5 Network Monitoring Trends To Watch in 2018

As the new year rolls around the corner, IT departments are most likely prepping their companies on how to increase application productivity using their enterprise networks. These employees should take note of various events and practices that are frequently occurring as the networking industry evolves. To celebrate the new year, here are five trends that enterprises should have insight on so that their networks can run without any hindering factors.

SD-WAN Continues To Gain Popularity

This year, Gartner reported that SD-WAN has less than a 5% market share today, but it predicts that up to 25% of users will manage their WAN through SD by 2019. Revenue from SD-WAN vendors continue to grow at a rate of 59% annually, and it’s expected to become a $1.3 billion market by 2020. Its ability to manage multiple types of connections is one reason that enterprises are switching from WAN to SD-WAN, and its popularity continues to increase exponentially because of its versatility.

AI Is Becoming A Mainstay

Artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly integrating into NPM solutions, a prominent example being Dynatrace’s automated full stack application monitoring. AI can help monitor networks and other infrastructure through smart monitoring capabilities to help IT professionals with data analysis. Solutions are using Automated services because they can allocate resource usage, optimize storage solutions, and generate log data for security solutions. IT professionals use AI to process large quantities of information, promoting oversight and data analysis for its users.

Solutions are Adapting to Hybrid Cloud Networks

Monitoring hybrid cloud architectures can cause problems, including relying on multiple tools, being unable to predict resource utilization, and not being able to support dynamic environments. Fortunately, major NPM vendors like SolarWinds, Stratoscale, and SevOne have released solutions to provide end-to-end visibility for business-critical applications. IT professionals need to have the capacity to monitor private, public, and hybrid clouds so that there are no performance issues between end-users.

Analytics Are Becoming Popular

Vendors are integrating data analytics into their software to collect, analyze, and predict network trends for users. Major vendors like Statseeker are using analytics to turn data into insightful information for enterprise networks, which helps identify issues and decide when to update and release applications. The biggest feature of NPM analytics is data retention, helps enterprises continuously manage API interfaces. Another major vendor using route analytics is ThousandEyes, as their Device Layer helps users look into infrastructure layers through data collection.

Evolving Malware Continues To Be A Threat

Over the past year, there have been massive malware attacks on a global scale, with the most prominent attack being the KRACK Attack in Wi-Fi’s WPA security protocol. These attacks, including minor ones like phishing scams and password hacks, shows that rapidly evolving malware continues to hinder enterprises on a global scale. Businesses need to use NPM solutions to track data between end-users, and these solutions should offer visibility for better insights into network traffic. Enterprises need to take precautions to avoid future malware attacks, especially ones which are memory-resident.