For modern companies, good network reliability is vital. Organisations move their most valuable information over the network. Downtime, slowness, and other challenges are costly disruptions for any business. In fact, a 2014 Gartner study placed the average cost of downtime at over $300,000 per hour. 

Continually watching what’s happening on the network gives admins and stakeholders the information they need to keep their network running smoothly. Through network monitoring, network administrators can pinpoint problematic devices and make preventative fixes. 

Network monitoring is a powerful tool for protecting your organisation’s digital infrastructure from disruptions. In this article, we’ll look into the exact definition of network monitoring, how it works, and how to use it to keep your company’s data flowing without a hitch. 

What Is Network Monitoring?

Every computer network has a variety of properties that are important to its uptime, security, and other factors:

• The configuration of hardware and software powering the network, like routers, firewalls, and switches. 
• The types of traffic flowing through the network. Remote access protocols, network logins, large downloads, and port scanning are all types of traffic that administrators frequently monitor.
• The software and configuration of servers and endpoint devices. These devices are the actual clients of the network, so keeping them fast and secure is one of the most important jobs of the network operator. 

Network monitoring solutions monitor corporate networks for these properties and more. If something appears out of the ordinary, the solution sends network admins a message with information. 

Network monitoring solutions differ widely. Some are as simple as a single machine pinging other infrastructure to verify that everything is online. Others integrate endpoint detection and response data with network traffic in a single dashboard. 

Every company’s exact use of network monitoring will be different, but the general concept stays the same: network monitoring gives administrators insight about their network through data. 

How Network Monitoring Works

Network monitoring systems come in all shapes and sizes. However, most of these solutions look for data from three general areas:

1. Network configuration. This kind of network monitoring continually keeps track of the network topology as devices are added and removed. It can track endpoint devices (like smartphones and laptops) as they come online, in addition to routers, firewalls, switches, and other network infrastructure. 
2. Bandwidth use. One of the most useful metrics for improving both reliability and performance is bandwidth use. By analyzing this information, network operators can discover devices that hog resources. Additionally, they can discover a variety of security threats, including data exfiltration malware (like spyware) and insider threats. Admins can appropriate network resources more effectively when they have a better understanding of how these resources are used. 
3. Server and application performance. Both physical servers and the applications running on them—from DNS to Active Directory to databases—can and should be monitored. Many network monitoring solutions can be used to periodically check up on servers and their software, allowing administrators to get a better understanding of their performance and reliability. 

Network Monitoring Protocols and Techniques

Network monitoring solutions can use many different underlying technologies to communicate with devices on the network. Each of these options has different tradeoffs, so most network monitoring tools use multiple protocols in different situations. Here are some of the most common:

Ping

This simple tool, commonly used to diagnose connection problems, can be used to verify that a device on the network can be accessed. Nearly all modern devices return pings, so this reliable technique is the backbone of most simpler network monitoring tools.

Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP)

This protocol requires supported software installed on devices that need to be monitored. Through endpoint device policies, IT administrators can enforce the installation of this software across their entire network. With SNMP, supported devices automatically send information about their performance to a centralised monitoring system, which can analyse that data and create reports.

Logging Protocols

Whether companies use the standard syslog protocol or a more custom option, these protocols allow centralised monitoring systems to receive log events from correctly-configured devices. For example, servers and workstations can send log events when they encounter errors that need attention. IT professionals can see the status of devices on their network at a glance, including detailed log info. 

All three major operating systems, including their server variants, support the syslog protocol. Events from operating system components and software running on the machine can be logged and transferred across the network using this strategy. From a central point of view, administrators can see the precise status of everything running on the machines on their network. 

Custom Scripts

From shell scripts to scheduled tasks, these tools are the most customisable. While scripts are not standardised and difficult to audit, they give administrators the flexibility to implement custom functionality. For example, a script could be used to collect and relay information from a program that doesn’t support a more standard network monitoring protocol.

Compared to the other options, scripts can be fragile and difficult to test. While they offer the greatest flexibility, they are also the hardest to use safely and in a maintainable way. 

Using Network Monitoring Tools and Systems

IT professionals commonly configure a central server to receive every piece of information collected from network monitoring. Many network infrastructure vendors (including those that sell routers and switches) have a standard network monitoring toolkit. In some cases, this includes a dedicated piece of physical hardware. 

To make the data collected from network monitoring easier to understand, network administrators frequently use a web dashboard with real-time metrics. Business stakeholders who need to understand the performance of their IT investments often find these easy-to-understand visual dashboards invaluable. 

In addition to real-time metrics, most network automation tools include features for alerts and notifications. With this type of setup, administrators get pinged when something needs their attention. You can customise the thresholds for receiving these alerts to balance proactivity and getting too many alerts. 

Summary

Without a good understanding of what’s happening on their network, IT administrators are effectively shooting in the dark. To make informed decisions about investments in new hardware, changes to the network configuration, and security technology, network admins need the central visibility afforded by network monitoring. 

While network monitoring tools come in many different forms, most include standard functionality that can receive logs, make pings, and present contextualised data to key people through a reporting feature.