> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.nexthink.com/platform/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.nexthink.com/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/service-classic.md).

# Service (classic)

A *service* represents an IT service in your organization, such as the mail service or the directory service. Nexthink lets you measure the quality of your IT services as it is perceived by the end-users.

You are however not limited to monitor well-known IT services like mail. Rather, with Nexthink you can define the services that you want to monitor by specifying the resources that they need to operate. These resources characterize and identify each service. In this way, you can monitor any service that matches your own definitions. Because you see the connectivity of end-users, how they actually use the service and who are impacted when the service is malfunctioning, the distinctive user-centered approach of Nexthink provides an advantage over other server-centered solutions.

Services in Nexthink are divided into *connection-based services* and *web-based services*:

Connection-based services

Monitor connections at the transport level (TCP). Connection-based services are simply known as services.

Web-based services

Monitor web requests (HTTP/TLS) and responses (HTTP) at the application level, letting you drill down to their underlying connections as well.

Note that the monitoring of web-based services is only available for Windows devices.

### Connection-based services <a href="#service-classic-connection-basedservices" id="service-classic-connection-basedservices"></a>

Any IT service that requires TCP networking for its operation is suitable to be modelled as a service in Nexthink. With Nexthink services, you can supervise the state of your deployed IT services at a glance. If you wish to examine the data in-depth, you can drill down through a service and get detailed information about:

* Network traffic associated with the Service.
* Load supported by each server.
* Connectivity of client computers to the Service.
* Crashes of applications related to the Service.
* Users impacted in case of Service failure.
* Performance of the Service in general.

An IT service can be characterized by the resources that are required to access it: the client applications that may be needed to access the service, the network ports that may be reserved to connect to the service or the servers in an organization that may be dedicated to providing the service. In Nexthink, you define a Service precisely by combining one or more of these resources:

* Device
* Executable
* TCP Port
* Destination

Nexthink associates every connection or connection attempt that matches the definition of a Service to it.

### Web-based services <a href="#service-classic-web-basedservices" id="service-classic-web-basedservices"></a>

In addition to devices, executables, ports and destinations, web-based services are also characterized by domains.

Web-based services detect request errors at the application (HTTP) level.

***

RELATED TASKS

* [Analyzing service quality](/platform/user-guide/using-finder-classic/monitoring-it-services-classic/analyzing-service-quality-classic.md)
* [Creating a service](/platform/user-guide/using-finder-classic/monitoring-it-services-classic/creating-a-service-with-finder-classic.md)

RELATED REFERENCE

* [Service errors and warnings](/platform/references/references-classic/search-and-information-display-classic/service-errors-and-warnings-classic.md)

RELATED CONCEPTS

* [Device](/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/device-classic.md)
* [Executable](/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/executable-classic.md)
* [Port](/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/port-classic.md)
* [Destination](/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/destination-classic.md)
* [Connection](/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/connection-classic.md)
* [Domain](/platform/references/references-classic/glossary-classic/connection-classic.md)


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