Ins And Outs of Monitoring Network Performance
Over the last few years due to Covid 19, there has been a sudden change in the way businesses operate and safeguard their network services. Companies nowadays had to abruptly deal with a complex modern network still supporting remotely working employees.
A constantly running network is the backbone of any business, and thus it is important to have constant monitoring of that network to ensure reliability, maximum performance, and robust security.
Let’s start with some basics about network infrastructure and then move on to the business benefits of monitoring network performance.
What is Network Infrastructure?
Network infrastructure is where you will find out all the software and hardware resources of your entire network. It also includes devices such as routers, Wi-Fi, switches, servers, firewalls, etc. which requires careful configuration and constant maintenance.
Let’s understand your network appropriately following some of the below-given points –
- You can connect the network to the internet using routers
- Switches are there to connect the devices to the private network such as pcs, printers, and other devices and allow them to communicate with each other.
- Wi-Fi access point connects your laptops, tablets, and mobile devices to the entire network
- Firewalls are there to protect your network by regulating incoming and outgoing network traffic to networks that are not trustworthy.
- Servers are the place where you can host applications, databases and allow you to deliver your services through a network.
The best way to make sure that all components are in sync and operating smoothly is through effective network monitoring.
What is Network Monitoring?
The process of continuously analyzing a network to identify and settle any performance issues is called network monitoring. It involves collecting network data to generate the value for the services offered by the network.
Constant network monitoring and assessment of the network includes monitoring of all the software and hardware devices including Wi-fi, routers, firewalls, switches, and servers.
Network monitoring helps companies identify the exact location of the network problem or estimate whether there will be a problem with the network.
Continuous network monitoring can also help companies find out potential threats before they occur.
It means that companies will be able to resolve problems proactively before any network slowdown impacts business operations and the end-users.
Why Is Monitoring Network Performance Important?
Network failure can cause business disruptions and huge losses and sometimes companies face a decline in employee productivity.
In such a scenario, it is important to have efficient network performance monitoring, to resolve any issues before they create a mess all around the organization.
Using appropriate network monitoring solutions is important to reduce downtime of the network and help companies in improving overall IT operations.
Not only this, with monitoring solutions companies can get detailed insights from the data and use them for making accurate predictions for the future performance of the network.
Business Benefits of Monitoring Network Performance
As IT infrastructure is becoming more complex, the demand for improved availability and enhanced performance continues to grow.
This requirement increases the need for network monitoring software for better accessibility and enhanced performance.
Implementation of network monitoring software is one of the most important decisions that business owners should have for their modern data centers.
Network monitoring is essential to keep track of all devices, constant traffic, and servers in real-time. It notifies network operators when performance begins to fade away.
This quick transition of information facilitates network admins in quickly identifying the areas of concern and mitigating risks linked with unexpected events.
Though network monitoring software provides numerous benefits for your business, here are some of the benefits that you can derive from the network monitoring tools.
1. Improved Visibility of Network
The common challenge most network administrators face today is – it is getting hard for them to keep track of each element that is important for their business services.
With the advancement in technology and increasing connected devices, IT networks are equally growing, and complexity keeps increasing.
No matter what kind of network you are dealing with, whether they are software-defined networks or cloud-based network assets, you need to ensure smooth network performance.
An efficient network monitoring software provides improved visibility of the network that eventually helps network operators keep tracking the moving data across the devices and fix the issues faster.
2. Instinctive Insights for Infrastructure Planning
Network monitoring software provides historic reports with accurate predictions of how the infrastructure will perform shortly.
Analysis of historical data can help network operators in finding out their current system landscape to meet business goals or verify if they need to invest in new technology.
For example, if network administration wants to upgrade the current infrastructure but can’t prove it. With instinctive reports and insights, they will have evidence that how the infrastructure has performed over the past years along with reliable predictions.
3. Identify Unresolved Outages
As a network operator, you just can’t wait until your customers start facing performance issues. You must take a proactive approach to handle any situation and stay ahead of outages.
The most common function of a network monitoring software is to indicate whether a device (i.e., router, switch, server) is working appropriately or not.
A predictive attitude of network monitoring displays network performance metrics in an easy-to-understand format, helping you identify unresolved outages that might affect the user experience.
4. Increased Productivity
Network monitoring software enables network operation teams to become more productive by saving them from performing mundane tasks they used to spend while managing mountains of data and helping them decrease overall operating costs.
By reducing the manual intervention in troubleshooting monotonous issues, network monitoring tools allow them to focus on more complex tasks, so they can offer immediate actions.
If businesses want a reduction in downtime for their business that means they need to increase productivity and efficiency with the help of a network monitoring platform.
5. Boost Network Performance
User requirements keep changing constantly changing, and it is getting difficult for network operations teams to predict how the users will consume their network resources in near future.
As the usage of the network is increasing, the networking team needs to plan for additional infrastructure to boost the network performance.
Network monitoring software helps operation staff in identifying how and when their users are consuming valuable network resources.
With such data in hand, they will easily predict future infrastructure upgrade needs, benchmark the current network performance, and base on that they will be able to identify network elements to boost the network performance.
Key Take Away
If you want your IT infrastructure to run smoothly and efficiently you must know the ins and out about how you can make the best out of it by monitoring each of the elements involved in your network.
Hope the above-shared benefits will help you nurture the details you are looking for and you can keep your IT environment healthy.
See also: Computer Networking for beginners | Let Start Now
Let us know what you think about Network Monitoring and its benefits to business in the comment section below.
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ABOUT AUTHOR
He is Raj Dodiya, and He is a content writer at Motadata, an IT Analytics Software Company. The latest technologies have always fascinated him, and therefore his interest in AI and ML was apparent.
