SWITCH recently started offering its clients information on the current availability of selected services. They can check at http://www.switch.ch/monitoring/ whether a service is running normally or experiencing problems. The status is shown using a traffic light system:
- Green: go; full service availability
- Yellow: caution; limited service availability
- Red: stop; service unavailable
If a service is not shown as green, a link to further information is provided.
An additional service box also shows the availability of the various services.
Availability information is currently provided for the following services:
The addition of further services is planned, starting with the Swiss edu-ID.
The availability information is based on end-to-end (E2E) monitoring. This means that the functionality, performance and use of applications is permanently monitored from a user’s perspective. Even if all individual components of an application are proven to be working properly, it is still possible that the application as a whole is not running smoothly due to a problem with the way the components interact with each other. Conversely, individual – mostly redundant – components can sometimes fail without affecting how the service runs. There is thus only one way to find out for sure if an application is running smoothly, and that is to use precise modelling of the interdependencies between components. Where necessary, the behaviour of typical users is additionally simulated, and command response times are measured. SWITCH sometimes employs virtual robots for this purpose.
