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How to Prevent Network Outages with Network Monitoring Tools

How to Prevent Network Outages with Network Monitoring Tools

How to Prevent Network Outages with Network Monitoring Tools

The last thing any IT professional wants is for their network to go down, and for good reason. In the digital age, companies and clients rely on networks to perform daily tasks and stay operational. Without a functioning network, these companies can’t operate on the level of efficiency they expect. Plus, from the IT’s perspective, a network outage means tons of calls and complaints from people wondering why the network is down. That’s a headache nobody wants to deal with.

So how do you prevent network outages? Sometimes it can be impossible, or it’s because of external problems outside your team’s control (electrical outages, for example). The best thing IT teams can do is prevent any network outages that they cause or aren’t adequately prepared for. Network performance monitors (NPMs) allow IT teams to see outages and understand where they’re coming from. Some are even designed to proactively deal with outages before they occur. Below, we talk about some of the ways NPMs help IT professionals prevent network outages and boost their network’s uptime.

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Comprehensive, automated monitoring

The most obvious benefit of monitoring your network with an NPM is taking the human element out of the equation. As networks grow larger and larger, IT teams need to monitor an increasing number of devices. NPMs detect and monitor devices automatically, letting IT teams focus specifically on devices that might cause outages. With an NPM, IT workers can leave the monitoring to the program and concentrate on fixing issues and keeping the network running smoothly.

Visibility

I stated above that networks are growing bigger, and that means more devices for IT professionals to deal with. The worst thing for any IT team is having an area of your network that you can’t see, as that unchecked area could become a gold mine of network-killing devices. A good NPM will provide full visibility of your network, eliminating every blind spot and giving you insights into the whole infrastructure. Plus, if an outage does occur, having the entire network visualized means you can identify the source of the problem almost instantaneously.

Performance testing

Two common reasons networks go down are improperly configured hardware and untested network updates. IT teams should know how updates are going to affect the network before they roll out. NPMs provide insights into a device’s performance and tells you when a part of the network isn’t performing as it should. IT teams can use these insights to properly test updates and ensure that the network won’t be affected.

Alerting

NPMs allow IT professionals to set up alerts to warn them about problems in the network as they occur. This does inform teams of outages when they occur, but most NPMs can do much more than that. With NPMs, you can set up alerts on any abnormal performance issues like, for example, if a device is about to reach critical status. Setting up these alerts can help IT teams proactively address failing devices before they cause an outage.

No network or IT team is perfect, and as such, network outages will occur at some point. The goal of any IT professional is to reduce the downtime to their network as much as they can. Particularly, they should take steps to thwart all outages caused by human error, and prepare themselves for outages they can’t control. With the aid of a network performance monitor, IT teams can help prevent outages before they happen, as well as reduce the time it takes to fix outages that do crop up.

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