Network monitoring is an absolute business essential, especially since most of the business processes, communication and data are shared online. In the past few years, hackers targeted plenty of businesses (especially the small and medium sized ones).
Just because they do not have any network monitoring processes and technologies in place, they become the targets for network intrusions. For small businesses, as well as the larger ones, network security is paramount (and for that, network monitoring is crucial).
Still not convinced? Here's why you need to monitor your network:
You will know what is happening
Your business cannot work without the Internet. So if your network is faulty or its 'plumbing' is not correct, you will lose network connectivity. When you monitor your networks closely, you will find out about all the devices and resources on the network. If you have not been monitoring your network, you have to wait for something to break down before you can fix it and get back to work - wasting precious time and resources.
You can easily plan for changes
Technology keeps changing. The machines you were using a decade ago are no longer in use. If your bandwidth is low, or if your server is not performing at its optimum efficiency, it is time to upgrade them and get yourself the technology to maximize your business' efficiency.
Keep your network secure
You spend a lot of money on network security. However, if you are not monitoring your business, there is no way for you to know whether your network is actually secure or not. Security systems may always have soft spots that hackers keep trying to locate. With the right kind of network monitoring, you will be notified if any intrusion attempts are made. When you get such alerts, you can quickly remedy the situation by sealing those soft spots or increasing the security on your network.
Ensure customer uptime
A lot of customers access your network to pursue business with you. With regular network monitoring, you ensure that your customers always experience up time and that they never have to go empty handed. If you know of a problem, you can fix it before your customer faces it too. This way, you never lose face in front of your customer and business carries on as it was intended to be.
Save costs
Overall, rigorous network monitoring allows you to detect network and connectivity snags before they occur. This cuts down on the total down time of your network. You would not have to take any more time to investigate problems and when problems do occur, you spend less money and less time correcting them.
Monitoring your network is not all that simple. Apart from setting up monitoring systems, you also have to set up a baseline that helps you monitor the performance of your network. Despite this, networking monitoring continues to be important. If you haven't yet thought about instituting monitoring for your network, it is time you began thinking of it.