7 Common Pitfalls in Network Availability and Performance Monitoring
Any organization that depends on IT to run their business knows that network management is a crucial part of IT administration. Continuous network availability is considered the most important aspect of a successful business operation, irrespective of the company’s size. It’s a common practice to implement network monitoring tools to maintain and troubleshoot network issues. When enterprises invest significant time, money, and effort in deploying network management tools, they expect to benefit from their ROI faster. But the reality is, not all implementations work. IT pros often struggle with managing the tool, which in turn has a huge impact on network availability and performance.
This blog explores more about the common pitfalls in network availability and performance monitoring. It discusses why tools that are implemented fail to fulfill the needs of network administrators and their growing environment.
#1 Ambiguous Network Management Needs – When you buy a network monitoring tool, you are responsible for examining your enterprise’s needs and defining your requirements. Most times, the reason implementations fail is administrators don’t fully understanding the organization’s networking needs enough to find a suitable solution that matches their requirements.
#2 Implementing Complex Network Management Tools – A network availability and performance monitoring solution must eradicate the existing tedious processes. If administrators implement a complex solution on top of their unstructured processes, it makes troubleshooting and managing their network more difficult. This is one of the most common pitfalls and enterprises often resort to an expensive, time consuming approach to troubleshooting rather than employing simple and easy-to-use tools.
#3 Fragmented Network Monitoring Solutions – Managing disparate systems in your IT is never the best approach. Fragmented solutions create the majority of the network performance problems that are usually resolved in a war room environment. This approach is avoidable. Choosing an integrated solution can be an optimal approach for large network environments.
#4 Too many resources required to manage the tool – If your network management tool requires too many IT pros to manage, they are likely performing the complex and frustrating task of being an interface between the disparate network monitoring systems as opposed to having a single tool that automates many of the processes.
#5 Unused features in your tool – Another common pitfall in network availability and performance monitoring is having unused features in your tool and paying a hefty maintenance fee every year. Most times, network engineers avoid using that kind of tool because it is complex or they have found another tool that gets the job done faster and easier.
#6 Scalability – When implementing a network monitoring tool, always consider the future growth of the business. Companies often implement solutions that don’t scale enough to support the company’s large number of transactions. Consequently, as your network grows, your administrators are forced to perform many tasks with the tool’s limited resources and capabilities.
#7 Unfocused IT processes can affect your core business – Implementing a network availability solution that doesn’t focus on business transactions will fail to provide business managers with insight into their operations. The best approach is to deploy the tool in a preproduction environment to validate the benefits realized from the tool.
You can learn more about the importance of network availability and performance monitoring here.
