subject: Are You Still Using Ping to Manage Your Devices? Why? [print this page] Today's networks inevitably employ legacy systems, hardware and software. Maybe it consisted of a file server and a couple of routers so that everybody had access to the internet. Then you needed to go wireless. One day, you had some network security problems so you had to purchase install a firewall. In order to save money on long distance phone calls you had a VoIP system integrated, which required another server, some more routers and switches, and so on.
Now look at where you are. There is all of this equipment at your disposal as the network administrator, but do you have control over the system or does it have control over you? Are you still logging into individual components just to do configuration?How do you manage devices when the system starts having problems? All of these questions are ones you've probably already asked yourself. There is so much time and money that has been put into your network and now you need to consider how you are going to better manage the sheer scale of it. At one time, it used to be simple but now it's like your head is just above water.
That's why network performance management exists. Network engineers got fed up with just using home grown ICMP to make sure that equipment was up and running, so tools were created to keep up with ever complicated network systems. At first, all these networking monitoring tools could do was give you a centralized location where you could get network data, but now NPM, as it is known, has expanded to help network engineers do configuration management, application performance monitoring and traffic monitoring as well.
Using a network performance management solution is the way to go. If you're still using custom tools that were made in-house years ago to manage a system that is now twice the size, you should consider finding out what an enterprise system can do to make your job easier.
Are You Still Using Ping to Manage Your Devices? Why?
