Network Monitoring Software

 Network Monitoring Software - Baby-sit Your Network From Afar For Consistency

Any business that relies on a data network for its day to day operation will from time to time experience the inconvenience and potential loss of revenue that goes hand in hand with system down time. Fortunately this situation is preventable to a large extent with the use of network monitoring software. Maintaining a 24/7 availability status on your network is not easy and comes with a stiff staffing premium that smaller businesses can ill afford.

All of these issues can be addressed with monitoring applications which are typically third party, off-site packages that constantly monitor your network for a pre-set selection of conditions. Any actual or potential issues are immediately flagged and you receive notification in time to rectify the situation before excessive losses are suffered. And all of this functionality comes with no staffing latency to you.

The really great thing about having this sort of early warning functionality at your finger tips is the fact that many, if not most, down time events can be caught in time to prevent them occurring at all. And unavoidable failures don't go undetected so they can also be addressed rapidly to minimize downtime. This cuts out a lot of guess work and makes forward planning for maintenance a breeze.

One of the most notable benefits of using network monitoring software is the potential savings in the staffing arena. IT staff that had to monitor the network may now be utilized in more productive areas without any danger of compromising the operation. This can also translate to serious savings in terms of headcounts should you have to expand the network.

Security breach prevention is also a considerable plus point of remote network monitoring. Conventional measures such as firewalls can only do so much to protect your network and having the extra vigilance of an off-site watchdog is an extremely reassuring bonus.

As mentioned these applications are service provider run so you have no need to install, maintain or licence any extra software. The process of setting the service up is fairly simple and straight forward and once the extent and frequency of the coverage is defined and the relevant URL's established the monitoring begins immediately.

Once the system is running any anomalies will be reported to you at once for you to action. In addition to the early warning feature these packages also feature extensive diagnostic reporting functionality that can make maintaining the network in a logical and efficient fashion and planning both critical and routine maintenance very easy.

Network monitoring services differ in the levels of cover available but typical functionality includes FTP, POP3 &SMTP, voIP, DNS, DNS blacklist, SOAP/HTTP, UDP, ping/ICMP, custom scripting and temperature monitoring which covers enough ground to exclude most common network failure causes.

Network monitoring software is one of the simplest and most efficient ways of ensuring the long term availability, security and efficacy of your businesses data lifeblood. Any costs involved would almost certainly be offset by the savings and peace of mind involved and any business that relies on its network for its day to day operations should give serious consideration to this great business tool.

The Columnist is a managed services advisor who publicly publishes market reviews dedicated to remote management field.