1. What is Network Monitoring?
Network monitoring is a continuous IT process that consists of analyzing in real time the health status of an infrastructure. Unlike manual checks, it is an automated system that examines every component (hardware, traffic, applications) to ensure that everything is operating optimally.
In short, it is the nervous system of your infrastructure: it detects the slightest anomaly and sends an alert before the situation becomes critical.
2. Why is it essential?
Moving from reactive management (“we fix it when it breaks”) to proactive management offers several strategic advantages:
– Reduced downtime: Detecting a failure (e.g., an overheating switch) before it stops production.
– Performance optimization: Precisely identifying why the network is slow (latency, congestion) in order to improve the user experience.
– Enhanced security: Detecting abnormal behavior, such as data exfiltration or intrusion attempts, through unusual traffic spikes.
– Capacity planning: Anticipating future needs by analyzing historical bandwidth usage.
– Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance: Ensuring that your providers (internet, cloud) deliver the bandwidth and availability promised in contracts.
3. How it works: Indicators and Protocols
To monitor effectively, network monitoring relies on precise indicators and standardized data collection methods.
Data collection methods
– SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol): The universal language that allows devices (switches, servers) to report their status to a central console.
– Flow Analysis (NetFlow/sFlow): Makes it possible to see “who does what” on the network (e.g., which user consumes the most bandwidth).
– Packet Sniffing: A deep inspection of data content to troubleshoot the most complex issues.
4. Market Tools
Depending on your needs, several solutions are available:
– Open Source Solutions: Zabbix (powerful and free), Nagios (well-established), LibreNMS (simple and visual).
– Professional Solutions: PRTG (very intuitive), SolarWinds (for large infrastructures), Datadog (cloud-oriented).
(www.crowdstrike.com)
(www.fortinet.com)
(www.cnil.fr)
(gemini.google.com)