What is Network Monitoring? Tools, Strategies, and Benefits Explained

Have you ever faced a situation where a sudden network outage or slowdown impacted your workday, leaving you wondering what could have been done to prevent it? Along with the many frustrations and risks that come with network downtime, this common scenario illustrates the importance of staying one step ahead in managing your network health. But what is network monitoring, and how can it help you address issues before they escalate into major disruptions? 

Let’s explore the different types of networks and devices involved in network monitoring. We’ll cover the key metrics to keep an eye on and how proactive network management can serve as a strategic business advantage. You’ll learn all about network monitoring basics, including: 

• What is network monitoring?
• How network monitoring works
• Network types and devices for monitoring 
• Key metrics for network monitoring
• Types of network protocols
• Common challenges with network monitoring
• Strategic advantages of implementing network monitoring
• Emerging trends in monitoring networks 
• Advanced network monitoring tools

What is network monitoring?

Network monitoring is the practice of continuously observing a computer network to ensure it functions correctly and efficiently. This involves using specialized software and network monitoring tools to track various network components—like servers, routers, switches, and firewalls—for issues that might affect performance or security. These tools help gain visibility across your entire network and identify problems such as congestion, device failures, and unauthorized access attempts, allowing IT pros to maintain network integrity and reliability.

How network monitoring works

Network monitoring operates by deploying software tools that systematically check and record the status of your network elements and traffic. The involves several key steps:

1. Data collection: Network monitoring tools gather data from various devices, including metrics on network traffic, speed, packet loss, response times, and status updates.
2. Analysis: The data is analyzed to identify trends, detect anomalies, and assess the health of your network. This helps you understand how it’s performing under normal conditions and indicates potential issues.
3. Alerting: When the monitoring software detects a potential issue, such as a device failing, traffic overload, or security threat, it triggers alerts. These alerts can be configured according to severity levels and are typically sent to your network administrator via email, SMS, or dashboard notifications.
4. Visualization: Monitoring tools provide dashboards that visually represent the network’s status. This includes real-time charts and graphs of traffic flows, device health, and other critical indicators, making it easier for you to manage network conditions.
5. Reporting: Regular reports are generated to provide insights into network performance over time. These reports are valuable for planning upgrades, compliance auditing, and troubleshooting recurring issues.
6. Automation: Some advanced monitoring tools include automation features that can respond to certain conditions by executing predefined actions, like rerouting traffic or isolating affected network segments.

By tracking these aspects, network monitoring ensures that the network remains operational, efficient, and secure—providing IT professionals with the necessary tools to manage complex IT environments.

Network types and devices for monitoring 

Understanding different network types and devices is key to effectively managing and troubleshooting your network. Here’s a high-level overview of three of the most common types:

Common network types

• Local Area Networks (LAN): A LAN enables designated users to have exclusive access to the same system connection at a common location—always within an area of less than a mile and most often within the same building, like a corporate office.
• Wide Area Networks (WAN): These networks link separate locations, such as your organization’s branch offices, across broader geographic areas. WANs can be basic or hybrid with point-to-point or packet-switched networks over shared circuits.
• Virtual Private Networks (VPN): VPNs extend a private network across a public network, allowing your remote users secure access to internal network resources as though they were directly connected. This limits the risk of having sensitive information stolen or intercepted by offering an encrypted connection while using the Internet. 

For a broader list of common network types and guidance on choosing one, visit our article on types of networks.

Network devices 

• Routers and switches: These devices handle the heavy lifting of routing and switching data around your network. They are monitored to check traffic flow, spot any errors, and make sure the network is running smoothly.
• Servers: Think of servers as the backbone of your applications and services. They’re monitored for how hard the CPU is working, how much memory is being used, disk activity, and how well they’re connecting to the network.
• Firewalls: These are your first line of cyber security defense, blocking unwanted access to your network. Network administrators monitor them to catch any odd traffic patterns or attempted breaches so you can respond proactively and swiftly. 
• Load balancers: Load balancers spread out traffic to your servers evenly, so no single server gets overwhelmed. They are monitored for how well they manage traffic distribution and the health of the servers they direct traffic to.
• Network interfaces: These are the gateways that help your devices talk to the network. Monitoring these involves tracking packet transfer rates, identifying errors, and ensuring they maintain proper status for continuous network connectivity.

Monitoring these network types and devices will provide your IT team with comprehensive visibility into network health, performance, and security.

Key metrics for network monitoring

Effectively monitoring your network means keeping an eye on its health and performance. Here are a few key metrics that help in managing and troubleshooting network operations:

1. Bandwidth usage: This measures the amount of data being transmitted over the network at any given time. High bandwidth usage can indicate heavy traffic or potential bottlenecks.
2. Latency: The time it takes for a packet of data to travel from one point to another in the network. High latency can affect application performance and user experience.
3. Packet loss: This occurs when packets fail to reach their destination, which can degrade network performance and reliability. Monitoring packet loss helps identify problems in network transmission.
4. Error rate: Tracks the number of corrupted packets received as a result of network congestion, hardware faults, or other issues. A high error rate can significantly impact data integrity and network efficiency.
5. Uptime/downtime: This monitors the operational status of your network devices and services, helping to quantify system reliability and availability.
6. Throughput: The rate at which packets are successfully delivered over a network connection, often measured in bits per second (bps). This metric helps assess the actual data transfer rate across your network.

