their service isn’t just available but functioning.

“Uptime monitoring is no guarantee that the application is running completely, so we use transaction monitors to test logins and query databases.”

The Ortec Finance’s Operations team uses Uptrends’ Transaction Recorder to upload their transaction scripts to their Uptrends account. Although Ortec can modify and maintain their scripts themselves, they are pleased to have Uptrends' dedicated team of scriptwriters validate and test their scripts.

“Uptime monitoring is no guarantee that the application is running completely, so we use transaction monitors to test logins and query databases. The transaction scripts navigate to the login page, log into a test account, perform different user interactions, and report the transactions performance and any errors to Uptrends. The Uptrends service then provides performance results in easy to read reports and sends alerts if anything goes wrong.”

Real SLA insights with Uptrends

Maintaining a 100 percent uptime is tough, and without uptime monitoring, knowing your service’s availability is difficult.

“Uptrends' maintenance windows and SLA Monitoring make SLA tracking easier. SLA Monitoring keeps track of our service’s uptime while taking planned maintenance into account. Before Uptrends, we didn’t have insights into our real uptime, but now we do.”

“Before Uptrends, we didn’t have insights into our real uptime, but now we do.”

Uptrends detailed uptime reporting makes proving an SLA easier, and Uptrends' Public Status Pages allow you to provide your users with uptime information directly for improved transparency.

Advanced availability monitoring keeps systems online

A web application depends on many parts coming together to form the whole.

“Customers depend on our solutions for their own solutions or portals.”

Ortec Finance’s Operations team doesn’t just check for availability on a few key pages; they closely watch all aspects of their service using Uptrends' Advanced Availability Monitoring.

• DNS Monitoring: Ortec keeps a close eye on their DNS. In the case of DNS poisoning or a corrupted DNS entry, end users can’t get to the site, so a DNS monitor on their primary domain protects their users and makes sure the path to their service remains clear.
• External Server Monitoring: Without servers, nothing works. Ortec uses external server monitors to ensure that their application, database, and calculation servers are up and running at all times.
• SFTP Monitoring: Ortec uses SFTP monitors to help ensure that file access via their FTP servers remains active.
• Email Monitoring: Communications are important, so Ortec checks the health of their email servers using Uptrends' SMTP Monitoring (You can also test POP3 and IMAP servers).

“Hosted solutions are getting more and more important for our customers. Customers depend on our solutions for their own solutions or portals. It is very critical or important that our systems are up and running all the time. In that respect, a good monitoring service is also critical.”

Verify API responses with API Monitoring

Your APIs may have great uptime, but is testing for uptime enough? Ortec tests their APIs with HTTP uptime monitors to track their SLAs, but they also use API Monitoring to test their API’s responses.

“We use a lot of API monitors, but we also test a lot of applications without the login. Sometimes we want to test the login processes, but sometimes we just want to test the static pages. In the latter case, we use either the uptime monitors or API calls.”