The Key to a Healthy Network: Network Monitoring

Published on: September 15, 2023

.

24 min read

.

For German Version

It is crucial to make sure your company's network operates at peak efficiency for remote or hybrid workers as more and more companies adopt remote or hybrid work models. To make sure your network is secure enough for employees to access confidential company information and does not have performance issues, remote network monitoring is essential.

A network is continuously analyzed through network monitoring in order to identify and address any performance problems. Network statistics are gathered as part of network monitoring in order to assess the caliber of services being provided by the network. Your network is always being monitored and reviewed, and this includes hardware and software components including routers, firewalls, switches, servers, and WiFi.

The way we operate has changed significantly, and this has had a big impact on network monitoring and enterprise cybersecurity. A functioning network is the foundation of any company, and through ongoing monitoring, a network should guarantee dependability, the highest level of employee performance, and strong security.

Network monitoring lets you prevent outages on your network and handle problems well before they affect end users. Any firm depends on its network, so a robust network translates to greater dependability. It aids in network surveillance, statistical analysis, and data transformation into data suitable for business use.

You may find answers to the following issues as well as thorough information about network monitoring, which is crucial, in this article.

• What exactly is network monitoring, and why is it necessary?
• How does network monitoring work?
  • How do I monitor a home network?
  • How do I monitor a wireless network?
  • How do I monitor a VoIP network?
  • How do I monitor a VPN network?
• What are the different types of network monitoring?
• What are the key network monitoring tools?
• How to choose a network monitoring tool?
• What protocols are used for network monitoring?
• What are the benefits and challenges of network monitoring?
• What are the primary use cases for network monitoring?
• What distinguishes network security monitoring from regular network monitoring?
• How does Zenarmor help monitor your network security?

What is Network Monitoring, and Why is it Necessary?

All networking components, including network access, virtual machines, routers, servers, network devices, and switches, as well as crucial performance indicators such as CPU utilization and network bandwidth, are monitored for bottlenecks and performance as part of the crucial IT process known as network monitoring. All of the networking components must be assessed in real time in order to maintain and maximize availability. Network monitoring software helps ensure visibility across your whole network. Because network monitoring gives network administrators the data they require to assess a network's performance in real-time, Administrators proactively uncover flaws, maximize productivity, and more with solutions like networking monitoring software.

Network monitoring is crucial for security, problem-solving, and time and money savings. By keeping an eye on the network for any problems, it will assist in keeping your information secure. Tools for network monitoring will contain troubleshooting features.

Network monitoring software can evaluate performance in real time, so if a failure or problem is found, you may be notified right away via tools like email. Anywhere you may be, you can be alerted to network issues thanks to this quick information transfer, which enables you to take immediate corrective action and reduce potential downtime.

Furthermore, network monitoring software does away with the requirement for a physical system administrator and manual audits. This might save your business time and money, ensuring that the issue is resolved successfully. With the use of this technology, you will be able to see the changes coming and prepare accordingly.

The reports produced by network monitoring are yet another significant advantage. With the aid of these reports, you may spot patterns and trends in system performance as well as the necessity of upgrades or replacements. Baselines for performance can be simply set.

Here are a few reasons why network monitoring is so crucial:

• To enhance the availability and performance of the network
• Remain informed
• Determine problems
• Report problems
• Do not require manual checking
• Proactive strategy
• Follow trends
• Benchmark data for availability and performance

How Does Network Monitoring Work?

A network's endpoints, such as servers and workstations, as well as routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, and other devices, are all included in the data that network monitoring gathers and reports on. The main reason for filtering and reviewing the collected information is to detect various network problems. These network issues could involve any of the following:

• Application response time
• Device failures
• Link failures
• Interface issues
• Configuration changes

Network monitoring comes in a variety of forms. For example, testing a web server involves sending an HTTP request and recording the time it takes for the page to load when visiting a particular website. Email network monitoring might involve sending test emails and tracking the response time.

The first thing to do is define the devices, network connections, and associated performance indicators. The organization then decides how often to check on each function. For instance, client laptops and printers can have far longer monitoring intervals than the routers, switches, and servers that make up the network backbone since they are not "network critical".

If the results don't meet predetermined thresholds once this data has been gathered, the network monitoring software notifies users. These acceptable performance criteria are typically set by network administrators, who instruct the network software to issue an alarm in the event that data reveals slow throughput, high error rates, unavailable devices, or slow reaction times.

One of two things could happen as soon as the warning is received. In the case of a manual system, the network administrator will review the information and correct the issue on their own. However, a growing number of network monitoring solutions have some degree of automation. In certain situations, network monitoring software may automatically correct low-level mistakes while alerting the network administrator to high-level issues.

What are the Methods Used for Network Monitoring?

Various techniques are used in network monitoring to check the network's operation and availability. The following is a summary of some of the more popular generic strategies used to gather data for monitoring software:

1. Ping: One of the simplest methods used by monitoring software to test hosts on a network is the ping. The monitoring system broadcasts a signal and logs information about the signal, including whether it was received, how long it took the host to receive it, whether any signal data was lost, and other details. The information obtained from the data is then utilized to ascertain the host's status, efficiency, transmission time, packet loss suffered when talking with the host, and other details.
2. SNMP: Through monitoring software, the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) keeps track of specific devices on a network. Each monitored device in this system has monitoring software installed that communicates data about the device's functionality to a centralized SNMP manager. The manager compiles this data into a database and checks it for mistakes. The majority of contemporary network management solutions employ this protocol.
3. Syslog: Syslog is an automated messaging platform that broadcasts messages whenever a network device is impacted by an event. Devices can be configured by technicians to deliver notifications when they encounter errors, unexpected shutdowns, configuration failures, and other events. These messages frequently include data that can be used for security systems as well as system management.
4. Scripts: Scripts can be used to fill up minor gaps in networks where network monitoring software capabilities are lacking. Scripts are straightforward programs that gather fundamental data and tell the network what to do under specific circumstances. An everyday illustration would be a scheduled task like nightly computer resets and configurations. Scripts can be employed to gather information for network monitoring.

