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The network serves as the crucial infrastructural foundation of a modern business. It links numerous operational sites, tools, and systems to maintain online operations.
The network is the key to developing applications, virtual collaboration, and your web-based organization presence.
What is a Network Monitoring Tool?
A network management and monitoring tool use interactive maps to display the network architecture, monitors crucial parameters in real-time, and creates ad-hoc and scheduled reports to maintain connectivity.
Photocredit: Dynamic Solutions Group
A network monitoring tool will provide you with a comprehensive assessment of the condition of your network and assist you in pinpointing potential problem areas.
The demand for network monitoring tools has increased along with the technical requirements of businesses and consumers.
Several connections that need to be monitored might emerge from even the smallest networks. The capacity to maintain networks, servers, and applications is a feature of modern network monitoring tools. Administrators are better equipped to keep track of events when they have a tool that can manage the upkeep of these systems.
Why Do Companies Need a Network Monitoring Tool?
Companies invest in network administration and monitoring for several reasons, including:
- Enhancements in application performance: Companies can identify which applications run best in their environment and call for a certain networking infrastructure configuration. They can arrange the network so that applications run more efficiently.
- Optimization of bandwidth: Organizations and companies may keep track of how various hosts, users, applications, and devices use the available network bandwidth. They can impose regulations that optimize each entity’s bandwidth use, easing the overall strain on the network.
- Cost reduction: Businesses can monitor their network investments, application performance, and associated business outcomes to spot any environmental inefficiency. They can enjoy saving costs by eliminating these inefficiencies.
- Enhanced security: Real-time anomaly detection is possible with network administration and monitoring. These anomalies occasionally indicate malicious malware infiltrating the network boundary or suspicious user behavior.
Top 10 Network Management and Monitoring Tools
According to a Statista research, the market for network management systems was estimated to be worth $6.7 billion in 2020 and is anticipated to reach $12 billion by 2027. Your business needs the best network management and monitoring solutions to gain a precise, thorough, current, and actionable view of your network.
Here are the top ten network monitoring tools:
- Datadog Network Monitoring
It provides an excellent visual overview of your system’s many network components and the traffic flows that go through them. Device health and traffic flow analyses are provided by this section of system monitors from a cloud platform.
Some key features include:
- It provides real-time network insights and in-depth knowledge of inter-component interactions.
- It is broadly compatible with your hardware nodes, networking protocols, cloud resources, and application services.
- It highlights important linkages, and the dashboard uses numerous data visualizations to access this.
- Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
This free network monitoring program keeps tabs on your network using SNMP, packet sniffing, and WMI.
Some key features include:
- Customizable alerts: 300+ mapped objects and 10+ prebuilt channels are available for receiving notifications.
- Many user interfaces: It has a desktop app, an iOS app, an Android app, and integrations for smart wearables, in addition to a fully functional web interface.
- Auvik
Two plan levels are available for this SaaS system, both of which feature system administration tools and are built around a network mapper.
Some key features include:
- Wide compatibility: It works with all of your network equipment, software programs, and protocol configurations.
- Streamlined dashboards include cleverly designed dashboards that quickly highlight the most important insights.
- Domotz
This SaaS platform provides various network monitoring services, including security scanning and SNMP polling.
Some key features include:
- Domotz can map your network topology, execute scheduled and on-demand tests, and produce detailed data reports.
- Broad compatibility: It works with many gadgets, including security cameras, IoT endpoints, and more.
- ManageEngine OpManager
This network monitoring tool can keep track of virtual machines, servers, routers, and switches in real time. Over 200 widgets are available in customizable dashboards, so you may design a special monitoring experience.
Some key features include:
- Wide range of compatibility: It works with storage units, network appliances, and both physical and virtual servers.
- More efficient dashboards: 200+ widgets can be used to build new dashboards or deploy default ones.
- Customizable warnings: You can define multiple-level criteria and receive immediate alerts for infractions.
Others include:
- Checkmk
- Entuity
- Nagios XI
- Spiceworks Connectivity Dashboard
- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor
Key Features of Every Network Management and Monitoring Tool
When choosing a network administration and monitoring solution, there are five essential functionalities to consider:
- Extensive compatibility
The tool should be interoperable with as many networks and IT infrastructure elements as possible, comprising hardware-based network appliances and software programs. You must also be able to track network connectivity and real-time connectivity status for virtual machines offered by reputable providers like VMware.
- Extensive analytics
The core of network monitoring is analytics and data reports. The tool you select should evaluate network performance in relation to important parameters like speed and latency. Along with detailed trend mapping, it needs to produce location- and device-specific information. You can choose and create your analytics queries based on your surroundings.
- Multiple user interfaces
For modern businesses, this function is becoming more and more crucial. Even when they are away from their workstations, IT workers may need to monitor and check networks while on the go.
Multiple user interfaces enable IT teams, to utilize their smartphones and tablets to control network operations from any place as more firms transition to remote and hybrid working over the long term.
- Updated dashboards
You will see daily updates on network performance and health through dashboards. Dashboards must concisely show information for at-a-glance understanding, even if data reports might be lengthy and dense. You need clever data visualizations to display the most pertinent and immediate information in a format everyone can understand.
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Conclusion
According to a 2021 poll by Enterprise Management Associates, businesses are investing more in network management and monitoring to keep up with a hybrid working environment.
32% want to improve insight correlations, while 52.6% need additional dashboards and reporting tools. The ten technologies we covered make it possible to accomplish these objectives without sacrificing performance at a realistic and predictable cost.
To choose a useful network management and monitoring tool in 2022, businesses must do extensive research, evaluate their particular requirements, and consider the five essential features we covered.
FAQs
Q: How can I see all devices connected to my network?
A: Checking your router’s web interface will be the most effective way to get this information. Your router acts as the central node of your WiFi network, making it the most reliable source of data about the devices connected to it. Although some may not, most of the finest routers provide a mechanism to browse a list of connected devices.
Q: What is a hidden network?
A: The term “Service Set Identifier” (SSID), which is effectively just another way of saying “its name,” is not transmitted by a concealed network. Because it is easy to locate such networks, they are not truly any more secure than networks that do broadcast their SSID.
Q: Can WiFi be hacked remotely?
A: You might be shocked by how simple it is to get into your home WiFi network these days. A hacker can hire a cloud computer for very little money and can most frequently quickly determine the password to your network by employing brute force or by trying numerous password combinations on the powerful machine.
Q: Is OpenNMS free?
A: OpenNMS is a platform for network administration and monitoring that is free and open-source for businesses.