When we log on at work, most if not of us get some sort of message that logging on connotes acknowledgment to monitoring and that there is no implied privacy to what you’re doing when logged onto corporate IT assets.
Monitoring is a way of life at work. It is part of information security, management oversight, and ensuring systems are running effectively (and preventing a severe network outage).
Kenneth Klapproth in DM Review, 22 February 2008 reports that network management tools are able to collect date “across the shared network to present real-time and historical availability, performance, and configuration statistics on individual services and applications.”
Cross platform monitoring and event management and resolution are important to maintaining the availability of today’s complex networks that are vital for corporate communications (voice, data, and video).
- ALERTS: Monitoring not only alerts IT personnel to when networks falter, but can also be set to provide alerts when certain fault tolerances are reached, so that IT personnel can take action before the network is brought down.
- CAPACITY: Network monitoring identifies not only when the network becomes overloaded, but also when there is excess capability that can be more optimally used.
- TRENDING: Performance is not monitored as snapshots in time, but also can provide historical trending that can provide valuable information based on usage patterns.
- VISUAL REPORTING: “Dashboard and web displays deliver visually compelling and graphically concise reports [of key network and capacity utilization trends] that enable organizations to make the right decisions faster and with more confidence.”
- QUALITY OF SERVICE: QoS is improved with monitoring. “Managers can see the current and historical use and performance of network resources, monitor and report on congestion, correlate QoS configuration with network performance, and use the information to improve traffic and service delivery.”
Additionally, many network monitoring tools have the ability for other key management features including self-discovery and healing. These features include: IT asset management, remote control, problem resolution, operating system set-up and configuration, software distribution, license monitoring, back-up and recovery, security, and lights-out management.
While network monitoring and management are more operationally focused, they are critical from an enterprise architecture perspective to ensure the delivery of core IT functionality for the enterprise: namely, a robust, sound, secure, cost-effective, state-of-the-art IT infrastructure upon which information can be delivered to the right people, anytime, anywhere.
Network management tools can also be helpful in building the enterprise architecture because of their asset discovery feature. With the ability to spider out over the network and touch anything with an IP address, these tools can help identify key enterprise architecture assets in order to establish the baseline and plan for future targets.