subject: What Should My Company Want In A Network Monitoring Answer? [print this page] What Should My Company Want In A Network Monitoring Answer?
Even though each network has its own unique attributes, top notch systems need to have solid answers for the four following areas:
1. Ability to monitor your technical supplies and hardware
2. Software monitoring
3. Ability to monitor Website traffic and volume
4. IT services tracking within your company's network
Hardward and supply monitoring for all your technical concerns: Knowing when changes have been made to your network is a critical component of a network monitoring system. Network managers need to know when network changes have been made, the status of company related disks, when devices have lost their connectivity, and when printer toners are low or else you will not be able to handle concerns promptly.
Ability to monitor network software requirements: Tracking software and hardware concerns on the network is only part of what a good network monitoring solution provides. Network monitoring done right also means:
Keeping track of installations
Noting which licenses are set to expire
Knowing which hotfixes (patches to fix specific bugs) are installed
Staying on top of the current state of all Windows services on each machine
Making sure all of your computers are protected with an up to date antivirus software
Monitor web traffic: The bandwidth that networks have for sharing amongst employees is indeed limited. For example, an entire companies network slows down when one employee requires a greater share of resources. When network switches are overloaded in error the result can be extensive network slowdowns for everyone on that switch. Finding bottlenecks and uneven distributions for devices is yet another key advantage of effective network monitoring configurations.
Tracking technical services information: Tracking when IT service contracts expire is yet another function that good network monitoring solutions have the ability to manage. It's not something you initially think of when working with a network monitor, but it can provide additional benefits such as helping your organization to save money. By giving you plenty of advanced notice that your IT contracts are set to expire, you allot yourself plenty of time to shop around and do your research to get the best deals.
