Tag: Traffic Analysis

The ABCs of IT Infrastructure Monitoring—the Letter B is for Bandwidth

In this blog post, we take you through a few of the ways you can use WhatsUp gold to monitor physical servers—from server health to utilization.

Just what is network flow monitoring? To put it simply, network flow monitoring is a way of looking into the actual traffic flowing across a network.

The world is getting ready to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. IT teams may find themselves behind the game, though. They might be spending some time over the next 16 days dealing with the consequences that the event will have on network bandwidth and application performance.

I work in the IT business, so when something as monumental as Pokémon GO is taking over headlines for more than a week I usually ask a few questions. The first thing folks with an IT background ask themselves is how this phenomenon will affect the network bandwidth of a business. It’s an important question to ask, but the answer in this instance is, “Not at all.”

The Super Bowl is over and hockey playoffs are still weeks away, but many Americans will still get their interim fix during March Madness. The prelims went underway on March 15th, and a huge cross-section of the American workforce faces a challenge: making sure they don't miss a single foul shot, even during business hours.

Predicting the future isn't a perfect practice without a DeLorean. For support desks at SMBs, however, determining network bandwidth needs down the line is critical to sustained growth. The farmer's almanac may not cover network environments, but with a few helpful tips, you'll gain much-needed perspective on how to plan for current and eventual system requirements.

High on the list of network engineering nightmares is a business critical process failing because it didn’t receive adequate bandwidth. With applications, users and data competing for bandwidth, how do you assure your business-critical applications are getting the bandwidth they need for optimum performance? The best approach is a combination of network QoS (Quality of Service) policies and bandwidth utilization monitoring.

Just after the first matches got underway for the 2014 World Cup we put a survey into the field. We wanted to measure the impact the world’s most popular sporting event was having on corporate networks. And whether IT managers and network administrators had heeded the lessons learned from past events to better prepare this time around. With the increased popularity of the World Cup and soccer in general, we were confident there would be a noticeable impact. The majority of World Cup matches would coincide with the heart of the work day here in the United States. And there was wide-spread concern that workers would be streaming matches in record numbers. This would, in effect, adversely affect business operations.

Ratings for the 2014 World Cup are beginning to surpass even the most optimistic television executive’s expectations. With the drama unfolding further after every match, viewers are tuning in with record numbers. While this is proving great for television, it is creating obstacles for organizations and their networks. One of the biggest issues facing IT pros is the bring your own device (BYOD) population.

Congratulations to the UCONN Huskies, the NCAA March Madness champs! It's always exciting when the underdog prevails. When the odds are stacked against you, as an IT pro, that is, you need to be prepared to manage through a bunch of problems that can make life difficult.

A facilities manager at a global real estate firm called recently. He was literally hot under the collar. Company headquarters on the U.S. West coast had been fitted two years earlier with a new HVAC system. It was designed to showcase the firm’s commitment to environmental efficiency. A month before we heard from him, temperatures at HQ started to unexpectedly spike up to the high 80s. And just as quickly subside. More than a few hot heads began to complain.

By the time a network manager at a Midwestern U.S. non-profit organization called us for help, his 5 year-old wireless infrastructure was buckling under BYOD. Employees trying to work during lunch were complaining that their applications were slowing or even failing to operate.