For any organization, the last thing you want to hear is that the network is down. Worse still, when your computer network crashes, it creates a slew of problems for IT teams, and the pressure is on as the clock ticks to reduce the amount of downtime. Every minute that users can't access the network results in frustration, not to mention loss of productivity, and revenue.
This unfortunate scenario can be almost completely avoided with the right network monitoring solutions in place.
Why is network monitoring important?
Network monitoring is no longer considered a nice-to-have for enterprise organizations, or indeed SMBs, particularly now that remote working has become a cornerstone of working culture.
Without network monitoring tools, all of your network devices and other components are at risk of failure which can be time-consuming and difficult to fix after the fact.
Much like on the highways, network traffic can become bottle-necked for various reasons, meaning that both incoming and outgoing traffic slows or stops altogether, causing network failures and headaches for network administrators.
So how do you stop this from happening, or at least reduce the negative impact? Effective network monitoring with the right network performance monitoring tools.
In this guide we'll explain why network monitoring is crucial to the seamless functioning of every organization. We'll cover the types of tools available, the metrics you need to keep track of - and the best practices for doing so.
What exactly is network monitoring?
Every network infrastructure is different when it comes to specifics. But all networks have components such as VMs, routers, servers, network devices, mobile devices, switches and much more. When you include the added complexity of dispersed locations, security threats, and the addition of multiple network 'BYO devices' the repercussions of just one of these components not working creates potentially massive problems.
Network monitoring is the process of tracking and managing all of these components, as well as key performance indicators like CPU utilization and network bandwidth.
A network monitoring tool enables organizations to be more proactive and to reduce downtime by allowing them to respond quickly to issues before they seriously impact the end-user.
In short, an advanced network monitoring system gives organizations visibility across their entire network in real-time to maintain and optimize the availability of each of their network components.
For more information on finding the best monitoring software
Read our comprehensive guide
How does network monitoring work?
Networks enable the transfer of information between computers and applications. Computer systems rely on a series of functions to send and receive data, and in order for this to happen, the data needs to go through an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) to break it down and interpret it. As it goes through the OSI it utilizes different network protocols, from the physical layer to the application layer.
Network monitoring provides visibility into all of these layers as well as the various components that make up a network, ensuring that engineers can troubleshoot network issues at any layer in which they occur.
What is network monitoring software?
A network monitoring system tracks the health of a network across all of its hardware and software layers.
IT engineers use network monitoring software to proactively address and troubleshoot network outages and failures. So rather than responding in a 'break-fix' manner (after the fact), most network monitoring tools can track network health proactively and continuously, along with all connected devices, before network issues occur.
Network monitoring systems provide complete visibility, or network mapping into an organization's networks. This enables not only early detection of network issues, but a clear picture of all network elements to determine exactly why and where problems are occurring, creating invaluable historical data that can be used to prevent future issues.
What is Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)?
SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol, a vital and powerful application layer protocol that enables the sharing of information among various devices on a network, regardless of the diversity of the hardware or software.
Without SNMP, network management tools wouldn't accurately be able to identify devices, monitor network performance, track anomalies and changes, or deliver real-time status updates and network performance problems.
SNMP can collect information on devices, servers, switches, routers, firewalls, load-balancers, CCTV cameras, and wireless devices.
Today, most network devices support SNMP by default, without the network administrator having to do anything other than use an SMNP monitoring tool.
SNMP architecture
SNMP has a relatively simple architecture based on a client-server model.
-
The servers, called managers, collect and process information about devices on the network.
-
The clients, called agents, are any type of device or device component connected to the network. They can include not just computers, but also network hardware like switches, phones, printers, etc.
Types of network monitoring
Network monitoring encompasses five basic categories, including:
-
Network performance monitoring
-
Network availability monitoring
-
Traffic monitoring
-
Network Security monitoring
-
Application Performance monitoring
Network performance monitoring
Network performance monitoring tracks the quality and efficiency of the performance of a network to ensure that it's running at optimal level. This includes analyzing real-time and historical performance data and metrics, such as bandwidth utilization, packet loss, latency and response times. For example:
-
Tracking the speed and reliability of data transfers
-
Analyzing traffic patterns to identify potential bottlenecks
-
Monitoring server response times for web-based applications
Availability Monitoring
Availability monitoring, or fault monitoring, helps to ensure the availability of network resources and infrastructure.
It provides real-time detection of issues ranging from hardware failures such as a malfunctioning router to software issues involving a critical web application or connectivity problems. An example is continually sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) pings to all critical network devices and servers to check whether the resource is available.
Availability monitoring tools usually use alerting mechanisms to notify administrators by email, SMS, or dashboard alarms.
Traffic and Bandwidth Monitoring
We've used the analogy of a highway system to describe an enterprise network. Everything slows down to a trickle during rush hour. In order to avoid this, they need to ensure they have ample bandwidth.
Network traffic monitoring uses network trace tools to analyze data from incoming and outgoing traffic across the network to help identify who is using the network and for what purpose.
It also provides bandwidth monitoring, which measures the amount and speed of data transmission over a network to ensure optimal performance and avoid bottlenecks.
Security Monitoring
Security network monitoring is essential for safeguarding the integrity, availability and confidentiality of an enterprise organization's data and other IT resources. Businesses can face steep costs due to security-related disruptions. Types of security monitoring approaches include:
Network logging tools
Used to collect, store and analyze log data from various network devices to maintain a comprehensive record of all activities.
Network detection software
Continuously monitors a network's traffic to identify potential threats or malicious activities in real time.
Network control software
Helps organizations ensure that only authorized activities are permitted and that potential vulnerabilities are patched.
