Manage It Right With Network Performance Monitoring

"We would like except mozzarella sticks as an appetizer and baked chicken with rice for dinner," said Mr. and Mrs. Jensen when they entered their favorite restaurant - The Turnip. On their wedding anniversary, Rob, their server for the evening, greeted them, noted their order and quickly headed to the kitchen. After listening to the order, the head chef distributed the tasks among junior chefs and supervised them.

The meat should be precisely cooked at a specific temperature and the presentation should be ravishing. He monitored the preparation process and ensured that the spice quotient was accurate. After Rob had served the food, Mr. and Mrs. Jensen noted the flavors and the lovely presentation. They praised the head chef and enjoyed their anniversary dinner night together!

What did you witness here? The head chef made the couple's day by acting as a link between all the junior chefs and kitchen staff to identify potential issues while preparing and presenting the food. This is what Network Performance Monitoring does; it observes and optimizes the process so that it maximizes the throughput, service quality and improves customer experience.

If you want to know how your network is performing, you need to monitor it (duh!). So, without further ado, read on to learn all about Network Performance Monitoring in this handy guide.
 

What Is Network Performance Monitoring?

Before heading straight to Network Performance Monitoring (NPM), let's first know what network performance is. Network performance is an essential measure of how well your network assets are doing. Monitoring the network performance will ensure that your infrastructure is capable of supporting applications, data and users. Network Performance Monitoring provides you with the insights you need to identify, diagnose and troubleshoot problems in real time. You can also use this information to set service-level agreements for your organizational network. 

Just as a head chef needs to keep an eye on every activity in the kitchen to maintain the quality, taste and presentation of food to keep customers happy, businesses need NPM. By monitoring the activities in the kitchen, the head chef can identify the issues related to food and resolve them in time for an enhanced customer experience. Similarly, Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) manages links between devices, workstations, servers, virtual devices and mobile devices to identify congestion, maximize throughput and improve network performance and service quality for the end user.

With Network Performance Monitoring, analysts can gather network data, measure and monitor network performance variables, perform a network performance assessment and diagnose network performance issues – all in one place! 

Yet, the big question is, where did it all start? Let’s see!
 

A Brief History Of Network Performance Monitoring

With the advent of the internet in the 1980s, people were in dire need of better network management and monitoring technology to track the performance of their networks. With additional hardware and software assets, there was a demand for a more smooth and more successful network environment. In 1988, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) became the new standard based on the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force. It was a way of carrying network management information between devices. SNMP is popular even today and most network components and network monitoring software have built-in SNMP capabilities.

The 90s saw the development of many network monitoring tools such as nmon, Big Brother and WS Ping. All these tools used SNMP as a primary method for network monitoring. These tools could track the performance of the network hardware and resources, as well as the performance of multiple physical communication interfaces.

By the beginning of the 21st century, software technology became the new norm. Monitoring the performance of networks became more critical to the success of businesses than ever before. As the network became complex, so did the monitoring systems. Today, 93 percent of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy while 87 percent have a hybrid cloud strategy, indicating that the corporate firewall can no longer monitor the network. Hence, businesses needed NPM tools to ensure they covered the entire network and its assets.

You must be wondering how Network Performance Monitoring works. Well, the next section will give you the answer!
   

This Is How Network Performance Monitoring Works!

 
The head chef of The Turnip is busy preparing exquisite cuisine for its special guests tonight. He is collecting all the information related to their taste preference as well as more information related to their food preferences, food allergies, etc. He is also allotting tasks to his junior chefs so that no guest remains unattended. What professionalism!

In a similar fashion, Network Performance Monitoring works by collecting relevant information first. NPM collects data about network traffic as it flows across an IT ecosystem. The data includes network-related performance metrics such as bandwidth, volume and throughput. In addition, NPM allows real-time monitoring of data by analyzing traffic patterns or metrics across different subnets, VPNs, cloud regions and other network segments within an IT ecosystem.

By keeping track of all this information, NPM allows network teams to find and investigate networking issues that could cause poor performance or networks to become unavailable or slow to respond. It is also important as it helps network engineers determine whether the root cause of the performance issue lies in the network, application or host infrastructure.

