The overall performance and security of your network can have a big impact on your business. For this reason, all businesses—especially those involved in e-commerce—need to regularly check in with their networks to make sure everything is functioning as it should. You should be well-versed in real-time network monitoring and its advantages for your company to obtain a clear picture of how your systems are operating.
What do you mean by real-time monitoring?
Applications and tools that continuously track and record snapshots of your network’s overall performance are used in real-time monitoring. Real-time monitoring helps organizations keep tabs on network activity, enhance network security, and spot possible issues early on. Real-time network monitoring is beneficial for all businesses, regardless of size.
Reasons to think about monitoring in real-time?
Real-time network monitoring is a good business practice, but it also has several benefits for small business owners.
Security of networks
Any business should place a high premium on network security. Encouraging security compliance can be achieved by keeping an eye on your network in real-time. You or your information technology (IT) department can detect and address security issues as soon as they appear with the aid of real-time monitoring. Unusual or suspicious traffic, illegal requests or devices, cyber threats, or any other potentially dangerous activity on your network can all be examples of these problems.
Performance of the network
The success of your business can be directly correlated with the performance of your network. For instance, you should optimize your servers if you manage an online store to prevent problems like slow loading times, bandwidth overload, and outages. Real-time network monitoring can provide useful information about bugs and inefficiencies in performance that need to be fixed.
AVP of IT at StaffGlass Anthony Petecca provided a list of some of the most popular network performance indicators you can watch and explained their significance:
- Sending or receiving more data than you intended may cause your network pipe to become overloaded, which will affect performance as a whole.
- The delay between a request and a data response is known as latency. Certain scenarios call for latency to be more significant than others; playing a real-time game is one such scenario.
- You can promote your service-level agreement with assurance if you are aware of the real uptime on your network.
- At any given time, your network’s speed will fluctuate. Maintaining optimal network performance requires being able to see how the speed you receive compares to the speed you were expecting.
Petecca told us that by tracking performance over time, real-time monitoring enables you to fine-tune your network for optimal performance levels. “Now that enough time has passed, you can also get ready for planned network outages, like Cyber Monday sales.”
Time taken to respond to an incident
Pieter VanIperen, the founder and managing partner of PWV Consultants, stated that “business leaders not only get to know the status of their network performance and security at all times, but the real-time alerting allows for faster incident response when an incident happens.”
Incidents must be resolved by businesses regardless of how minor they may seem at the time. For instance, it might seem evident to address a data breach or cyberattack right away, but even seemingly unimportant issues like a website that loads slowly or has a lot of 404 errors can have a negative influence on your company. Real-time network monitoring can assist you in identifying these issues as soon as they happen and taking prompt action. VanIperen continued, “Quick incident response leads to quicker mitigation, which results in less loss for the business.”
Productivity among employees
Keeping an eye on your network can boost worker output. For instance, your team can send business emails, work on projects, and cooperate with coworkers more effectively if you use real-time monitoring to optimize network performance. To track employee data transfer and safeguard any sensitive information they might be handling, you can also use real-time monitoring.
Savings on expenses
In the end, having current knowledge about how your network is used can save you money. You can obtain a comprehensive understanding of the precise technology and assistance you require, preventing you from overspending on sophisticated software or superfluous site speeds. You can also profit from an optimized network, especially if you are in the e-commerce industry.
How can businesses make use of real-time network surveillance?
Real-time monitoring can improve the data security, network performance, worker productivity, customer satisfaction, and reputation of your company. Because there is a vast array of monitoring software, applications, and services available, your business needs will determine which specific tools you use and how you use them.
Rebecca stated, “At the absolute least, I recommend that companies utilize real-time networking to monitor network speeds and latency.” “Knowing about a network slowdown before your company’s performance deteriorates can mean the difference between tens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of dollars.”
Real-time monitoring, according to VanIperen, can assist businesses in determining what constitutes “normal” for their industry and in setting up alerts based on those metrics.
“It’s crucial to make sure alerts are set for anything that deviates from the regular course of business,” he stated. The system can alert you when there is a security alert or a change in performance so that you can apply the necessary fixes. Because of this, it is crucial to understand what constitutes normalcy for the company. Without this understanding, executives in charge of operations are unable to set up alerts.
How do you select resources and tools for monitoring in real-time?
Numerous monitoring applications are available in the market, varying in terms of features, technical proficiency, and cost. The platform you select should be user-friendly, reasonably priced, and sophisticated enough to meet your infrastructure and monitoring requirements.
VanIperen gave the following guidance to companies looking for the best monitoring solutions:
- Examine and compare every company. Examine what you’re getting for the money rather than just the cost. Make sure the company you have chosen is reputable and that it is what your business needs.
- Try to find out if this is a service that your cloud provider provides. In any case, cloud services should be used by all businesses, and your cloud provider might be more familiar with your company’s typical operations than you are.
- Similar to any other technology, real-time monitoring is not infallible or flawless. It is always best to keep an eye on your company with multiple tools and to set different levels of alert for different types of activities.
- It might be difficult to find the right tools, but network monitoring is a must for every company, and it should be implemented as soon as feasible. When you first start with network monitoring, it’s acceptable to start small and grow later.