How Do I Monitor a Home Network?

The approach you select will depend on the size and complexity of your network. There are numerous ways to monitor network data utilization. If your network is small, you can keep an eye on your traffic using a free program like PRTG Network Monitor. A simple-to-use program called PRTG tracks all incoming and outgoing network traffic on business networks.

For larger networks, you might want a more complex solution like SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. With the help of SolarWinds NPM, you can see all the devices on your network that are contributing the most traffic and the locations of any bottlenecks.

Altering the DNS settings on your router to direct traffic to a content filter is another way to keep track of the websites people are visiting while using your WiFi. If you are using a Linux router, like Ubuntu, or a BSD-based routing platform like OPNsense or pfSense software, you may install Zenarmor on top of it and start to collect network traffic for analysis and home network security. This is the most thorough method since you can see the web traffic of any device connected to your home internet.

How do I Monitor a Wireless Network?

Since wireless networks lack physical interfaces, it is crucial to monitor them to make sure that there are no failures or downtimes. Nowadays, the majority of employees in enterprises carry out daily tasks using wireless networks (such as WiFi, VPN, etc.). Therefore, maintaining business continuity requires preventing downtime on wireless networks.

Typically, there are more wireless devices than wired devices in a network. As a result, it's crucial for a wireless network monitor to make sure the network does not have an unforeseen outage.

A wired or wireless network can be monitored using one of three main techniques.

• Checking Logs: Checking the wireless router logs or the logs of the main switches in a large company is the simplest way to monitor your wireless network (WLAN) or LAN. This can be used to reveal who is currently connected to a network and is not protected by firewalls.

• Monitoring Programs: Using network monitoring software is the next easiest method for keeping an eye on your network. Programs essentially supply the same data as a Wireless Router log file or a list of Mac addresses for a central switch. They offer a single snapshot of which devices and maybe ports are in use at the moment the application is executed and are typically simpler to use than digging through various log files.

  Software for real-time network monitoring is sometimes known as point-in-time network monitoring software. In essence, software like Who's On My WiFi extracts the same Network Snapshot data that Network Monitoring Software provides, automates the process, and then stores the data in a database for real-time analysis, later analysis, or other specific functions.

How Do I Monitor a VoIP Network?

VoIP systems, manage, monitor, track, and report on voice and data exchanges over the Internet. To address potential problems, it is referred to as broadband phone service, internet telephony, IP technology, and broadband telephony.

The system, however, demands high-maintenance networking and is unable to tolerate performance issues that cause packet loss, latency and bufferbloat. Working on choppy audio is crucial because poor performance potentially affects the voice or audio quality.

VoIP technology has many advantages, including the capacity to place calls and affordability. It is common in call-quality-unconcerned telemarketing, customer service, and tech support teams. Phones, tablets, and other data-driven gadgets can make calls with ease.

However, in some departments, poor call quality is a problem, making VoIP monitoring solutions with additional elements like VoIP traffic monitoring, VoIP troubleshooting tools, and VoIP traffic analyzers necessary.

Applications for VoIP include WhatsApp, Google Voice, Google Group Chat, and more. By using packet-switched protocols, the technology enables traditional telephony services to function on networks. With the aid of voice signals delivered to the compatible network, it assists in obtaining individual packets.

In the ever-changing marketplace, one needs to locate the appropriate VoIP monitoring solution. There are several choices, including closed-source, open-source, cost-free, and enterprise-level solutions.

The best VoIP monitoring tools are listed below for your consideration.

• SolarWinds VoIP: VoIP and network quality manager from SolarWinds VoIP analysis and monitoring tools in one complete bundle.
• Site24x7 VoIP Surveillance: This cloud-based tool assesses the effectiveness of VoIP traffic delivery as part of an application performance monitor.
• ThousandEyes: VoIP surveillance tools from ThousandEyes with functionality for testing connections and simulating calls
• ExtraHop: A VoIP monitoring tool that keeps track of real-time call statuses and compiles statistics on network call performance
• Dotcom-monitor Server Observation: This software, which focuses on server performance, also keeps track of applications like VoIP protocols.
• PRTG Network Monitor: PRTG Network Monitor by Paessler is a system for monitoring infrastructure that is excellent for managing VoIP since it keeps an eye on network, server, and application performance. able to identify any resource issues that would degrade VoIP quality
• Riverbed UCExpert: VoIP data collection and status monitoring are both included in the Riverbed UCExpert Network monitoring system.
• VoIP Spear: A specialized VoIP monitor that performs status checks and grades calls' quality
• Colasoft Capsa Network Monitor: VoIP analysis is a feature of the Colasoft Capsa Network Monitor. There are both free and paid versions of this item.
• VoIPmonitor: VoIPmonitor is a VoIP monitor with live monitoring and analysis modules that is open-source and free.

How Do I Monitor a VPN Network?

