Status Pages

Status pages provide a public-facing view of your service health, allowing you to communicate availability and incidents transparently to your users, customers, and stakeholders. 9n9s makes it easy to create beautiful, customizable status pages that automatically reflect the health of your monitored services.

Overview

Status pages serve multiple critical functions:

Customer Communication:

Proactive Transparency: Show service status before customers notice issues
Incident Communication: Provide real-time updates during outages
Historical Context: Display past incidents and resolution times
Maintenance Notices: Communicate planned maintenance windows

Business Benefits:

Reduced Support Load: Customers can self-serve status information
Trust Building: Transparency builds customer confidence
SLA Reporting: Demonstrate uptime performance to stakeholders
Brand Consistency: Customizable design matches your brand

Technical Integration:

Automated Updates: Status reflects monitor health automatically
Real-time Data: Live updates without manual intervention
Multi-Service Views: Group related services logically
API Access: Programmatic access to status data

Creating Status Pages

Basic Setup

Via Web Interface:

Navigate to Organization Settings > Status Pages
Click “Create Status Page”
Configure basic settings:
- Page Name: Internal name for management
- Public Title: Displayed to visitors
- Description: Brief description of your services
- Subdomain: Choose your status.9n9s.com/[subdomain] URL
Select monitors to include
Customize appearance and branding
Publish the page

Via CLI:

# Create a basic status page
9n9s-cli status-page create \
  --name "ACME Service Status" \
  --subdomain "acme-status" \
  --description "Real-time status of ACME services" \
  --monitors "mon_api,mon_website,mon_database"

# Create with custom configuration
9n9s-cli status-page create \
  --name "Production Services" \
  --subdomain "prod-status" \
  --config '{
    "theme": "modern",
    "custom_domain": "status.acme.com",
    "incident_history_days": 90,
    "show_uptime_percentages": true
  }'

Via API:

curl -X POST https://api.9n9s.com/v1/status-pages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "ACME Service Status",
    "subdomain": "acme-status",
    "title": "ACME Services",
    "description": "Real-time status of ACME services",
    "monitors": [
      {"id": "mon_api", "display_name": "API Service"},
      {"id": "mon_website", "display_name": "Main Website"},
      {"id": "mon_database", "display_name": "Database"}
    ],
    "settings": {
      "theme": "modern",
      "show_incident_history": true,
      "uptime_calculation_days": 30
    }
  }'

Monitor Selection and Grouping

Service Groups: Organize monitors into logical service groups for better user experience:

# Status page configuration
service_groups:
    - name: "Core Services"
      monitors:
          - id: "mon_api"
            display_name: "API Gateway"
            description: "Primary API endpoints"
          - id: "mon_auth"
            display_name: "Authentication"
            description: "User login and authentication"

    - name: "Website & Frontend"
      monitors:
          - id: "mon_website"
            display_name: "Main Website"
          - id: "mon_cdn"
            display_name: "CDN & Assets"

    - name: "Infrastructure"
      monitors:
          - id: "mon_database"
            display_name: "Primary Database"
          - id: "mon_cache"
            display_name: "Cache Layer"

Monitor Filtering: Choose which monitors to display based on various criteria:

# Include monitors by tags
9n9s-cli status-page update status_123 \
  --include-tags "public:true,criticality:high"

# Include specific projects
9n9s-cli status-page update status_123 \
  --include-projects "proj_production,proj_core"

# Exclude maintenance monitors
9n9s-cli status-page update status_123 \
  --exclude-tags "maintenance:true"

Customization and Branding

Visual Customization

Theme Options:

Modern: Clean, minimal design with subtle shadows
Classic: Traditional status page layout
Dark: Dark theme for modern brands
Custom: Upload your own CSS for complete control

Branding Elements:

branding:
    logo:
        url: "https://example.com/logo.png"
        width: 200
        height: 50
    colors:
        primary: "#007bff"
        success: "#28a745"
        warning: "#ffc107"
        danger: "#dc3545"
        background: "#ffffff"
        text: "#333333"
    fonts:
        family: "Inter, sans-serif"
        headings: "Inter, sans-serif"

Custom CSS:

/* Custom styling for status page */
.status-page-header {
    background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea 0%, #764ba2 100%);
    color: white;
    padding: 2rem;
}

.service-group {
    border-radius: 8px;
    box-shadow: 0 2px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1);
    margin-bottom: 1.5rem;
}

.monitor-status.operational {
    background-color: #d4edda;
    border-color: #c3e6cb;
}

Custom Domains

Configure your own domain for professional status page URLs:

DNS Configuration:

# Add CNAME record to your DNS
status.example.com CNAME status.9n9s.com

SSL Certificate: 9n9s automatically provisions and manages SSL certificates for custom domains using Let’s Encrypt.

