What is Network Monitoring? Why is it Important?

Network Monitoring is one of the most irreplaceable components of the Information Technology (IT) world. This commonly used IT industry-related concept refers to a process during which all parts connected to a network are monitored in the sense of performance. Network Monitoring is a proactive method and creates key advantages both in performance and security.

Why is Network Monitoring important?

At the center of network management systems, Network Monitoring helps instantly monitor the performance of firewall, router, switch, server, and VM devices. Contacting the network administrator in case of a disruption or any other issue, the system helps you control various data, including server traffic, CPU values, and storage.

Standing out as a proactive method, Network Monitoring, at the first stage, detects performance-related issues and systemic bottlenecks quickly to prevent the issue from worsening. With the help of an effective Network Monitoring process, you can easily prevent network losses and major online problems.

One of the worst problems that network administrators face is the ability to monitor the capabilities of hardware and software elements connected to a network. The only way to efficiently track this is to have an advanced Network Monitoring system. With Network Monitoring systems, you can create different control points to detect potential problems that may occur on servers and machine logs in advance.

To create a functional and sustainable network, you must track all elements on your system simultaneously. The Network Monitoring process makes it possible to detect possible errors and incidents that may cause errors and consists of three different stages.

The Stages of Network Monitoring

There is a five-stage structure in the Network and IT Infrastructure Monitoring process that plays an important role in making the user experience functional through Network Monitoring methods. These five steps consist of auto-discovery, performance management, alarm and event management, configuration management, and network traffic analysis.

• Auto Discovery

Auto discovery is one of the essential components for any network monitoring process. It provides an opportunity to develop different protocol types and advanced discovery in Network Monitoring processes, with various configuration options. It works efficiently by allowing IT managers to specify which networks to monitor by generating a sequence.

• Performance Management

You can easily check the performance values of the network structure on which your servers are located with the help of Network Monitoring tools that help you track incidents instantly. You can also create past network activity reports. The ability of Network Monitoring to provide reports focusing on past events is significant to help you identify either recent or future requirements.

• Alarm and Event Management

This refers to the procedure for communicating any errors that may occur on the network. You can integrate this four-step structure into any communication method to create a mechanism that will help you identify the status of the network at different times. The errors detected in the logged data and then processed via data loggers can be sent to you via SMS, email, or ticketing.

• Configuration Management

Configuration management allows you to load stable configuration files from device backups by making planned configuration backups, and reduces devices’ potential downtime. After devices on the network are discovered by the configuration manager, the configuration manager can communicate with the device and retrieve configuration files periodically. With this feature, it can periodically back up configuration files from all devices, instead of manual backup, which is a difficult task for system administrators in massive networks. This process can be triggered manually, in programs, or even Syslog-based automatically.

• Traffic Analyzer

Some metrics such as volume, speed, and utilization are crucial to understanding network performance. In order to make these measurements, an effective Network Monitoring process can be created with Network Traffic Analysis applications. With the NetFlow feature available in Cisco routers, network traffic on an interface can be recorded, and this protocol can be used to collect and record all IP Traffic on a NetFlow enabled device. Network Traffic Analysis analyzes this data, allowing IT administrators or network engineers to do further investigation.

Benefits of the Network Monitoring Process

The benefits of having a Network Monitoring system can be listed under the categories of high performance, minimum risks, and compatibility. The benefits based mainly on optimizing network performance are interrelated:

• With Network Monitoring, you can detect threshold values for all network devices, and when the given threshold values are exceeded, you can set up an alert so you can respond quickly.
• Real-time troubleshooting is the essential advantage of a Network Monitoring process. Besides helping you prepare custom reports and graphics on the system, Network Monitoring facilitates the activities of your technical teams.
• With Monitoring, you can monitor your network 24/7/365.
• The instant monitoring process helps you identify issues beforehand.
• Network monitoring is an application that offers advantages in costs. It reduces your financial loss by alerting you about issues beforehand and lets you choose the appropriate bandwidth and hardware based on the real burden of your network.
• It prevents systemic bottlenecks.
• Network Monitoring keeps you posted about the current situation and possible issues via various communication channels. Thus, it increases your professional focus more than ever.
• Offering advanced network performance, Network and IT Infrastructure Monitoring allows you to make a detailed analysis of any issues, so you will be avoiding critical issues ignored by superficial solutions in the long run.
• Network Monitoring applications offer top-ranking reporting capabilities. With advanced reports, it is possible for you to create future projections for all elements in your network.

With Single Monitor, Kron's award-winning Network and IT Infrastructure Monitoring platform, you can benefit from all the advantages offered by the implementation of Network Monitoring. Developed by our experienced teams, Single Monitor helps you track network performance in real-time, identify issues instantly, bring true solutions to these issues, and reduce the disruption time to a minimum. Furthermore, Single Monitor contains modules addressing source inventory detection, performance, configuration, and alert management to help you manage your network performance in an efficient way. For more information, contact us and talk with our experts.