To detect whether a VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnel is accessible, VPN monitoring uses Internet Control Message Protocol echo requests or pings. Pings are typically delivered across the VPN tunnel to a peer gateway or a specified location at the other end of the tunnel during normal operation. For a certain number of attempts, pings can be issued at predetermined 10-second intervals. After a predetermined number of ping tries, if there is no response, the VPN is considered to be down, and security protocols like IPsec are cleared. To track endpoint IP addresses via a VPN tunnel, the VPN monitoring device must be configured using the VPN-monitor option. Only when there is outgoing traffic and no incoming traffic passing over the VPN connection are pings transmitted. If the VPN tunnel detects incoming traffic, it is considered to be functioning.

Additionally, VPN monitoring employs SNMP. Switches, routers, and firewalls, for example, should all have built-in and user-configurable SNMP sensors that can track VPN traffic, users, and connections. When system monitors identify various types of occurrences, such as the ones listed below, a VPN failure warning will go off.

• A failed authentication. When a certain number of packet authentication failures are reached, this happens.
• Failures in encryption and decryption. When the number of encryption or decryption failures reaches a certain threshold, this happens.
• Self-testing has gone wrong. Self-tests ensure that security software is properly implemented when a device turns on. A self-test failure can trigger an alarm from the monitoring system.
• Attack against the IDP flow policy. Network traffic is subject to attack detection and prevention measures that are enforced by an intrusion detection and prevention (IDP) policy. Configure the system to sound a warning whenever the IDP flow policy is violated.
• Repeated assault. A legitimate data transmission that is intentionally or fraudulently repeated or delayed is known as a replay attack. Configure the monitor to sound an alarm during a replay assault.

VPN-related alarms are logged, but alarms are only set off when predetermined thresholds are met or exceeded. Teams can silence the warnings once they have fixed the problems.

What are the Different Types of Network Monitoring?

Depending on the testing platform and objectives, network monitoring can take many different forms. The accompanying teams' administrative and support workload has been lessened thanks to several breakthroughs in network monitoring. Numerous human procedures have been replaced with AI and machine learning tools, which have greatly accelerated the overall trajectory.

Depending on the specifics that need to be monitored, there are many forms of network monitoring, including fault monitoring, log monitoring, monitoring of performance, configuration monitoring, cloud infrastructure monitoring, and availability monitoring.

1. Performance Monitoring: Similar to availability monitoring, performance monitoring likewise emphasizes the end-user experience and provided performance. The use of the network, choosing inefficient paths, and latency are given more attention. SNMP, Syslog, flow-based monitoring, streaming telemetry, and packet analysis are a few examples of performance monitoring technologies.

   In order to improve the end-user experience, network performance monitoring (NPM) keeps track of monitoring metrics like latency, network traffic, bandwidth utilization, and throughput. NPM tools offer useful data that can be utilized to reduce downtime and solve network problems.

2. Network Configuration Monitoring: Keeping track of the software and firmware being used on the network is part of monitoring network configuration. By doing this, inconsistencies are guaranteed to be found and swiftly fixed to prevent visibility or security vulnerabilities.

   From a performance and IT security perspective, teams employing local configuration files to handle traditional network components must execute configuration monitoring checks. These automated programs can compare devices with similar configurations to find any necessary inaccuracies.

   Real-time monitoring, automated configuration, and configuration comparison are essential components of configuration monitoring.

3. Fault Monitoring: Finding and reporting errors in a computer network is the task of network fault monitoring. It is critical to maintain consistent network uptime and smooth operation, which are necessary for running all applications and services without interruption.

4. Log Monitoring: Analyzing logs entails looking at those produced by servers, programs, or websites that are part of a network. These logs help businesses stay in compliance with rules, respond to events quickly, and improve network security by offering insightful information about user activities.

5. Availability Monitoring: The simplest technique for network teams to assess a device's operability is through availability monitoring. Some technologies for availability monitoring frequently conduct considerably more than that, including grouping certain interface status messages, running network device hardware checks on certain interface status notifications, and checking on network device hardware. The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and event logs (Syslog) are a few examples of widely used availability monitoring protocols.

   Monitoring availability involves keeping an eye on every IT infrastructure to ascertain how often devices are online. Organizations can receive notifications when there is a network outage or when they become inaccessible by routinely monitoring IT devices and servers.

6. Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring: In most situations, the monitoring tools made available by the providers are usable by both public and private cloud instances. However, many suppliers provide integrated or personalized tools. Although these tools are available, they might not work with infrastructure components that were developed by outside parties. Organizations must make decisions on what to use based on their own needs.

What are Network Monitoring Tools?

For enterprises looking to improve security and network performance, network monitoring tools and software are crucial investments. These solutions assist companies in gaining real-time visibility into their network infrastructure, enabling them to track and examine network traffic, spot weaknesses, and take preventative measures to deal with any problems.

You can manage your devices and make sure they're available when you need them thanks to thorough network monitoring tools. It should come as no surprise that a huge variety of tools fall under the category of "network management tools", given the diversity of factors that go into network management.

It has gotten harder for enterprises to choose the best option due to the market's overabundance of networking monitoring tools. In light of this, you should consider the following features when selecting a network monitoring tool:

• A network device logging autodiscovery system
• A mapper of network topology
• The capacity to use SNMP to gather current network device statuses
• A system for monitoring network performance over time
• Data interpretation through graphics, such as graphs and charts
• Free trial, demo, or money-back promise for risk-free evaluation
• A reasonable cost that represents value for money given the features provided

We have analyzed the top network monitoring tools and software to help organizations make the best decision. Our picks for the top network monitoring tools are shown below:

1. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor: A thorough network performance monitoring tool that can track device status via SNMP is SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. With the feature of automatically finding network devices connected to your network, you can closely monitor the performance and availability of all connected network devices by using the control panel.

