6 Key Considerations for Successful Network Monitoring

What are the key considerations for successful network performance monitoring? Network performance monitoring solutions help enterprises keep an eye on business networks to ensure they’re operating correctly. These tools can be a valuable asset for companies who rely on having a solid network infrastructure to deliver for clients and customers. However, if your network monitoring tool isn’t configured properly, your company won’t be able to properly address network performance problems before they have a major impact on your network.

In order to ensure your network is performing smoothly, your company needs to examine its network monitoring strategy and configure its monitoring solution properly. Below, we’ve listed six key considerations for successful network monitoring that every enterprise needs to keep in mind.

If you’re looking for resources to help you evaluate monitoring solutions, our free Network Monitoring Buyer’s Guide has you covered. It contains profiles on the top network monitoring providers in the market today, including descriptions of the tools they offer and noteworthy features of each. The guide also features 10 questions you should ask prospective vendors and yourself before buying a network monitoring solution. You can check out that guide here. We also offer a buyer’s guide for free and open source network monitoring tools if you’re a small business or have a tighter budget but still want enterprise-grade monitoring for business networks. Download this guide here.

Focus on important network performance metrics

High network performance means different things for different users, and there’s no one-size-fits-all standard for network performance that every enterprise can follow. Your company will have its own requirements for network performance that your monitoring strategy should address. Maybe your company needs to ensure that its bandwidth is adequately distributed among employees, or your network team wants to eliminate all bottlenecks to increase network data speeds. Whatever the case, make sure your company focuses on the most important performance metrics for its purposes.

Ensure you have full network visibility

If there’s even one portion of your network that your network engineers can’t see, your company could have a major problem on its hands. Blind spots in network visibility mean that your network could be experiencing performance issues that your enterprise can’t see. At the very least, your network monitoring solution needs to be able to detect every device and connection on a network to ensure that it covers every inch of the system.

Customize your dashboard to suit your needs

To get the best use out of your monitoring platform, it needs to be at least partially tailored to suit the needs of each user. Most modern network monitoring software allows administrators to customize the dashboard, rearranging performance metric visualizations and configuring those visualizations to make the most sense to users; for example, users can choose what type of graphs to use for displaying how much bandwidth is being used.

Activate network security features

The majority of network monitoring solutions currently on the market are not just designed to track performance problems. They also come equipped with network security features to help administrators determine if their network has been invaded by malware or other harmful actors. Use these features whenever possible, as malware can often be just as much a performance issue as a security problem.

Ensure performance alerts give you the proper information

If your network monitoring tool delivers alerts that fail to give your network team the right information to fix an issue, you need to find a better solution. Network performance alerts should tell you, at the least, where the issue is located on your network, when the issue started, and what’s causing it. More intelligent alerts will provide information on how crucial the problem is and how much of the network is affected by it.

Keep network growth in mind

Business networks are not static; they constantly grow and shrink in size as your company evolves its technology and adds to its workforce. Network monitoring solutions must be able to expand as a network changes. Your company doesn’t want to suddenly have a blind spot in your network when you install a new device or reconfigure an old one. Whenever you onboard a new device, make sure that your monitoring solution detects it and that the device is properly configured to work with the monitoring tool.

Looking for a solution to help you improve your network performance? Our Network Monitoring Buyer’s Guide contains profiles on the top network performance monitor vendors, as well as questions you should ask providers and yourself before buying.

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