Show HN: Proby - Task monitoring made simple (probyapp.com)
We were occasionally running into issues where our scheduled tasks would not start when expected. There were many reasons for this (environment changes, lock files not being cleaned up properly, etc). So, we created a simple application to monitor our scheduled tasks, and notify us if they didn't start or finish when expected. Now we're notified immediately (via email or SMS) when a scheduled task isn't kicked off when it is supposed to.
The app also keeps track of the run times for past task executions, which has been useful in tracking down unexpected changes in task run times.
Proby is currently in closed beta, meaning we're letting people in slowly. It is currently running on a VPS with a few other services. We want to see if there is an interest in the app before purchasing better/additional hardware.
Use of the app is currently free. At some point, when it is out of beta, we may begin charging a small fee for the service (although I'd imagine we'd have a free plan of some sort). But, all of that is still up in the air.
What do you think?
18 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 42.9 ms ] threadWe were occasionally running into issues where our scheduled tasks would not start when expected. There were many reasons for this (environment changes, lock files not being cleaned up properly, etc). So, we created a simple application to monitor our scheduled tasks, and notify us if they didn't start or finish when expected. Now we're notified immediately (via email or SMS) when a scheduled task isn't kicked off when it is supposed to.
The app also keeps track of the run times for past task executions, which has been useful in tracking down unexpected changes in task run times.
Proby is currently in closed beta, meaning we're letting people in slowly. It is currently running on a VPS with a few other services. We want to see if there is an interest in the app before purchasing better/additional hardware.
Use of the app is currently free. At some point, when it is out of beta, we may begin charging a small fee for the service (although I'd imagine we'd have a free plan of some sort). But, all of that is still up in the air.
What do you think?
I am confused with the selecting a timezone but all of the times being represented in UTC?
Also the representation of the cron schedule (7 * * * *) which I think could be represented in a more intuitive way. I have been looking at crontabs for years and every time I have to second guess myself.
This seems like a service that I would never want any downtime with, how do you manage that?
Representing the cron schedule in some other format is also feedback we have received before. I just haven't found a way to cleanly and concisely display the schedule in a format other than the cron format.
Regarding the downtime...we don't manage that right now. We're running on a single VPS. The goal of the beta is to determine if there is enough interest (and potential financial support) to deploy Proby to a more robust and fault tolerant setup.
Thanks for the feedback!
But it seems to me that if Doug really meant what he said below, he would have got up, walked down the hallway and given John a real pat on the back ;)
This way provides a real at-a-glance way to see one or more broken tasks.
The idea of sending my cronjobs to someone else to do this creeps me about (perhaps irrationally), but either way, thanks for the reminder I need to do this myself :)