   The NetPath tool is one of SolarWinds' distinctive features. Our feature is comparable to the TraceRoute feature included in other products on our list, notably PRTG and Site24x7. The route is depicted visually by NetPath, though.

2. Auvik: A number of system management tools are included in the cloud-based network monitoring solution known as Auvik. When you open an account and access the package through a Web browser, the installation process for collectors on your computer begins. The Auvik program can oversee and centralize the monitoring of numerous sites. The suite is therefore perfect for WAN monitoring.

   A network discovery procedure is the first step in the service offered by Auvik. This automatically fills in all of the fundamental data required for the monitor to function. The ongoing discovery service will detect when new devices are connected to the network.

   The network infrastructure, which includes devices, connections, topology, network traffic, and configuration history, is visually represented by Auvik's automatic network mapping. Its color-coded status indicators are particularly useful for network administrators.

3. Datadog Network Performance Monitoring: A cloud-based SaaS infrastructure monitoring solution called Datadog Network Performance Monitoring looks at network traffic flows. A network device monitoring service, which focuses on the status of each network device, including switches, routers, and appliances, is linked with it.

   Teams may monitor and analyze data from various sources with Datadog's out-of-the-box connection with hundreds of well-known services and platforms, including web servers, databases, cloud services, and even specialized software like Shopify and WordPress.

4. PRTG Network Monitor: PRTG Network Monitor by Paessler is a free network monitoring package that monitors your network using SNMP, packet sniffing, and WMI. Search for and add devices to monitor by scanning network segments. To keep an eye on different parts of your network, you can pick from a variety of sensors. Each sensor tracks a different value within your network; for example, there are sensors for bandwidth monitoring, hardware parameters, network data utilization, SNMP, VOIP, QoS, and more.

5. ManageEngine OpManager: A network monitoring tool called ManageEngine OpManager can keep track of virtual machines, servers, routers, switches, and network devices in real-time. Over 200 widgets are available on customizable dashboards, so you can design a special monitoring experience.

   OpManager can track servers in addition to network hardware because it does so. The OpManager system's server monitoring tools keep track of crucial resource indicators, including CPU, RAM, and disk capacity and use.

6. Domotz: A cloud-based platform called Domotz provides network monitoring. Additionally, it features a multi-tenant setup for usage by managed service providers and can unify the management of numerous networks. Any typical Web browser can access the system through an appealing cloud-based dashboard. Installing an agent on a host connected to the network that will be watched is required to set up an account. Additionally, the package comes with tools for managing endpoints, networks, and workloads.

How to Choose a Network Monitoring Tool?

There are many different types of network monitoring software available on the market, including closed-source, open-source, hosted, on-premises, paid, and free options. With so many choices available, you must select the one that best suits your particular business requirements.

Those making these choices must be completely confident of two things: the system requirements they have and the application area for which the solution is required.

Before choosing a network monitoring solution for your IT infrastructure, you should take the following factors into account.

• Simplicity of execution: A new network monitoring tool's ability to swiftly get up and running is a big benefit. No matter how helpful a network monitoring tool is, if it's difficult to deploy, it won't accomplish the desired goal.

  Free tools in particular frequently demand a sizable time, energy, and resource investment to install and set up properly. This is due to the fact that each tool often offers a narrow range of capabilities, necessitating the simultaneous implementation of numerous tools by network teams to meet their entire set of requirements.

  There are huge differences in the amount of work and expense needed for installation, even among paid products. Consider the time and expense involved in deploying each tool while evaluating them, including:

  • Setting up storage and servers
  • Setting up agents
  • Build databases
  • Putting infrastructure and backup processes in place
  • Implementation and upkeep of auxiliary tools (if required)
  • Getting familiar with and managing the entire network monitoring stack.

• Usability: The usefulness of a performance monitoring tool is greatly influenced by usability, which is a considerably more important consideration than implementation ease. A simple-to-use solution that provides real-time, useful reports will be more valuable to you.

  By cutting down on the amount of time it takes to find, identify, troubleshoot, and fix a network issue, a network monitoring solution serves the very purpose of enabling decision-makers to concentrate on core business operations.

• Features: There are notable variances across tools in terms of features. There are several reasonably priced, and occasionally even free, offers that carry out fundamental network monitoring functions at one end of the spectrum. Even though these tools might be enough for very small businesses, they lack the capabilities required to identify and address severe network problems and security risks.

  On the other end of the spectrum, you can find fully functional systems with powerful integrations, remediation capabilities, and more that offer detailed insight into all network activities. Teams working on networks should look for a tool that offers:

  • Various data sources, including NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow traffic monitoring, Port Mirror, and SPAN, were used to collect the data.
  • Integration with every piece of hardware used in networks, such as switches, routers, etc.
  • Storage for recent and old data, frequently in the terabytes and even petabytes range.
  • Capability for comprehensive reporting and querying.
  • Effective threat identification and mitigation are supported by automation and personalized rule configurations.

• Scalability: The infrastructure of the software, especially its scalability, is another aspect to take into account. Rarely is your network static. Every year, it grows to handle the escalating volume of people, devices, systems, and traffic. Finding a network monitoring tool that can increase its data collection and reporting capabilities in concert with the expansion of both your network and your company is therefore essential.

