As part of its search engine marketing campaign, top 10 Indian IT company*, 3i Infotech, asked me to write a white paper on wide area network monitoring. Network monitoring has changed significantly since my days as an IT systems manager in healthcare. Back then there was a clear demarcation between network monitoring and management systems. But with today’s more complex networks, the lines have blurred.
Although these systems have evolved, the business challenges remain the same: to provide the organization with the highest network performance and availability possible. The best chance for that is to get network administrators the information they need, when they need it so they can make well-informed and timely (even proactive) decisions.
The paper, Comprehensive Network Monitoring, explains the types of metrics these systems should monitor. It goes on to explain the benefits they can and should deliver. For instance, these systems, at a minimum, should provide high-level views of the entire network with the ability to ‘drill down’ to the real-time status of any device. They should report the status of network services such as email, FTP and access to data resources. They should allow proactive reporting of performance threshold violations via email and SMS alerts to the correct responder. Value adds could be easy installation, scalability to support a growing infrastructure and significant cost savings.
The paper intentionally targets a business audience rather than a technical one. I tried to adhere to white paper best practices by providing useful, objective information in a readable length of 8 to 10 pages. I included several graphics to help explain network architecture and the features a comprehensive monitoring system should include. The paper will appear on the CIO India magazine website.
Comprehensive Network Monitoring (PDF)
*according to Dataquest.
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