Enterprise networks grow more and more complicated every day in order to meet the increasing demand for digital business solutions. Most business operations can be carried out with software which normally requires a network to communicate data across a business infrastructure. Businesses need their network to perform quickly and efficiently, and they can use a network monitoring solution to do so. But exactly what is it?
So many companies are unfamiliar with how network monitoring works. Fortunately, we have put together this piece to guide beginners on what network monitoring is, what it accomplishes, and why businesses need it. This article is meant to provide a basic overview and educate companies and IT professionals on why this is important and how they can start using it.
Network Monitoring: What is It?
Network monitoring tools are either hardware or software that continuously observes or keeps your network and the data coming through it under surveillance. Depending on how the system actually monitors a network, it can collect data directly from the network as it passes by or captures data stored by a network node. Afterward, the solution interprets the data and displays it through a dashboard on your device. With a monitoring tool for your network system, you can easily envision your network’s performance from one location.
The monitoring tool will also detect network issues, including signs indicating that a part of your network is going to fail. Then, it will notify your IT team of the problem so they can immediately work on fixing it. In other words, a monitoring solution aids your company in keeping your network in check and makes sure that your network is working just the way it should be.
Why Is It Important?
Why is it important for businesses and enterprises to invest in a network performance monitoring solution? Businesses rely on their network to perform at the level they expect in order to satisfy their client’s demands. Performance issues and network outages may be normal but they’re exasperating to deal with—they can also be very costly to your company. Network solution monitoring allows businesses of all sizes to proactively face performance problems and obtain valuable insights into your network.
But how do give an explanation for adding a network monitoring solution to your business? What kind of benefits will a monitoring system bring? How can your business take advantage of a monitoring solution to improve your system’s performance? We have come up with a list of reasons why network monitoring is necessary for businesses.
Detects and Alerts You of Performance Issues
Majority of network solution monitoring observes a network in real-time. This means it can detect and alert you on performance issues even before your network team discovers it. Reducing the period of time when a problem happens and when your company learns about it is important in effectively troubleshooting network performance issues. In addition, network monitoring informs you of every performance issue on your network, especially the ones that are often undetected by network teams. Even if an issue only slightly affects performance, it could grow into something a lot bigger. For this reason, you’d be better of being aware of any performance problem that is dragging your network down.
Prevents Networking Outages Before They Happen
One of a network administrator’s biggest nightmare is a network outage. Monitoring systems can help companies avoid or prevent an outage from happening. A monitoring tool will probe your network for any suspicious performance behavior that can indicate a potential outage. If a device or a part of your network is falling behind in performance, your monitoring system will detect the problem and notify you of it.
Lessens Performance Downtime
Eventually your company will discover a major network performance issue on its own, but this could take quite a long time to fix. A monitoring system will alert your team of the issues as they happen and thereby reducing the time it takes for your company to detect the problems. Your company can also reduce the mean time to repair or MTTR for any network performance issue. Most monitoring solutions will apply diagnostics to issues it detects so employees will be able to understand the issue before they check it out and investigate it themselves.
Create Network Performance Reports
Monitoring solutions provide visualizations on important performance methods. Dependable monitoring systems can automatically create performance reports that your company can review. These reports normally include both recent and historical data so you and your team can evaluate your network performance over time. Furthermore, some monitoring solutions will let you customize reports to focus on meters that make sense to your business.
Where to Start deciding on a Network Monitoring System
If you’ve decided that a monitoring solution is the right choice for your business, you’ll obviously want to know how and what you ought to do get started with one. There are so many network monitoring tools available on the market, but how do you filter out which one is the best for you? There are plenty of buyer’s guides on monitoring solutions online, and these serve as a resource you can use to compare and contrast different businesses offering this service. They usually include profiles of top monitoring solutions providers, and questions you need to ask providers first before availing a service.
But we believe that the best way to see which monitoring solution works for you is to simply try them out. Most network monitoring providers offer free trials on their software. This will allow you to experience the full scope of their service without paying a single die. These free trials are also a great idea if you want to test out the features and complexities of each monitoring solution. In this way, you’ll be able to gain hands-on experience for each tool you are considering for your business.
Conclusion
The goal of any monitoring solution is to save clients time and money lost due to network downtime. For this reason, it would be wise to choose a provider that has a smart, proactive, and honest approach to IT services that will equip your business so you can effectively approach every challenge you face head-on.