• Encryption: Although data encryption is still a developing issue in network monitoring, it is essential for the financial and healthcare sectors because of regulatory constraints. This is due to the fact that bad actors are constantly seeking out weak points to exploit, and your network monitoring software may be that weak point.

  The compliance obligations regarding how they maintain sensitive information are also a source of worry for IT decision-makers in the financial and healthcare industries. These stringent compliance requirements, including SOX, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA, could subject your business to fines if not met. Select a network monitoring software provider that conforms to such specifications right away to avoid this usual blunder.

• Automatic Device Identification: Some solutions have built-in automatic discovery features that let the service assess the state of the network using a potent Layer 2/3 discovery scan. For instance, a performance monitoring tool with automatic device discovery can gather and report on device type, vendor, serial, hardware and firmware revision, and other modules if your business adds a new network device. This guarantees that your map is constantly current.

• Pricing: One of the most difficult decisions to make is this. It can be difficult to choose which pricing structure best suits you because every seller of monitoring software has its own licensing scheme.

  A single monitored item, such as network traffic or a cloud interface, is referred to as a sensor or element and is charged for by some suppliers. However, in this instance, even if you wish to monitor a large number of items, you will still need to buy a license for each additional sensor or network device.

  Others base their fees on the quantity of hardware, software, virtual machines, and network flow sources in your network. This choice is more adaptable, especially if you want to keep an eye on a lot of network components. You only need to purchase one all-inclusive plan to be set.

• Reporting: Real-time monitoring of network activity is one thing. However, in reality, analyzing network traffic records reveals a lot of network problems and security dangers after the fact. Network administrators should be able to comprehend and query network activity data using dashboards and the robust reporting features that a network monitoring tool should have. It should be simple for administrators to view, at the very least:

  • Top network host talkers
  • Dropdowns for autonomous systems
  • Access to a certain local host, network, or collection of hosts.
  • Bandwidth for or from a particular autonomous system

• Integration: Although network observability is important, a network monitoring tool can perform other tasks as well. In order for network and security teams to respond to problems and stop attacks, a strong tool must allow for action. The tool must integrate with a variety of network components, software tools, and internal and external services in order for this to be possible. Among the most significant integrations necessary for network monitoring tools are:

  • All switches and routers connected to a network
  • Services for preventing cyberattacks such as cloud DDoS scrubbing and BGP blackhole
  • Tools for analytics and observability, like Grafana
  • SIEM tools for log management and security monitoring

• DDoS Defense: A network monitoring tool's ability to spot irregularities that might be signs of a DDoS assault in its early stages is one of its most crucial features. Early detection of most DDoS assaults enables organizations to prevent significant harm or interruption to critical systems or assets.

  Network managers can respond quickly to assaults thanks to robust monitoring solutions that combine real-time visibility of all network activity with rules-based attack detection. Using a DDoS mitigation approach like BGP Blackhole or FlowSpec, many DDoS attacks can be automatically identified and countered with the inclusion of automation capabilities. Naturally, your organization will suffer less harm and interruption the quicker you are able to detect and mitigate an assault.

What Protocols are Used for Network Monitoring?

There are numerous network monitoring protocols, each with unique features. The following network monitoring protocols' fundamental actions can be broken down into five categories: mapping, monitoring, discovery, notification, and reporting. To evaluate the condition of their networks and the devices on them, they offer network administrators thousands of monitors. The common protocols used in network monitoring are listed below.

• SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol): The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol family includes the application layer protocol known as SNMP. It is a reputable and extensively used protocol for maintaining network components. It's utilized to exchange and extract management data that's shared by routers, switches, modems, WLAN controllers, and other network equipment. Based on bandwidth usage, interface health, latency, and CPU usage, the information gathered is utilized to track the network's performance. For improved communication with monitoring systems, the majority of network devices come with SNMP agents; however, these agents must be set up before use. SNMP agents' responsibilities include responding to requests, completing tasks, and indicating when an event has occurred on the host that hosts the network resource.

  Almost every network-attached device can gather data using the SNMP standard protocol, including switches, routers, wireless LAN controllers, access points, servers, printers, and more.

  SNMP operates through "Objects" queries. An NMS gathers data about objects, which are things. As an illustration, CPU use is an SNMP object. An NMS would receive a value from a query on the CPU utilization object that it might use for reporting and alerting.

  A Management Information Base, or MIB, houses the objects that SNMP queries. All of the data that the managed device exposes is defined by an MIB.

• WMI (Windows Management Instrument): Web-Based Enterprise Management, a software industry project to provide a standard for accessing management information in the enterprise, is implemented by Microsoft as WMI.

  WMI protocol establishes an interface for the operating system to accept data from gadgets running the WMI agent. WMI collects information about the operating system, hardware, software, the status and characteristics of local or remote systems, configuration, and security data, and information on processes and services. The network management software uses all of this information to monitor the availability, performance, and health of the network.

  WMI cooperates with SNMP and other protocols even though it is a proprietary technology for Windows-based systems and applications. However, if you're using PowerShell to administer WMI, you should be using CIM cmdlets instead because Microsoft has deprecated WMI commands in Windows in favor of them.

