As enterprises move more and more to the digital, it is critical to evaluate and modernize not only your network, but also how your enterprise will scale to meet demand. How can you tell that your network is benefiting and assisting your long- and short-term business objectives? After all, the NPM solution should be able to collect and analyze multiple types of metrics and data and present that analysis via reports, dashboards, and well-defined workflows. But how else can network monitoring solutions help your business create a better network?
Business Use Cases for Network Monitoring
The modern business can’t survive without a functional, high-performing network. From a base technical standpoint, monitoring allows network admins to know what is going on in their network, be it with their WAN, LAN, VoIP, MPLS, and other connections or the state of various network elements or nodes.
However, many may overlook or be completely unaware of the business benefits that can be leveraged from a comprehensive enterprise network monitoring solution. Whether you’re enabling NetOps professionals with the tools they need to free up their time or if your network simply is less prone to constant downtime; an all-inclusive NPM is key to executing critical business objectives.
An optimized network does more than reduce cost to your bottom line. An NPM that provides IT professionals with clear and comprehensive visibility can greatly reduce MTTR as well – which in turn is a cost-saver! When properly alerted, which every NPM should have robust alerting systems, an engineer can quickly see that there is an issue mounting within the network. This means there is less time spent identifying and troubleshooting the problem, which will also free up additional time for your IT staff who can focus on other matters that can benefit the business, such as driving change initiatives or future-proofing the network.
Preventing Network Downtime
Network failures and outages, called network downtime, can cost companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, lost productivity, and recovery costs. On top of these costs, downtime can be frustrating for your business and its employees, particularly for the IT department. A key function of network monitoring is observing real-time network traffic for any indications of an impending failure of a device or network. Through active monitoring, your business can preemptively act and mitigate any unexpected downtime, which will save many people a lot of headaches at the minimum.
Tool Consolidation
Network operations teams often use upwards of four or five tools for network monitoring and troubleshooting. Tool consolidation will ensure that network managers can collect and analyze the broadest set of metrics and data possible in a unified, multifunction NPM platform. An added benefit of utilizing an NPM that acts as a single source of truth is the reduced cost and management of disparate tools. Not only will you reduce cost by eliminating multiple vendors, but you’ll be freeing up your NetOps teams to work on other projects that can benefit the business.
Cut Down on Operational Costs
There are several ways that an enterprise can reduce operational costs, while still striving for overall IT operational efficiency. As we previously discussed, reducing network downtime can be incredibly costly, and thus being armed with the right tools to foresee and prevent it is paramount to reduce cost. Additionally, costly single-use case tools are additional spends that typically create more problems than they are worth. Causing unnecessary confusion and time spent between screens for IT staff.
Additionally, utilizing an NPM that is able to automate processes such as reporting, which can be an aggravating time-suck for many, event management, and alerts can provide a huge benefit to an enterprise.
What’s in Your Network?
To deliver maximum value and easily support future initiatives, organizations must ensure the network meets business objectives, full network and application visibility for better decisions, and reduce cost to operate the network operation.
Interested in learning more about what criteria every network performance management solution must have to stay ahead of the curve? Check out this exclusive NPM Buyer’s Guide! The guide contains profiles on the top NPM Vendors on the market today and scores them against five key criteria that is absolutely necessary for every modern digital business.