Via CLI:

# Configure custom domain
9n9s-cli status-page update status_123 \
  --custom-domain "status.example.com"

# Verify domain configuration
9n9s-cli status-page verify-domain status_123

Status Page Features

Real-time Status Updates

Status pages automatically update based on monitor state changes:

Status Indicators:

🟢 Operational: All systems functioning normally
🟡 Degraded Performance: Some issues but service available
🟠 Partial Outage: Some services affected
🔴 Major Outage: Significant service disruption
🔵 Maintenance: Planned maintenance in progress

Automatic Transitions:

Monitor Down → Service shows "Partial/Major Outage"
Monitor Degraded → Service shows "Degraded Performance"
Monitor Up → Service shows "Operational"
Maintenance Mode → Service shows "Maintenance"

Incident Management

Incident Creation: Incidents can be created automatically when monitors fail or manually for broader issues:

# Create manual incident
9n9s-cli incident create \
  --title "Database Performance Issues" \
  --description "Investigating elevated response times" \
  --status "investigating" \
  --affected-services "mon_api,mon_database"

# Update incident
9n9s-cli incident update inc_123 \
  --status "identified" \
  --message "Root cause identified as disk I/O bottleneck"

Incident Status Flow:

Investigating: Team is looking into the issue
Identified: Root cause has been determined
Monitoring: Fix applied, monitoring for stability
Resolved: Issue completely resolved

Incident Updates:

{
    "incident_id": "inc_123",
    "timestamp": "2024-01-15T14:30:00Z",
    "status": "monitoring",
    "message": "Database performance has been restored. We are monitoring the situation to ensure stability.",
    "author": "ops-team"
}

Uptime Metrics

Uptime Calculation:

uptime_metrics:
    calculation_period: 30 # days
    calculation_method: "percentage" # percentage or availability
    exclude_maintenance: true
    minimum_data_points: 1000

Display Options:

Current Status: Real-time operational state
Uptime Percentage: 99.95% uptime over last 30 days
Response Times: Average response times for uptime monitors
Historical Charts: Visual representation of uptime over time

SLA Reporting:

# Generate SLA report
9n9s-cli status-page report status_123 \
  --period "last-quarter" \
  --format "pdf" \
  --include-details \
  --output "q4-sla-report.pdf"

Advanced Features

Maintenance Windows

Schedule and communicate planned maintenance:

# Schedule maintenance window
9n9s-cli maintenance create \
  --title "Database Upgrade" \
  --description "Upgrading database cluster to v14" \
  --start "2024-02-15T02:00:00Z" \
  --end "2024-02-15T06:00:00Z" \
  --affected-services "mon_database,mon_api"

# Notify subscribers
9n9s-cli maintenance notify maint_456 \
  --advance-notice "24h" \
  --reminder "1h"

Maintenance Communication:

Advance Notice: Email/SMS notifications to subscribers
Status Page Updates: Visible maintenance banner
Automatic Status: Services show as “Under Maintenance”
Progress Updates: Real-time updates during maintenance

Subscriber Management

Allow users to subscribe to status updates:

Subscription Options:

Email Notifications: Incident updates and maintenance notices
SMS Alerts: Critical incidents only (premium feature)
Webhooks: Programmatic notifications for other systems
RSS/Atom Feeds: Machine-readable status updates

Privacy Controls:

subscriber_settings:
    require_confirmation: true
    allow_unsubscribe: true
    retention_period: 365 # days
    privacy_policy_url: "https://example.com/privacy"

API Integration

Status pages provide API access for external integrations:

Public API Endpoints:

# Get current status
curl https://status.9n9s.com/api/acme-status/summary

# Get detailed component status
curl https://status.9n9s.com/api/acme-status/components

# Get incident history
curl https://status.9n9s.com/api/acme-status/incidents

# Subscribe to updates
curl -X POST https://status.9n9s.com/api/acme-status/subscribers \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "components": ["api", "website"]}'

