Maintaining access to business-critical applications, data and other network resources is critical to any organization that wants to succeed in the current economic climate. For this reason, forward-thinking enterprises have begun deploying network performance management solutions to ensure their systems are available, reliable and performing at the highest level.
Network performance management tools provide a myriad of benefits to organizations large and small by identifying, troubleshooting and helping to resolve performance problems in real time.
But not all network performance management solutions are the same. Industry-leading tools deliver pro-active alerts – helping to avoid service costly service interruptions – and provide a holistic view of the data without any roll ups or averaging, according to a list of best practices recently compiled by performance management specialist SevOne.
Moreover, top solutions should be able to be deployed with limited downtime, and must offer intuitive, Web-based consoles and portals for easy access and viewing of data.
- Other key differentiating factors include:
- Easy integration with other tools
- Flexible collection technology support
- Accurate baselines for establishing the normal levels of utilization
- Threshold alerts
- A standards-compliant API
- A direct route to resolve traffic problems
"Clients should look for network performance management products that not only track performance, but also automatically establish a baseline measurement of 'normal' behavior for time of day and day of week, dynamically set warning and critical thresholds as standard deviations off the baseline, and notify the network manager only when an exception condition occurs," research firm Gartner (News - Alert) noted in its 2010 Hype Cycle report.
"A simple static threshold based on an industry average or a "rule of thumb" will generate false alarms. Clients who are looking for the utmost efficiency should link network performance management processes to network CM processes so that bandwidth allocation and traffic prioritization settings are automatically updated based on changing business demands and SLAs," the firm added.
The most comprehensive and cost-effective tool on the market today is the Performance Appliance Solution (PAS) from Wilmington, Delaware-based SevOne. In addition to being the fastest and most scalable network performance management solution currently available, the SevOne PAS is an integrated, full-featured appliance, meaning it requires no additional hardware, software or external databases, and can begin monitoring and reporting within minutes of installation.
SevOne has been proven capable of monitoring more than one million managed elements – including those stemming from firewalls, routers, servers and switches– anywhere on the network. While developed as a comprehensive tool, the SevOne PAS is an open appliance that can be integrated with a number of outside platforms.
The device supports SNMP monitoring, NetFlow collection, real-time reporting, latency measurements, IP SLA provisioning, event alerts and quality of service measurements.
But perhaps its most beneficial attribute is SevOne's sophisticated reporting and analytics tools, which can be customized to meet specific technical and business needs.
Click here for more information on SevOne.
Edited by Stefanie Mosca