It goes without saying that for any IT professional, maintaining speed and performance on a network of any size is no small task. The value of having a fast network trickles down from everything to quick browser speed to the ability to view sales or financials in real-time, with no delay. With all this said, it’s important to have a great arsenal of performance monitoring tools to keep your company running at optimal speed. Considering all of the options available on the market today, let’s take a look at some of the more important features to consider when looking for the best performance monitoring tool to fit you and your organization’s needs.
Important yet often overlooked, the intuitiveness of a software is a critical feature to consider and one that will give you the ability to pick up the software’s functionality and full potential, sooner rather than later. By learning the software in-depth fast, you will be able to maintain optimal speed within your network and keep business running per usual. Many of the performance monitoring tools available on the market today offer an extensive set of visualization tools that keep track of your important metrics that you want to be aware of in a visually appealing and straight forward way. Very often, the data and performance metrics being output are only as good as the user’s (you and your team) ability to read and process them in the appropriate way. The central dashboard of the software will be critical as it is often the face of the tool and the starting-off point for all of the features that the tool offers. Not only should you be sure that the software is one that you can learn quickly, but one that you can train your employees and peers on who will be using it daily.
Whether it be via email, SMS or the software itself, custom alerts are a feature that can prove to be a valuable asset when looking to keep an eye on your company’s performance while you’re not in the office or “logged on.” Beyond setting up alerts for incoming security threats, which they are commonly known for, there are other metrics that alerts can be valuable for. Below we take a look at one of the more common reasons alerts are set up from a performance monitoring standpoint and explain how this specific feature can be as important as any.
When it comes to the performance or health of your network, there are not many more valuable metrics to keep an eye on than the health and capacity of your network’s bandwidth. With many devices, for both pleasure and business, flooding your office’s network and servers, the bandwidth levels are a metric that you cannot ignore. Most of the performance monitoring tools available on the market today offer a feature that allows for bandwidth to be tracked and monitored in real-time to ensure there are no slowdowns for your company and that the network can be running efficiently as possible at all times. The aforementioned alerts feature can set limits for your bandwidth that automatically notify you when it is reaching maximum levels. By pre-setting these parameters, you can make sure that you are notified any time that s network slowdown is coming, preventing a potential snowball effect of issues that can waterfall throughout your business.
As with most software available out there today, performance monitoring tools often feature trial versions that let you try the basic features if the software before committing to the investment. Not only will this let you see some of the key features you will be using on a daily basis, but it will also give you an idea of how quick you will be able to pick up the software and use it to its full potential.