• ICMP (Internet Control Message Point): Unlike SNMP, which is utilized for data transfer between servers, ICMP is just employed for the reporting of errors. The TCP/IP protocol stack uses it to convey control and error messages. For instance, when a host or client cannot be contacted or the information requested is not available, a router may use ICMP. It aids in determining whether the data arrived successfully and within the anticipated window of time. To deliver error warnings, network devices like routers use this protocol. Additionally, it runs the ping and traceroute terminal programs as well as network diagnostics. In order to enable connectionless communication across a packet-switched network, ICMP messages are delivered as datagrams. This enables you to recognize the fault's root cause more quickly. A few instances of error messages that ICMP reports are as follows:

  • Messages from the source quench (an unexpected surge in packet transfer)
  • TTL exhaustion message (TTL of packets hitting 0)
  • The error message "unreachable destination" is given by the destination host when a port is unavailable due to hardware or another malfunction.
  • Packet mismatch or unauthorized packet error message

  ICMP is a connectionless protocol. Unlike TCP, for example, a device does not need to establish a connection with the destination device before sending a message. Instead, ICMP messages are sent as datagrams, which are made up of an IP header and ICMP data. This makes sure that the request source that receives the error message can specifically identify the failed packet.

What are the Benefits of Network Monitoring?

Continuous network and device monitoring enables you to troubleshoot both slowdowns and hard failures. Early problem-solving guarantees minimal or no downtime, business continuity, and other advantages of network monitoring. Some advantages of network monitoring are as follows:

• Early Forecasting of Infrastructure Requirements: Reports on the performance of network components over a certain time period can be produced by network monitoring systems. Network administrators can predict when the company will need to think about updating or adopting new IT infrastructure by evaluating these reports.
• Increased Effectiveness: An enterprise can monitor the network more closely and promptly spot and fix problems to avoid significant disruptions. Operations are less frequently interrupted as a result, and more crucially, IT resources are better utilized because they can devote more time to important tasks.
• Quick Detection of Security Concerns: Organizations can better understand their networks' "normal" functioning with the use of network monitoring. Therefore, it is simpler for administrators to rapidly identify the issue and assess whether it may be a security danger when unexpected behavior happens, such as an unexplained increase in network traffic levels.
• Identification of Security Threats: The main purpose of network monitoring is to keep an eye on system performance, but it can be used to find hidden security risks. You might be able to identify even tiny dangers before they become major ones by regularly scanning for strange or suspicious behavior. Malware or viruses, for instance, might not be immediately apparent, but your network monitoring system might detect unusual activities, such as questionable usage of network resources. Additionally, you'll be able to proactively spot security risks like DDoS assaults or unauthorized downloads.
• Improved Network Visibility: An enterprise may fully understand how a network's routers, virtual machines (VMs), switches, firewalls, cloud servers, and other components function through network monitoring. IT managers can swiftly identify and fix network problems before they have an impact on end users.
• Rising Level of Complexity: Modern businesses depend on a wide range of internet-dependent, essential services. This covers SaaS, UCaaS, VPN, and SECaaS suppliers as well as cloud service providers, ISPs, CDNs, and other service providers. Each service uses the internet to operate, which makes it vulnerable to performance changes brought on by routing errors or internet outages. You can keep an eye on problems that can have an impact on clients or staff by having visibility into network components outside of your control.
• Improved IT Resource Use: A network interruption severely reduces productivity. An under-resourced IT manager would have to quickly and unpreparedly switch their focus from one business-critical project to another in order to address it. The fact that network monitoring technologies lessen manual effort for IT personnel is a major advantage. Your IT department gains significant time back, which may then be used for more important initiatives.
• Finding Problems Throughout the Network: Network evaluation and monitoring can help you find issues in the network quickly. You can identify the origin, cause, location, and timing of a network issue by tracking your network's performance. Whoever needs to fix it can be determined by it. You can identify any performance changes that can be troublesome for users by actively monitoring your network.
• Providing Baseline and Historical Data: Network monitoring technologies can compare data continuously and automatically when baseline data is available. An alert is given to you in the event of performance degradation, so you may take prompt action. You can compare historical data to calculate ideal network performance or spot subpar performance. You can use it to analyze network issues from earlier incidents.
• Availability: A business's ability to operate smoothly depends on the network's availability. With the aid of a centralized platform and a visual depiction of the alert details, network monitoring technologies carry out network root cause analysis. Thus, the mean time to response (MTTR) is decreased, and businesses are able to keep their networks' high availability.

What are the Challenges of Network Monitoring?

Managing network performance can be difficult, depending on a network's size and complexity. While network monitoring provides numerous advantages, there are some drawbacks to take into account, including false positives, an excessive number of alerts, and maintaining an appropriate baseline as your organization grows. The biggest obstacles to network performance monitoring are listed below.

