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Today, organizations need to stay protected, they must remain optimized for network performance monitoring, security, and load. Without this, an organization cannot function efficiently. The organization’s service level agreements cannot be fulfilled. Their customers may not be satisfied with the timeliness of the products and services. Sales, engineering, support, and customer acquisition teams may not be able to function cohesively. These are some of the many issues of poor network monitoring.
Why network outages can diminish organizational performance?
There are many causes of network outages. Bad configuration, poor networking cabling, incorrect network cabling, faulty software, lack of network performance monitoring, lack of intrusion detection, etc. Some other issues such as congestion, lack of load balancing, and lack of software and hardware infrastructure are also causes.
Organizations that use network performance monitoring tools can determine the source of their network issues. They are able to identify the root causes of their network performance issue. A network performance monitoring software has inbuilt capabilities to pinpoint the source of the problems. Organizations that use this software are able to apply remediation activities to resolve these issues.
Another cause for concern for organizations is human error. According to a survey from a renowned network equipment supplier, a majority of network outages are caused because of human error. Bad configuration, incorrectly assigned values, and incorrect installation of fiber optics and cabling are some of the many reasons.
Today’s network performance monitoring tools can be customized to have features that support the detection of such errors. With the inclusion of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning into the fray, network monitoring software can generate rules on the fly and apply them on a case-by-case basis. This type of capability greatly reduces human intervention. It also reduces the risks of configuration errors or cabling issues, as these are not only identified but potentially remediated.
What are the benefits of network performance monitoring tools?
High availability
Imagine a situation where an important video conference is being held. A network outage at this time can jeopardize the conference. It is awkward to ask the participants to prepare for a rescheduled meeting. It is even more awkward to let them know that there was a network outage. This is one example to just cite the importance of network availability.
A highly available network is not an option anymore. It is a bare requirement. Organizations want a cent percent high availability of their network. This is why network performance monitoring tools act as an important component in the network system to ensure high availability. Such tools monitor the network and accordingly balance traffic. They can even provision extra resources from on-premises or the cloud based on the need to support networking demands.
Manage and scale networks
Organizations are adapting to newer networking needs by procuring new network hardware and software. Their networks are becoming heterogeneous and complex. Multi-site network locations, the use of new overlay networking technologies, and the shift toward 5G has created complexity. However, organizations need to follow this direction or be left out.
Those who utilize network performance monitoring tools are able to scale their networks. They are able to manage their complex networks spanning across multiple geographical locations. Irrespective of the network elements used, protocols used, and the network software technologies in these networks, organizations are able to integrate all of them together.
Security management
Network performance monitoring can identify intrusions and vulnerabilities in the network. The software can apply patches quickly to resolve the problem. Alerts and notifications feature of the software can convey this information in real time to the required stakeholders. Therefore, a network performance monitoring tool can help network administrators manage security threats without additional time, energy, cost, and resource overheads.
Conclusion
Network performance monitoring tools are the backbone of a network system. Without network performance monitoring, organizations are always playing a game of gambling.
