Service monitoring

Hi,

I'm running my own service in the realserver. What is
the recommended way to monitor the availability of my
service using Piranha ? If I send a poll string to the
same port that my service is listening, that means I
have to incorporate in my server program to respond to
that poll request (i.e, for example, if the request is
"Are you there", reply with a "I'm here" response). 

Is that the usual way as I would then need to
incorporate a 'poll/ack' heartbeat service for each of
my server program ?

Thanks
Chee Chye

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