Response Format:

{
    "status": {
        "indicator": "operational",
        "description": "All Systems Operational"
    },
    "components": [
        {
            "id": "api",
            "name": "API Service",
            "status": "operational",
            "uptime": "99.98%"
        }
    ],
    "incidents": [],
    "scheduled_maintenances": []
}

Multi-Environment Setup

Environment-Specific Pages

Create separate status pages for different environments:

# Production status page
9n9s-cli status-page create \
  --name "Production Status" \
  --subdomain "status" \
  --monitors "$(9n9s-cli monitors list --tags environment:production --output ids)"

# Staging status page
9n9s-cli status-page create \
  --name "Staging Status" \
  --subdomain "staging-status" \
  --monitors "$(9n9s-cli monitors list --tags environment:staging --output ids)" \
  --public false  # Internal only

Cascading Status

Configure dependency relationships between services:

service_dependencies:
    - service: "web-application"
      depends_on: ["api-service", "database"]
      dependency_type: "hard" # hard or soft

    - service: "mobile-app"
      depends_on: ["api-service"]
      dependency_type: "soft"

Best Practices

Status Page Design

Keep It Simple:

Use clear, non-technical language for service names
Group related services logically
Limit the number of services displayed
Use consistent naming conventions

Transparency Guidelines:

Be honest about service health
Provide meaningful incident updates
Set realistic uptime targets
Include estimated resolution times when possible

Communication Strategy

Incident Communication:

Acknowledge Quickly: Confirm you’re aware of the issue
Regular Updates: Provide updates every 30-60 minutes
Technical Details: Include relevant technical information
Resolution Confirmation: Confirm when issues are fully resolved
Post-Mortem: Share lessons learned for significant incidents

Maintenance Communication:

Advance Notice: Notify at least 24 hours in advance
Multiple Channels: Use email, status page, and in-app notifications
Clear Timeline: Provide start time, duration, and expected impact
Alternatives: Suggest workarounds if available

Performance Optimization

Page Load Speed:

Use CDN for global distribution
Optimize images and assets
Minimize external dependencies
Enable browser caching

Mobile Optimization:

Responsive design for all devices
Touch-friendly interface elements
Readable fonts and appropriate sizing
Fast loading on mobile networks

Analytics and Insights

Page Analytics

Track status page usage and effectiveness:

# View status page analytics
9n9s-cli status-page analytics status_123 \
  --period "last-30-days" \
  --metrics "pageviews,unique-visitors,incident-views"

Key Metrics:

Page Views: Total visits to status page
Unique Visitors: Individual users checking status
Incident Engagement: Views during incident periods
Subscriber Growth: Status update subscription trends
Geographic Distribution: Where users are checking from

User Behavior Insights

Peak Traffic Patterns:

Identify when users check status most frequently
Correlate traffic spikes with actual incidents
Understand geographic usage patterns
Plan communication timing based on user behavior

Incident Impact Analysis:

Measure customer awareness of incidents
Track communication effectiveness
Identify services users care about most
Optimize incident response based on user engagement

Integration Examples

Internal Dashboards

Embed status page data in internal dashboards:

<!-- Embed status widget -->
<iframe src="https://status.example.com/embed/compact" width="400" height="200" frameborder="0"> </iframe>

<!-- Or use JavaScript API -->
<script>
    fetch("https://status.9n9s.com/api/acme-status/summary")
        .then((response) => response.json())
        .then((data) => {
            document.getElementById("status").textContent = data.status.description;
            document.getElementById("indicator").className = data.status.indicator;
        });
</script>

Chatbot Integration

Add status information to support chatbots:

# Slack bot example
@app.command("/status")
def status_command(ack, command, client):
    ack()

    # Fetch current status
    response = requests.get('https://status.9n9s.com/api/acme-status/summary')
    status_data = response.json()

    message = f"Current Status: {status_data['status']['description']}\n"

    for component in status_data['components']:
        status_emoji = "🟢" if component['status'] == 'operational' else "🔴"
        message += f"{status_emoji} {component['name']}: {component['status']}\n"

    client.chat_postMessage(
        channel=command['channel_id'],
        text=message
    )

Status pages are a crucial component of transparent service communication. By implementing comprehensive status pages with 9n9s, you can build customer trust, reduce support burden, and demonstrate your commitment to service reliability.