The Importance of Bandwidth Monitoring

While it used to be that monitoring your bandwidth meant solely focusing on internet traffic, bandwidth usage monitoring now encompasses a broader range of components. For example, you can monitor bandwidth speed or capacity; you can observe network traffic between devices or general web application traffic. Regardless of what traffic you are monitoring, though, it’s important to understand the bandwidth that is being utilized so you can ensure users are getting the best possible performance out of your network.

I would go as far as saying that monitoring your network bandwidth usage is the most critical function for any network administrator. What I hope to highlight in this article are the different ways to effectively manage bandwidth to maintain peak network performance with a network bandwidth monitor.

What is the Best Way to Monitor Your Bandwidth?

The primary function of network monitoring solutions is to monitor the performance of your network. Certainly this can include different types of bandwidth utilization that can and should be monitored, such as Wide Area Network (WAN) or Local Area Network (LAN) utilization. Using a network bandwidth monitor like Intermapper allows you to monitor your bandwidth in real-time using SNMP polling. It also lets you capture NetFlow data on your network. Intermapper can auto-discover any device on your network, add it to a map, and assign an SNMP traffic probe to the device to monitor the interface utilization. Intermapper allows you to set traffic and device thresholds which highlight network activity and alert you when those values have been exceeded.

Getting Bandwidth Usage Details with Intermapper’s Flow Analyzer

Intermapper has its own NetFlow Analyzer add-on that can be used to collect more in-depth network traffic data, meaning you can set up flows-supported hardware and software to export network traffic data to Intermapper Flows. Using Flows, you can do traffic analysis at a very detailed level. Intermapper Flows acts as a NetFlow/sFlow collector, where exports are captured, correlated, and analyzed across each respective WAN link. Flows allows for each interface to show current, historical, and peak bandwidth usages patterns. Intermapper Flows can tell you who is sending and receiving the data traveling through your network, and what kind of traffic it is. Is it peer to peer? Is it web-based? Is it traffic on your internal network? When you have a better understanding of your bandwidth utilization, capacity planning and scaling become a lot easier.

Advantages of Monitoring Your Bandwidth with Intermapper

Using software like Intermapper to monitor your network bandwidth allows you to better plan and optimize your network for peak performance, something that your users will applaud. After all, when you configure your network to support the correct amount of bandwidth, connectivity and speed are improved, and users have a better, more optimal experience on your network.

Intermapper can also help avoid performance bottlenecks, connectivity issues, and even usage trends by visually showing which devices are over-utilizing the bandwidth. Most importantly it can show you the actual bandwidth utilization load, which may help with streamlining costs associated with Telco uptick and the hardware used to support it. As an IT professional, Intermapper allows you to become the unsung hero: you are able to make better, more informed decisions on how to balance and improve network resources, and you can decide what future purchases are necessary to improve the performance of your network.

Credit: https://www.helpsystems.com