What Are Network Alerts? Alert Management Guide

It’s the middle of the workday and suddenly your IT team starts receiving calls: systems are slow, applications are unresponsive, and productivity grinds to a halt. Before you know it, you’re scrambling to pinpoint the issue and juggling complaints, all while the clock is ticking and downtime costs are piling up.

The problem?

A critical device failure, bandwidth max-out, or full network outage that could have been detected—and possibly prevented—if only you had the right network alerts in place.

Having a reliable network alert management system could be the lifeline that keeps your network stable and your business running smoothly.

Let’s explore:

• What are network alerts?
• Why are network alerts important?
• Top challenges IT pros face with network alerts 
• Best practices for network alert management 
• How to set up effective network monitoring alerts 

What are network alerts?

Network monitoring alerts are real-time notifications that inform IT teams of events happening within their network infrastructure. These alerts are triggered by network monitoring systems that track network performance metrics, security concerns, and potential abnormalities in traffic, usage, or infrastructure. When an issue arises, such as unexpected traffic spikes or downtime, the system sends a network alert to get your team into immediate action.

Why are network alerts important?

Outages are costly. According to the Uptime Institute’s 2024 Annual Outage Analysis, 54% of respondents said their organization’s most recent serious outage cost more than $100,000—and 16% say that number reached more than $1 million. Four in five of those organizations believe the outage could have been prevented with better management, processes, and configuration. That’s where network alerts play an important role.

Network alerts assist IT teams in proactively maintaining the security, stability, and performance of their environments. They allow you to respond swiftly to potential issues, minimizing downtime and reducing the risk of service disruptions.

Here’s how network alerts can help keep your systems running smoothly:

• Detecting security threats: Network alerts allow you to identify potential security breaches, malware, or unauthorized access in real-time by flagging suspicious activities such as unauthorized logins, abnormal data transfers, or attempts to exploit vulnerabilities.
• Monitoring network performance: Network alerts track key performance indicators like bandwidth usage, latency, and packet loss to ensure optimal network function. Tracking these indicators can identify early signs of network congestion, slow response times, or connectivity issues. It also helps in capacity planning and resource allocation for growing network demands.
• Identifying hardware failures: You can receive alerts when critical network components, such as servers, routers, or switches, fail or are at risk of failure. Identifying early warning signs gives you time to repair or replace failing equipment before it causes significant downtime or impacts your broader network. 
• Preventing downtime: Alerting can proactively address issues before they cause system outages, ensuring higher uptime and reliability. When an outage does occur, alerts can help improve MTTR (Mean Time to Repair) by providing immediate notifications with detailed information. This means your team can quickly diagnose and resolve the root cause.
• Troubleshooting network issues: Alerts can provide insights into potential problem areas. This allows your IT team to narrow down and troubleshoot network connectivity issues more effectively by identifying the cause quicker.

It’s clear that a well-configured alerting system is key to staying ahead of potential problems and ensuring the long-term health and performance of your network. But network monitoring alerts don’t come without challenges.

Top challenges IT pros face with network alerts

While network alerts are vital for maintaining the health and security of IT infrastructure, they’re only as effective as the team they’re alerting.

Here are some of the key issues we see network administrators face when it comes to managing and responding to alerts efficiently. 

• Alert fatigue: It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of alerts generated by alert management software. These constant notifications can lead to alert fatigue, where critical alerts are missed or ignored due to the number of notifications coming in.
• False positives: Inaccurate alerts or false positives can clog up monitoring systems, diverting attention away from real issues. This not only wastes time but also decreases trust in the alerting management software, causing teams to become less responsive over time.
• Lack of prioritization: Without a clear system for alert management, IT teams can struggle to determine which issues require immediate attention versus those that are less urgent. This lack of prioritization can lead to delayed responses to critical incidents and inefficiently used resources.
• Poor alert configuration: Misconfigured alerts can trigger too frequently or not at all. Incorrect thresholds or setup may lead to your team missing critical issues or getting flooded with unnecessary alerts. For example, setting alerts for minor CPU spikes might cause you to miss serious issues like server overloads.
• Alert noise: Excessive, irrelevant alerts can create “noise,” making it difficult for teams to filter through and identify critical problems. This dilutes the effectiveness of the alerting system, as essential alerts can get lost in the clutter. It’s important to differentiate minor network alerts you should still pay attention to from those that aren’t useful at all.
• Delayed alerts: If network alerts are delayed, your IT team may not be able to respond quickly enough to prevent major issues like downtime or security breaches. Fast and timely network monitoring alerts are crucial to maintaining system health and performance.
• Inadequate context: Alerts that lack detailed context can leave your IT team scrambling to understand the root cause of an issue. Instead, network alerts need to provide actionable information so that teams can diagnose and resolve problems swiftly.
• Scalability issues: As your network grows, so does the number of devices and systems generating alerts. A monitoring system that doesn’t scale well can struggle to keep up with increased alert volume, leading to missed or delayed issues.
• Integration gaps: Some alerting systems don’t integrate well with existing tools or workflows, forcing IT teams to manually correlate information across different platforms. This disjointed approach can slow down response times and increase the risk of errors.
• Skill gaps: The ongoing IT labor shortage means that many organizations may lack the skilled personnel needed to manage and interpret network alerts effectively. Without proper training and expertise, teams may struggle to set up, monitor, and respond to alerts within existing systems. 

Addressing these challenges requires a combination of well-configured network monitoring systems, thoughtful alert management practices, and a skilled IT team that’s capable of interpreting and responding to alerts in real-time.

So where can you begin?

Let’s dive into some best practices. 

5 best practices for network alert management 

To help reduce alert fatigue, improve your response times, and ensure that critical issues are addressed promptly, try following these guidelines for network alerting. 

