Network performance monitoring
Being an IT professional, outside of the issue of security, one of the most important aspects of your daily job is to ensure the performance of your company’s network is in tip-top shape and running as quick and efficiently as possible. Given the importance that is typically put on the performance of networks, investing in the proper network performance monitoring tool is a decision you will not want to take lightly and thoroughly consider all of your options. Today, we will take a look at some of the more important features to consider when shopping around for the best tool that fits your needs and goals.
Often times at companies in today’s business landscape, many employees have two if not three devices both personal and for work that flood company’s networks and servers. When this happens, a company’s already thinly spread bandwidth is tested to its limits and can cause a plethora of problems if not monitored and dealt with appropriately. Obtaining a network performance monitoring tool with an intuitive and dynamic way to measure and monitor network bandwidth can be a feature that can prove to be extremely valuable as your company grows and more devices flood your network. In addition, software that offers the ability to set parameters to notify you when bandwidth is reaching a certain limit is another feature to consider. By making you aware of your bandwidth reaching a potential slowdown level, you can make the proper adjustments right away to ensure there is no slowdown to your network. No matter the network performance monitoring software that you choose, bandwidth monitoring is definitely a feature you will want to consider.
When it comes to alerts, monitoring your bandwidth isn’t the only way custom alerts can prove to be a crucial feature when choosing your network performance monitoring tool. Much of the software available today allow for custom alerts, based off of parameters that you set, to notify you when it comes to security threats that are always trying to infiltrate your networks and servers. Whether it is via SMS, email, or alerts within an application, the earlier you can address a potential security threat the faster and more effectively you will be able to be handle it.
Whether it is bandwidth or security, choosing a network performance monitoring tool with an easy to read and intuitive set of visualization tools is another key feature yet one that is often overlooked. When monitoring and sometimes forecasting the speed and health of your network, being able to read the metrics and daily readouts can often be just as important as the data and metrics themselves. Many times, network performance monitoring tools will offer a dashboard that is the central hub tracking all of the devices on your network, the speed of you network and ultimately maintaining the security that protects your critical files and server settings. That being said, another often overlooked aspect to choosing software is being mindful and active in your search for a user interface that is intuitive and can be easily learned by you and your staff. Ultimately, as with any software you are bringing into your department, you’ll want to make sure that it is one you can train your team on quickly to avoid any lapse in security and efficiency.
Most software on the market today offers some form of free trial that allows you to use the basic functions of the software, but more importantly help you get an overall feel of how the software will be to work with every day. When downloading the trial, it may also be a good idea to have some of your staff that will be using it test it out as well.