Network surveillance software
Used to vigilantly oversee network activities, ensuring that all data transmissions and activities adhere to security policies and track any suspicious or unauthorized activities.
Network device monitoring
Used to check for unwanted or unauthorized changes to the configuration of a device. Changes to ACLs or Firewall rules can seriously affect the way a network operates - and can even render a network unusable.
Application performance monitoring
Application performance monitoring (APM), uses software tools and telemetry data to monitor the performance of business-critical applications.
Enterprise organizations need to ensure that they maintain expected service levels, and that customers receive a positive application experience. APM tools are used to deliver real-time data and insights into the performance of applications, allowing, IT teams, DevOps, and site reliability engineers to quickly pinpoint and troubleshoot application issues. Application performance monitoring has many business benefits:
Customer satisfaction
APM tools are used to ensure customer and end-user satisfaction by highlighting common problems in the digital customer journey.
It can determine if changes are beneficial, for example, if a business introduces a new customer service chatbot, APM metrics can measure how many customers had their query solved by using the bot.
Rapid diagnosis
Downtime causes failed customer journeys and financial losses for business operations.
APM can rapidly diagnose and pinpoint the exact location of application performance issues, keeping downtime to a minimum, allowing tech teams to concentrate on developing new applications rather than troubleshooting existing ones.
Reduced operating costs
IT teams use APM tools to determine how much resource, infrastructure, and computing power is actually necessary to keep applications performing optimally, keeping operating costs down.
Effective product development
Application performance monitoring tools are an important part of the process of product development. APM tools can be used in a test or as-live environment to monitor and analyze synthetic traffic, reveal limitations, and identify errors.
Development teams can utilize these valuable actionable insights before an application goes live and fix bugs that would previously only have become evident after a product launch.
The key benefits of a network monitoring system
The benefits of network monitoring are becoming evident as more and more enterprise organizations adopt remote or hybrid work models. It's vital that both your on-premise operations and your off-site network performs optimally, and that your network monitoring tools can identify all network performance issues.
The most important benefits of using network monitoring software include:
Identifying issues at any point throughout the network
A network monitoring solution can quickly locate a problem anywhere in the network. Monitoring your network performance can accurately pinpoint the cause and source of a network problem, where and when it occurred, and who needs to fix it.
Network monitoring systems proactively monitor your entire network to analyze performance data and detect any performance changes that could be problematic to users before they occur.
Providing historical and baseline data
With the availability of baseline data, a network can continually and automatically compare data.
If network monitoring systems pick up degraded performance issues within the network infrastructure, an alert is automatically sent so that IT teams can immediately address the problem.
Historical data gives you a comparison point to determine optimal network performance or identify poor performance. It also enables you to troubleshoot network problems from past events.
Better utilization of IT resources
Without network monitoring tools to oversee performance, a network outage can seriously affect productivity. IT managers face the problems of having to shift their attention from one important project to a crisis issue with little or no warning.
A key benefit of network monitoring systems is that they reduce the manual process of locating and fixing problems for IT teams, and prevent wasting valuable time and resources which can instead be allocated to more critical projects.
What to look for in network monitoring tools
Today's network monitoring tools are advanced solutions with comprehensive monitoring and reporting capabilities designed to help you address key performance metrics.
The most comprehensive monitoring tools should be capable of ensuring your network is functioning correctly and delivering uninterrupted services.
Ideally, the features of these tools should include all or most of the following:
-
Built-in reporting system
-
Bandwidth utilization monitoring
-
Intuitive centralized dashboards
-
Network traffic monitoring
-
Dynamic and intelligent network mapping
-
Automatic alerting
-
User experience monitoring
-
Automatic recovery
-
Remote administration
-
Wireless network performance metrics monitoring
Key network performance metrics
Network monitoring tools and the key metrics you need to monitor will identify performance values that directly affect your organization's network.
The following 5 key network metrics can help you monitor network performance and detect network problems in real-time.
-
Bandwidth usage: Bandwidth is extremely important in terms of efficient network performance. As mentioned earlier, exceeding bandwidth limit slows traffic, and causes network congestion. Network monitoring solutions warn you via instant notifications if you exceed bandwidth threshold.
-
Packet loss: Data packet loss refers to the data packets lost during the journey between two destinations, and can adversely affect user services. TCP, the Transmission Control Protocol, can monitor lost data packets and ensure that they reach their destination.
-
Efficiency: Efficiency, or throughput/time ratio, enables you to measure the data transfer rate of your network connections in different areas. It measures the real amount of data packets sent over the network and detects areas with throughput and re-transmission.
-
Network availability: Network availability ensures the consistency of the service you provide to end-users, enabling you to observe the uptime of your network within a certain period.
-
Connection: This metric allows you to check the connectivity between devices and nodes in your network. You can prevent service interruptions by detecting malfunctioning devices and nodes using the connection metric.
Best practices for effective network monitoring
-
Regularly Update Monitoring Tools: Ensure tools are up-to-date with the latest features and security patches.
-
Customize Alerts and Notifications: Tailor alert settings to avoid alert fatigue and ensure critical issues are prioritized.
-
Continuous Training and Development: Keep the IT team updated with the latest network monitoring trends and tools.
How IR Collaborate can help
IR Collaborate offers comprehensive, multi-tenant and multi-vendor monitoring and support, real time insights and customizable displays, providing end to end visibility across all UC ecosystems.
Specialized (domain-centric) tools with advanced features, like IR Collaborate will give you unparalleled network security, network traffic monitoring and comprehensive performance insights throughout your entire network.
In a complex, multi-vendor unified communications ecosystem, we help you avoid, and quickly find and resolve performance issues in real-time – across your on-premises, cloud or hybrid environments.