• Processing massive performance data: It takes a lot of data handling to control and monitor network performance. Data increases over time, which overburdens the CPU. Your program, the related processes, and the servers cannot run well if the CPU is overworked. To prevent this, it is essential to comprehend performance utilization and manage your network capacity. Additionally, the ability to debug issues and analyze data keeps the network safe from attackers. A reliable network performance monitor is crucial as a result.
• Positive errors: Inaccurate data from network monitoring tools can occasionally result in false positives. Such circumstances can lead to an overestimation of dangers, which eventually wastes time and money.
• Creating performance benchmarks: For each statistic, a standard performance measure is typically defined in order to study network performance. Every business has a unique expectation for monitoring; thus, this baseline needs to be adjusted in accordance with time through testing and reporting.
• Finding errors: Finding problems early on is one of the most underestimated difficulties of network performance monitoring. Despite the thresholds and dynamic alarm systems that come with every new network monitoring software, it's crucial to pick the appropriate tool to prevent errors. Finding the root cause is essential to preventing the recurrence of any network error, including protocol mismatches, DNS issues, and TCP timeouts. Big data correlation is a significant difficulty, though. A thorough grasp of the network and its metrics aids in database unification, allowing you to immediately identify problems before they have an impact on end users.
• Recognizing the utility of data: There are several other network performance measures, including jitter, packet loss, and packet duplication. The issues the organization has experienced in the past conceal the value of specific facts. Because every business is unique, so are the monitoring requirements. Utilizing metrics involves picking the appropriate data to address a problem, not collecting all the data that your network monitoring program can produce. You may scale your firm by organizing the pertinent data and performing the necessary data correlation.
• Overzealous notifications: Network monitoring technologies might generate an excessive number of alerts, especially when combined with the issue of false positives mentioned above. This might make it difficult for network administrators to sort through all the notifications, which can cause alert fatigue, in which case individuals start to overlook the most recent messages as a result of a backlog. Dealing with alerts that don't need attention also makes the true alerts harder to see.
• Taking into consideration reliable baselines: For a clear picture of a network's health, a well-designed network baseline tracks network traffic, packet size, bandwidth use, and application utilization. However, including every new network node might make it difficult to create and maintain an appropriate baseline as networks continue to grow and adapt. To guarantee that your baseline accurately reflects any changes in devices or users at your organization, it takes ongoing monitoring and tweaking.
• Expanding its visibility: Understanding the elements that make up the network is essential. Visibility provides insight into the network's inbound and outbound traffic. This traffic soon increases, which suggests suspicious activities. However, as new gadgets with better technology continue to emerge, traffic monitoring is becoming more and more difficult. Live network traffic monitoring is still done by hand. Network path analysis is important but challenging. Even more challenging is visualizing network segments that have access to outside sources. The access decline needs to be manually changed in these circumstances. Complex statistics are transformed into understandable, comprehensible data through network visualization. Sadly, the majority of monitoring systems lack a clear visual representation. Select a tool that offers at least three or four different network visualization options.

There are other additional difficulties with network performance monitoring, such as:

• Internet speeds are slowed by excessive bandwidth use
• Planning for capacity in the wrong way quickly depletes your resources
• Your business' prosperity is being hampered by poor network visibility
• Keeping track of all the performance measurements is crucial for proper network operation since sometimes problems are simply caused by inadequate physical connectivity or broken equipment.

What are the Primary Use Cases for Network Monitoring?

Determining the precise circumstances in which a network monitoring solution will be used is the first step in a successful implementation. This will enable consumers to specify the characteristics that are essential for the solution. Additionally, it will assist the network monitoring vendor and implementation team in comprehending the intended results of its adoption.

The cases listed below are some typical ones where network monitoring is useful. There may only be one or two distinct use cases that each organization is interested in. Others, especially big businesses, might be interested in all of them.

• Early Detection: Prior to users reporting network issues to the help desk, proactive detection seeks to identify those issues. Companies can decrease the Time To Detection (TTD) of network issues with an efficient monitoring solution for this use case. Businesses that require proactive detection have difficulty identifying issues before customers do.

• Data Center Inspection: It enables network engineers to gather data from their data centers in real-time and provide warnings when problems like device failure, temperature spikes, power outages, or network capacity difficulties manifest.

• Network Troubleshooting: Companies that prioritize this use case usually struggle to identify and reproduce network issues. Network engineers may feel as though they are "chasing a ghost" when users complain that "the network is slow". An extremely significant use case for network monitoring is network troubleshooting. In this case, network engineers must ascertain a problem's root cause as soon as feasible. This use case reduces network outages' Time To Repair (TTR).

• Cloud Network Monitoring: A network monitoring tool could be used by cloud hosting companies to check the interdependence between their programs. Technology professionals use it to examine the volume of traffic moving between different geographic locations or the volume handled by different cloud providers in order to better understand the costs associated with cloud network monitoring.

• Performance Monitoring: Network managers can establish a baseline by measuring a network's performance indicators via performance monitoring. The historical data establishes the baseline. To find sections of an enterprise network that are underperforming, this information is highly helpful. Businesses interested in this use case typically need to gather measurements like throughput, packet loss, jitter, and round-trip time.

  These network metrics are captured by numerous open-source technologies. For round-trip time and packet loss, ping, iperf, and owamp (one-way delay ping) are some examples. For latency, ping is another example. The capability to store and access historical data as needed is something that these solutions do not offer.

• User Experience: The purpose of this use case is to record the end-user experience and determine the variables that influence it. Nowadays, WiFi is used by most end users to connect to a network. Companies that don't keep track of end-user experience typically invest a lot of time in determining the root cause of users' connections' poor performance. Is it the WiFi network, the Internet connection, or the application itself?

• Application Container Network Monitoring: Teams can package and deploy software across several operating systems using containers. Systems for container orchestration, like Kubernetes, are frequently used by engineers to create scalable distributed applications. Teams utilize network monitoring to make sure that the various components of the program are effectively talking with one another, whether their containerized applications are running on-premise or in the cloud.

  Network monitoring can be applied in any of these ways by businesses that take a hybrid approach to hosting their services. A hybrid strategy involves outsourcing some workloads to the cloud while relying on internally run data centers for others. In this case, a network monitoring tool can be used to get a unified view of on-premise and cloud network metrics, as well as the health of data flowing between both environments. When a business is moving to the cloud, a hybrid strategy is frequently used.

What is the Difference Between Network Security Monitoring and Network Monitoring?

The terms network monitoring and network security monitoring are sometimes used interchangeably since this method entails keeping an eye on network activity. Even though these two terms are similar, they do not have the same meaning.

