Network Monitoring Definition and Solutions
Network monitoring is far more strategic than its name implies. It involves watching for problems 24/7, but it's also about optimizing data flow and access in a complex and changing environment. Tools and services are as numerous and varied as the environments they guard and analyze.
- What is network monitoring?
- How important is network monitoring?
- What can network monitoring systems monitor?
- What kind of networks can they monitor?
- What strategic tasks can network monitoring systems do?
- What questions can network monitoring answer?
- What can network monitoring do for me?
- What tools will I find in network monitoring systems?
- What kinds of network monitoring systems are available?
- What do they cost?
What tools will I find in network monitoring systems?
Network monitoring systems themselves can be software or firmware, simple or complex.
Among the most simple are tools that send signals to devices to see how long it takes for the signal to return — digital echolocation. More relevant to most network managers are tools that ship with common tests and monitoring scripts and that can produce rich reports with graphics that summarize conditions from device-specific to network-wide.
Open-source tools are innovative, inexpensive and numerous. And they work with most tools and platforms.
No matter where you get your tools, though, aggressively investigate how well they will work in your environment, especially with the operating systems on your network.
If your network has become simply too complex and you can't keep tabs on what's happening, you can outsource monitoring. Outsourcers create levels of services and packages of functions to cover a wide variety of network environments and budgets.
Network monitoring products can be totally free, as with open-source apps) and they can be extremely expensive. Appliances, software-only solutions and services range from $50 on into five figures.