Types of network protocols

Network monitoring doesn’t just rely on tools, but also on network protocols that facilitate communication and data collection. Here are some of the most common: 

• Internet Protocol (IP): IP is critical for routing and addressing, assigning unique IP addresses to devices to ensure data packets are directed correctly across networks.
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP): TCP ensures reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of data between applications on different networked devices. It’s vital for establishing stable connections and accurate data transfer.
• User Datagram Protocol (UDP): Unlike TCP, UDP is used for quick data transmission where speed is prioritized over reliability. It’s useful for applications like video streaming or gaming where occasional data loss is acceptable.
• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP): SNMP is essential for network management, allowing your network admins to collect and organize information about network devices and to control their configurations remotely.
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP): SMTP is key for sending emails, and HTTP is indispensable for transferring hypertext in web communications—making both crucial to everyday network operations.
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS): HTTPS extends HTTP with security capabilities, ensuring encrypted communications and secure identification of the network server.

The protocols mentioned here are some of the most common for effective network monitoring. However, there are other protocols used in specific contexts or for specialized tasks in network management—and as an IT pro, it’s important to understand them all.

Common challenges with network monitoring

While network monitoring is essential for maintaining system health and security, it comes with its own set of challenges. Some of these include:

• Scalability: As your network grows in size and complexity, scaling monitoring solutions to keep up can be difficult. Ensuring comprehensive coverage across all devices and traffic without overwhelming the network performance is a common challenge.
• Data overload: Monitoring tools can generate a vast amount of data, making it challenging to distinguish critical alerts from normal fluctuations. This can lead to information overload, where important issues are missed in all the noise.
• Integration issues: Networks often involve a mix of old and new technologies, which can be hard to integrate smoothly. Ensuring that monitoring tools work well with all components of your network environment is important, but often problematic.
• Security concerns: With cyber threats constantly on the rise, monitoring for security has become more complex. Networks need constant updates and adjustments to monitoring strategies to guard against evolving threats effectively.
• Technical expertise: Effective network monitoring requires a high level of technical skill and knowledge. The shortage of skilled professionals can make it difficult to manage and respond to monitoring insights adequately.

Addressing these issues head on can help ensure your network monitoring efforts are both effective and efficient.

Strategic advantages of implementing network monitoring

Implementing network monitoring is not just about troubleshooting—it offers significant strategic advantages that can elevate your organization’s operational efficiency and overall security. Here’s how. 

• Proactive problem resolution: Network monitoring allows IT teams to identify and resolve issues before they escalate into serious problems. This minimizes downtime and ensures your business operations run smoothly without interruption.
• Enhanced security posture: Regular monitoring helps detect and mitigate security threats early. By keeping a constant watch on network traffic and behavior, you can respond swiftly to potential security breaches.
• Optimized network performance: With continuous monitoring, networks can be fine-tuned for optimal performance. Addressing bottlenecks or inefficient routes improves the speed and reliability of your network and makes for happy users.
• Cost efficiency: By reducing downtime and extending the lifespan of network equipment through regular maintenance and updates, network monitoring can lead to significant cost savings. It helps avoid expensive emergency repairs and replacements.
• Compliance and reporting: Many industries have regulatory requirements that include strict network monitoring protocols. Implementing these systems ensures compliance with legal standards, helping you avoid fines and enhance corporate governance.
• Better strategic planning: Data collected from network monitoring can be used to inform strategic decisions about IT investments and innovations. Understanding network usage and needs can guide future technology deployments and capacity planning.

Emerging trends in monitoring networks 

As network technologies evolve, so do the approaches to monitoring them. Here’s what’s currently changing the world of network monitoring.

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

AI and ML are revolutionizing network monitoring by automating complex processes and predicting potential issues before they arise. These technologies could enable faster, more proactive network management, reducing the workload for IT teams.

2. Increased focus on security

With more cyber threats targeting network infrastructure, network monitoring tools are increasingly incorporating advanced security features like intrusion detection and prevention systems. This integration allows for real-time security analysis and quicker threat response, enhancing your overall network protection.

3. Cloud-based network monitoring

The shift to cloud services has boosted the demand for cloud-based monitoring solutions. These tools offer the scalability and flexibility needed to monitor distributed networks from anywhere, providing a unified platform for seamless management across various environments.

As AI and cloud services continue to evolve, embracing these technologies will be key for IT pros who want to stay ahead in network management.

Advanced network monitoring tools

Using an advanced network monitoring system will enhance your ability to manage and optimize your network—saving your IT team time and money. Auvik’s cloud-based network management system can help you do just that, by allowing you to:  

Visualize your network: Within minutes of deployment, Auvik discovers and maps all the devices on your network. These real-time, automatically updating maps provide superior visibility, allowing you to quickly navigate and gain true control over your network infrastructure.

Troubleshoot easier: Auvik makes it simpler to identify and resolve network issues with over 50 out-of-the-box alerts. This gives you detailed visibility into the specific device or port causing an issue, enabling you to find and fix problems faster. 

Increase efficiency: With Auvik, you can centralize network documentation and streamline the maintenance of network compliance. This avoids the tedious and time-consuming cycles that plague IT teams, enhancing your overall operational efficiency.

Gain more value: By improving the efficiency of daily network operations and troubleshooting, Auvik frees up your IT team’s time to focus on more strategic initiatives. 

Improve your network health with Auvik 

By integrating Auvik’s advanced network monitoring tools into your IT toolkit, you’ll position your network for optimal performance, security, and growth. Whether you’re dealing with routine maintenance or unexpected issues, Auvik provides the insights and control necessary to manage your network effectively. Interested in learning more? Schedule your demo today.