The next big question is the importance of Network Performance Monitoring. Here’s all you need to know!
 

Let's Know The Importance of Network Performance Monitoring!

One of the guests at The Turnip is upset. He had ordered a sandwich and had instructed adamantly not to add mushrooms to the sandwich as he is allergic. Rob, the same server, specified this to the head chef. As the head chef was busy preparing an exquisite dinner for the wedding anniversary couple, he didn't monitor the prepared sandwich before handing it to the customer. This minor negligence by the junior chef was frustrating for the head chef as it came at a high cost to the restaurant’s reputation.

Similarly, network outages and performance issues can be frustrating and costly for the company. No matter the size of the business, a majority of the functions are carried over a network. Network Performance Monitoring is vital to businesses as it is a source that is relied on to satisfy employee and customer demands, both on and off premises. NPM provides proactive benefits for enterprises and network administrators by preventing such outages from happening and arms them with the right information to resolve network outages if they occur.

After knowing the importance of Network Performance Monitoring, let's unleash its benefits.
 

A Sneak Peek At The Benefits Of Network Performance Monitoring

Have you ever wondered what are the benefits of Network Performance Monitoring? The ultimate rule is that when your network is running well, your business can run well. To do that, NPM introduces benefits that are mentioned below:
 

• Predict, Prevent And Resolve Network Issues

  NPM keeps you updated about the performance of your network. This will help you to create a baseline to measure the day-to-day network performance. When there is any deviation from the baseline metrics, you can predict something is wrong and needs to be resolved. You can also predict with NPM when an issue might occur.

• Baseline Metrics To Identify Security threats

  NPM provides you with the visibility to create a security benchmark metric for your network. This makes it easier for you to identify any spikes or irregular patterns that indicate a network security breach. The more quickly you identify the anomalies, the more secure you can make your network.

• Optimize Network Load

  NPM helps you to understand the source of problems so that you can effectively allocate resources to ensure that your business stays ahead of the network load and outages. With NPM, you can avoid interruptions and reduce troubleshooting time so there’s high reliability.

• Prevent And Reduce Downtime

  We know a 100% guarantee of service uptime seems unrealistic, however, with NPM you can predict unexpected network outages. NPM helps in detecting faults, minimizing downtimes as well as avoiding failures by gaining historic insights into how equipment performs over time using analysis. It can also determine if there is a need for technological advancement and system upgrades by monitoring critical metrics.

• Bandwidth Analysis

  Most IT administrators are worried about changing/ upgrading IT environments and the increased bandwidth usage because of the growing usage and workforce. NPM avoids performance bottlenecks, minimizes connectivity issues and even visualizes devices over-utilizing the bandwidth. NPM ensures the quality of service across the network and allocates bandwidth for business-critical traffic. It also facilitates the optimum use of available assets.

The next question that pops up is - what's the future of Network Performance Monitoring? To know about it, read on!
 

What's Next: The Future Of Network Performance Monitoring

In a time when bandwidth speeds are soaring and networks are more virtualized and complex, getting a clear picture of your network problem is like expecting a delicious dish within just five minutes of your ordering it. Not so easy, right? That is why the future of NPM depends on scaling the monitoring and analytics aspects of the tools.

You heard it right, the future of NPM will be tools that will address end-to-end network visibility. These tools would monitor activity between devices with heterogeneous network detection and flag performance issues before they lead to service disruptions. These will be infused with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms to detect deviations from normal usage much faster than before. Moreover, AI will help give recommendations to users about possible resolutions to network outages and bandwidth issues. As most businesses are investing in virtualized technologies for networks, such as Network Function Virtualization, we expect tools to provide a complete gamut of monitoring features for virtual networks soon!
 

Wrap Up

Countless new technologies are evolving how network operations are run, accessed, transmitted and stored. This evolution is ongoing with the Cloud, Internet of Things, edge computing and machine learning - the new-age advancements that are inevitable. Amid all these changing trends, network insight and continuity depend not only on your ability to gain analytics and insight into what's happening within your entire network infrastructure but also on how rapidly and efficiently you can trace it. Hence, NPM will give your business network an edge with 24x7 uptime!