Network security monitoring is available to assist enterprises in identifying, locating, and mitigating network intrusions, as was previously indicated. It accomplishes this by examining a number of components in your network, such as:

• Traffic that consists of user requests for services made to servers on a network is known as client-server communications
• Sessions for encrypted data transmission and reception over a network
• The data sent and received in network packets is the network payload
• The guidelines that govern how data is sent over a network are known as network protocols
• Sequences of packets conveying information between various endpoints are referred to as traffic flow
• Activity patterns - Regular, anticipated patterns of network activity and any unusual deviations that might signify a breach
• Network traffic is captured and compared to expected standards, and any variations are examined for any harmful or suspicious activities. Network security monitoring protects the security infrastructure of your company. In the event of a potential breach, network security monitoring delivers prompt alerts and notifications.

On the other hand, traditional network monitoring is significantly more concerned with the design and functionality of the network itself than network security monitoring. Network monitoring entails tracking the network performance of your company to identify any bottlenecks or other problems (such as packet loss or latency). The continual overview of network performance that network monitoring offers can help your IT administrators spot problem areas and take appropriate corrective action when required.

Network monitoring is a crucial safety measure for identifying and fixing issues that could be caused by malfunctioning hardware or overtaxed network resources. This is achieved by monitoring crucial network indicators pertaining to:

• Setting, rules, and controls that determine how the network is configured.
• Network performance measures include network bandwidth, latency, throughput, error rates, and other metrics.
• Network availability and dependability; the period of time when the network is operating as planned

For modern enterprises, network security monitoring is a vital tool since it helps safeguard their IT assets from unscrupulous users and makes sure that any dangerous activity is swiftly identified and dealt with.

In contrast to network operational monitoring, network security monitoring and the analysts using it must be able to identify intrusions and all types of assaults, including fresh, zero-day, and cutting-edge threats, in order to support evidence-based decision-making.

Despite the fact that network monitoring and network security monitoring frequently employ distinct strategies and have different areas of emphasis, their objectives are the same: to increase network visibility.

As a result, many technologies for network monitoring and security monitoring have some degree of overlap. It is next to impossible to spot anomalies that could indicate a network security breach without understanding baseline network performance data. Security is crucial to network monitoring since an attack can seriously impair a network's availability and operation.

You can make sure that your networks are working properly, securely, and under the careful eye of intelligent automated systems by integrating network security monitoring with network monitoring.

How does Zenarmor Help Monitor Your Network Security?

In the event that advanced external attackers or individuals with insider access possess the ability to bypass rudimentary network security methods, there exists the possibility of remaining undetected for an extended period of many weeks. With enough resources and a significant duration, it is possible for them to infiltrate any network and maintain covert operations for an average duration of 280 days without being noticed. During this time frame, there is a possibility of acquiring sensitive data, compromising private information, or obtaining login credentials that enable lateral movement inside the network environment. In order to mitigate the ramifications of security breaches, it is essential to promptly identify their occurrence.

Hence, the visualization of network activity has significant importance in the monitoring of traffic inside a network. The sophisticated reporting capabilities of the Zenarmor next-generation firewall have proven to be quite beneficial. Zenarmor facilitates the acquisition of a comprehensive understanding pertaining to network traffic. The tool provides the capability to assess one's systems for potential risks, anomalous behaviors, and deviations from normal patterns by providing immediate access to comprehensive information on all network operations.

Zenarmor offers comprehensive data pertaining to many aspects of network activity, including but not limited to connection establishment, threat detection and mitigation, blocked connections, web requests, DNS activity, and TLS sessions. Users who subscribe to Zenarmor Premium have the capability to generate personalized reports. Choose from a wide range of over 70 reports to include in personalized views that prioritize the reports that have the greatest significance for your company or household. For instance, it may be necessary to observe and monitor the most prominent behaviors occurring inside your network. To provide easy access to various charts such as Top Local/Remote Hosts, Top Egress/Ingress Users, Top Detected/Blocked Threats, and Top Talkers Heatmap, users may conveniently generate a customized Report View and include these charts inside it.

Data enrichment is a process that enhances the contextual information associated with the actions taking place inside a network. This augmentation enables a more comprehensive understanding of the data that is being sent both into and out of the network. The inclusion of the reverse DNS lookup capability facilitates the expeditious determination of the origin and destination hosts, hence enhancing the comprehensibility and interpretability of your reports. By using DNS enrichment capabilities, it becomes possible to promptly ascertain instances of user non-compliance with business laws or detect targeted attacks on servers.

Users have the ability to easily convert any report view into a PDF or PNG file format, enabling them to distribute these files to their stakeholders. In addition, it is possible to schedule reports for export and thereafter send them by email to recipients of your choosing. The Live Sessions information may be acquired in CSV format for the purpose of network traffic analysis. Export capabilities are beneficial not only for submitting a report to your manager but also for analyzing network traffic. In the event of a suspected cyberattack, it is possible to compile reports tailored to specific needs and then disseminate them to relevant parties.

The enhanced reporting functionalities offered by Zenarmor prove to be very advantageous for professionals engaged in threat hunting and cybersecurity analysis inside Security Operations Centers. The provision of exceptional network visibility is of utmost importance, particularly for companies and managed service providers (MSPs).

By using Zenarmor, it is possible to achieve a substantial reduction in both the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the mean time to react (MTTR) to security threats. The process of network traffic analysis is simplified, streamlined, and enhanced by this technology. Zenarmor's sophisticated reporting capabilities assist enterprises in safeguarding their most precious assets and reputations by actively identifying security incidents and revealing deficiencies in threat visibility and coverage.