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The Importance of Transaction Monitoring

Many Americans now complete shopping online for a variety of different products, regardless if it fulfills a personal need or a professional need. With concerns over hacking and cyber-security on the rise by both the business side as well as consumer side, transaction monitoring is becoming increasingly important.

Transaction Monitoring 101

The purpose of transaction monitoring is to reduce slow online purchasing transactions, as well as ensure they remain secure. It is important that any site that relies on online purchases have the ability to handle many concurrent visitors searching their site, adding items to a shopping cart and completing a secure purchase with minimal lag time. Transaction monitoring should be able to test a site's web applications and security on a regular basis from different geographical locations to ensure site visitors have a positive site experience, regardless of the site visitor's location.

If an issue is detected, alerts should go out to support staff to alert them to the issue picked up by the transaction monitoring system, which will allow them to investigate immediately. This will help reduce potential down-time for an e-commerce site, which would frustrate site visitors and ultimately, loose business and profits.

Transaction Monitoring Data

While it is important to ensure transactions are completed quickly and in a secure fashion, ensuring the ongoing health of a server and website is equally important. This can not happen without having the ability to analyze the data collected by the transaction monitoring. The data collected by the transaction monitoring system will provide insight into the health and security of a server system and corresponding website. This information can then allow information technology professionals to take proactive steps to keep a business' website online and secure instead of having to work in a reactive mode, which is never the better option.

Data and analysis is always an important part of keeping systems online and secure. Transaction monitoring is a central part of making that happen and allowing for those charged with keeping those systems online and healthy.