While there are many users out there who already trust SolarWinds (News - Alert) Network Performance Monitor system to provide the necessary insight into the network to keep it running to its fullest, those who haven't considered SolarWinds' system as a means to better manage the network, now have new reason to. SolarWinds has added some new features to the Network Performance Monitor—its flagship system for managing network performance—that will make it worth a second look.

The big new additions to Network Performance Monitor's repertoire are a new deep packet inspection system that's actually rated for enterprise-level use, according to reports, as well as a new breed of analysis technology. With these systems, as well as those previously brought to the floor, the Network Performance Monitor system can keep a fresh eye out on issues of traffic, latency, performance, availability and even network fault, all the key points that measure a network's overall health. The Network Performance Monitor is so sufficiently fine-tuned that it can handle traffic for over 1,200 separate applications, including the increasingly popular Microsoft Lync. Skype and YouTube (News - Alert) are also on the list, making this a major performer for tools that consume a lot of bandwidth.

Moreover, the Network Performance Monitor solution can also show the results of its information gathering in easily accessible graphs and charts, making it easy to spot at a glance where problems are beginning to occur. It's even set to work well with assorted “flow-based technologies” like NetFlow and J-Flow with DPI. SolarWinds' development process in this field has been ongoing for some time, dating back to its acquisition of Pingdom, which focused on performance management and website monitoring tools. The Pingdom tools joined a rapidly-growing arsenal of tools at SolarWinds' disposal, and allowed the company to offer an even more complete slate of tools. SolarWinds, at last report, has a larger overall strategy in mind, which the Pingdom acquisition helped advance; specifically, SolarWinds is said to be looking to go beyond on-premise IT management and move into IT as a service and cloud-based IT provision.

With these new tools in place, along with the slate of tools previously offered, SolarWinds has an excellent proposition in place to offer just that, a slate of tools that's valuable enough to make the user base interested in exploring new options in IT. Keeping the network performance at its peak levels of operation is a must these days, as more functions of business are moved to the network and beyond into the cloud. So having an easy way to monitor the performance of the network is a great way to ensure the proper running of same. If it can be easily ascertained what apps put excessive strain on the network, those apps can be scheduled in such a way that narrows the gaps in traffic, putting those higher-use functions to work in a time when there's less overall stress on the network proper. That's not the only point that works here, of course, but it's a key point nonetheless.

There are many advantages to keeping the network up and running properly, and a tool like SolarWinds' Network Performance Monitor is one great tool to have on hand in making that level of network performance happen. It may not provide the solution everyone needs, but for those who haven't considered a performance monitoring mechanism yet, SolarWinds' tool is a great place to start looking.

During a live webinar on Sept. 16 at 11 a.m. CDT (News - Alert) titled, “Troubleshooting VoIP Call Quality Best Practices,” the company will offer valuable insight into the key performance metrics affecting VoIP call quality within your organization and will include a demonstration by product marketing manager, Chris Lee on how to use Call Detail Records collected from either Cisco Call Manager and/or Avaya (News - Alert) Communication Manager to identify the root cause of a call quality issue right from the phone extension to the problem.