Defined and Explained: IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Modern IT environments and networks are more complicated and distributed than ever before, spanning public clouds, private clouds, edge locations and on-premise data centers. What once worked well—manual or simple monitoring tools—can no longer ensure end-to-end visibility within complex networks. How can you monitor what you can’t see?

Fortunately, you now have access to a new generation of monitoring tools designed for the hybrid network. It’s time to harness the power of IT infrastructure monitoring (ITIM).

What Exactly is IT Infrastructure Monitoring?

Great question. IT infrastructure monitoring, often referred to as network monitoring, is a software solution designed to watch the entire network’s status and track related resources such as logs, applications and virtual machines. An ITIM solution collects device and system data and discovers network issues, both impending ones and those already affecting performance or availability.

With a single ITIM tool, you can proactively monitor network devices, systems, traffic, applications, services, wireless, VMs, servers, device configurations, clouds, storage devices and even SSL certificates. You are notified of any potential or existing problems through customized alerts and can track and share the overall health of the network through deep reporting and on-demand data dashboards.

Who Needs IT Infrastructure Monitoring?

Everyone should use ITIM. IT infrastructure monitoring is now a necessity for any business that uses connectivity technology during its day-to-day operations. Whether you’re a small- or medium-sized business, global enterprise, government, school or hospital (to name just a few), your organization needs a robust solution to monitor your hybrid IT systems.

Overall, IT infrastructure monitoring can help ensure the availability, reliability and security of IT systems. It’s a single tool (or “pane of glass”) where administrators can monitor, measure and resolve network problems as well as manage logs and configuration and track application performance and network traffic. According to the research firm EMA, the Typical NetOps team uses 4 to 15 management tools, with the number of network errors increasing with the number of tools. So, reducing your tool sprawl with an ITIM solution makes good sense.

Who Benefits from IT Infrastructure Monitoring?

When used properly, these systems offer tremendous value over the short and long term. Businesses can see dramatic reductions in downtime, Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and the occurrence of unplanned outages. ITIM can help optimize IT spending by highlighting where teams need to focus their resources to best improve network quality and uptime. It can also enable team productivity through the automation of formerly manual tasks such as network discovery, mapping, monitoring, alerting and configuration.

And it’s not just the business owner who benefits. The internal and external customers benefit as well. If you’re doing a respectable job of monitoring, your systems will have less downtime. Employees are able to access their applications and data, and customers will have a positive experience while visiting your website or performing online transactions.

When done right, IT Infrastructure Monitoring proactively seeks out problems before they turn into outages and lets you solve them before employees get upset, customers lose confidence and business is lost. In short, ITIM is all about high availability and optimized performance. That’s why now is the right time to learn more.

Download the eBook: IT Infrastructure Monitoring For Dummies

When it comes to networks, we know that you’re no “dummy.” You’re the go-to expert: you know your organization’s devices, systems and connections better than anyone. But the tools of ITIM are constantly evolving and expanding, and it helps to have an easy on-ramp to the highway of network monitoring.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring For Dummies is that entry point; it covers the basics of how to achieve end-to-end network visibility. The eBook helps you become an ITIM expert through straightforward definitions, practical examples, abundant tips and a breakdown of the benefits. It also highlights Progress WhatsUp Gold, an established ITIM solution, to help you discover and share the value of IT infrastructure monitoring with your colleagues.

It's time to get started. Download your copy of IT Infrastructure Monitoring For Dummies today.