1. Prioritize alerts to minimize alert fatigue 

A structured prioritization framework can help your IT team distinguish between critical issues and less urgent matters, ensuring resources are allocated effectively when alerts come up. 

Here’s a simple framework you can use as a starting point to prioritize alerts:

Priority Level	Description	Response
Critical	Immediate action required: Security breachesSystem outagesHardware failures	Immediate response from senior IT staff (e.g within one hour).
High	Urgent, but not immediate: Performance degradationSecurity warningsComponent warnings	Address within a set timeframe to prevent escalation into critical incidents (e.g within 24 hours).
Medium	Scheduled resolution: Capacity warningsNon-critical errorsRoutine maintenance reminders	Handled during regular maintenance windows with clear timelines for resolution (e.g within one week).
Low	Monitor and review:Informational logsLow-level warningsMinor configuration errors	No immediate action required. Monitor for trends or patterns and use for reporting.

2. Set alerting thresholds and tune regularly

In network management, knowing how to set alert thresholds is equal parts art and science. It involves knowing your network intimately, and making periodic adjustments based on changing network needs. Tuning refers to the process of adjusting these thresholds to better match your network’s current performance and usage patterns. 

For example, if an alert is set to trigger when server CPU usage hits 70%, but your system typically operates safely at 80%, this alert may go off too often. By tuning the threshold to a more appropriate level, like 85%, you can avoid these false alarms and ensure you’re only notified about genuine issues that require attention.

3. Make your alerts meaningful and action-oriented 

To ensure your alerts are actionable and to resolve issues quicker, it’s crucial to include key information that provides clarity and context. An effective alert should go beyond just notifying you of a problem—it should give your team everything they need to diagnose and resolve the issue efficiently. 

Here’s a checklist of essential components that every alert should include:

✅ Event description: What happened? The alert should clearly describe the event or issue, such as “Server CPU Usage Exceeded 90%.”

✅ Affected system or component: Where did it happen? Include the specific system, device, or component involved. For example, “Server 12” or “Firewall 3.” This helps teams immediately know which part of the network needs attention.

✅ Event type/severity: How critical is it? Categorize the severity of the issue by priority level. This helps you to respond based on urgency.

✅ Timestamp: When did it occur? Include the exact time and date of the event, allowing teams to track trends and correlate with other incidents that might be related.

✅ Triggering threshold: What caused the alert? Include the specific threshold that triggered the alert. For example, “Packet loss over 10% for 5 minutes.” This helps teams understand why the alert was generated.

✅ Recommended actions: What should be done next? Provide actionable next steps or troubleshooting guidance, such as “Restart the affected server” or “Review recent login attempts.” This helps reduce resolution time by giving the team an immediate course of action.

✅ Impact assessment: How will this affect the system or business? Include details about the potential impact if the issue isn’t resolved promptly, such as “May cause service downtime” or “Could result in data breach.”

✅ Associated logs/diagnostics: Include any relevant logs or diagnostic information to assist in troubleshooting. For example, you might attach log files or data points that provide more insight into the event.

✅ Escalation path: Who is responsible? Include contact details or escalation paths for the appropriate team or individual responsible for handling the alert. For example, “Contact Network Team Lead: John Doe ([email protected]).” 

✅ Historical context: Has this happened before? If possible, include information about whether similar alerts have occurred recently, helping your network administrators to recognize recurring issues that may need a long-term solution.

By including these details, your alerts become not only informative but also actionable, reducing time spent investigating and diagnosing the issue. 

4. Automate where possible for better efficiency and effectiveness 

By automating actions in response to specific alerts, your network administrators can focus on more complex, high-priority issues.

Here are a few ways to leverage automation in network management: 

• Automatic remediation: Set up automated responses for common issues, like restarting a server when high CPU usage is detected, to resolve problems without manual intervention.
• Alert escalation: To ensure critical issues are addressed quickly, you can automatically escalate unresolved alerts to higher-level staff if no action is taken within a set timeframe.
• Automated reporting: You can generate reports or summaries for certain types of alerts automatically, providing valuable insights without having to manually pull data every time an alert occurs.

5. Integrate with existing tools for a unified approach

Integrating your network alert management software with existing tools can help you streamline workflows and reduce your time spent on manual tasks. 

For example, you can sync Auvik alerts directly to Microsoft Teams or Slack, ensuring real-time notifications are sent to the right people, improving response times. If you use ServiceNow or Freshdesk, Auvik alerts can automatically create tickets or incidents, and status changes in these systems are synced back to Auvik, ensuring smooth ticket resolution and up-to-date tracking without the need for manual updates. 

These integrations can help centralize your alert management, making network management all the more easy and effective.

How to set up effective network monitoring alerts 

Setting up effective network alerts involves careful planning and configuration to ensure the right issues are flagged at the right time.

Here’s a basic guide to follow:

1. Identify critical devices, systems, and services that need monitoring.
2. Categorize alerts by severity and prioritize those that could impact business operations.
3. Set alert thresholds for each metric to avoid false positives. 
4. Select network monitoring tools that offer customizable alerts, detailed notifications, and easy integration with other IT systems—like Auvik’s Network Management. 
5. Establish escalation rules so issues reach the right people within a set timeframe.
6. Regularly test alerts to verify they work as expected and are reaching the right teams.
7. Document the process including alert configurations, meanings, and responses.
8. Continuously review and adjust your alerts to match changes in your network.

Get started with simple, pre-configured alerts 

Once you have Auvik set up, it immediately starts monitoring your network with more than 50 pre-configured alerts, all designed according to industry best practices. These alerts cover everything from routine updates to critical emergencies. Plus, you have full control—you can adjust the pre-set alerts, create custom ones, and decide how frequently you want to be notified for each type. It’s that simple—but don’t take our word for it. Start your free trial today.