Network monitoring is part of the broader function of Network management, which manages computer networks, ensuring performance management, provisioning of networks, analysis and maintaining quality of service.

Network monitoring is the processes and tools that oversee network operations and management, ensuring availability, tracking network performance, while maintaining visibility into network access, routers, firewalls, switches, data, and under-performing components.

Network monitoring systems measures the CPU utilization of hosts, network bandwidth and utilization of links, while detecting and reporting failures of devices or connections.

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For years networks have been the lifeblood of business as mission-critical processes become increasingly reliant on connectivity. Network monitoring efforts help admins and IT leaders optimize processes and resources. A network monitoring system is capable of detecting and reporting application, tool and connection failures. The ability to perform targeted troubleshooting is important, but being able to proactively identify network bottlenecks and adjust infrastructure strategies accordingly is the ultimate benefit.

Challenges of Network Monitoring

One major challenge of network monitoring is that the best strategies are supported by multiple tools and applications. iIntrusion detection systems (IDS), security information and event management (SIEM), are security monitoring tools that detect network threats from the outside.

But network monitoring tools like network analyzers and application perform monitoring (APM) focus on monitoring issues within the network, like overloaded servers, network connections and analyzing metrics on response time, latency, availability and uptime.

As IT teams evaluate the pros and cons of individual tools and applications, it’s important to recognize that these products won’t work to their fullest potential if they aren’t deployed on top of a network built with monitoring best practices in mind. Networks are getting more complex with higher speeds carrying an increasingly unprecedented amount of data. With the growing number of analysis tools needed to process this data, a granular visibility approach into the actual packets running on the wire is a must. Network TAPs provide industry best practice for network visibility. 

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