Server monitoring in Saudi Arabia: Windows, Linux and VMware servers with Datadog

In many Saudi organisations the core systems still run on servers the organisation owns: ERP and finance on Windows Server, business applications on Linux, a VMware cluster underneath both, and web front ends on IIS. When users cannot reach a system, the cause is often a full disk, a stopped service, a dead process or a host with no memory left.

RelatedDatadog infrastructure monitoring pageDatadog network monitoring page

On Windows, many incidents show up first as a stopped service. The Windows Service check reports each service you name as OK when it is running, CRITICAL when it is stopped and WARNING for any other state. Services are selected by service name, not display name, and matched as regular expressions, so one line can cover a family of services. From Agent 7.41 you can also select by startup type.

Beyond system metrics, two features matter most on Linux servers:

• The Process check collects CPU, memory, I/O and thread counts for the processes you name, matched by exact name or by pattern. A process monitor alerts when the number of running instances falls outside the range you set, which catches a daemon that has died quietly.
• Live Processes lists every process running across your servers, normally at 10-second resolution and at 2 seconds while you watch the page. It is switched on in the Agent's configuration.

The same Agent runs the integrations for software on the server. Databases have their own product, covered on our Datadog database monitoring page.

RelatedDatadog database monitoring page

The vSphere check is configured once per vCenter and covers the environment that vCenter manages: clusters, hosts, datastores, datacenters and virtual machines, plus the events vCenter records. It runs in a Datadog Agent on a separate host, so nothing is installed on the vCenter appliance, and it signs in with a read-only vCenter user that your VMware team creates.

This gives you the hypervisor's view: which host is short of memory, which datastore is filling, which virtual machine is using the CPU. It does not see inside the guest, so for the services and processes of an important virtual machine, install the Agent in it as well.

Three questions come up in most Saudi server monitoring projects; settle them before the first Agent is installed.

• The network path. Each Agent sends its data to Datadog over HTTPS. Servers in a closed zone often have no route to the internet, so the path, for example through a proxy, is agreed with your security team.
• Where the data goes. Datadog is SaaS, and as of November 2026 its documented sites are in the US, Germany, Japan, Australia and the UK, none in the Middle East. Server metrics rarely hold personal data, but event logs and IIS logs can carry user names and addresses, so filter them on the server. Our Datadog data residency guide sets out the options.
• Regulation. The National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) Essential Cybersecurity Controls include logging and monitoring of systems. Our NCA ECC overview explains them in general terms; the authority's own text is the reference.

Interkey's engineers work from Riyadh, in Arabic and English, within the change windows and approval steps of your data centre.

RelatedDatadog data residency guide