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Why Do We Need Network Management? A Practical Explanation

Note: This post was originally written for the Netreo blog. You can check out the original here.

Network management is a necessity. With today’s modern infrastructure, there isn’t a whole lot you can do effectively without it. It’s like tech’s version of the old American Express slogan, “Don’t leave home without it.” You have to deal with the ever-changing needs of the business, constant cybersecurity threats, and complex private and public networks. For these reasons, you can’t afford to leave your office or desk without having implemented network management.

So let’s discuss further why we need network management and the consequences of not implementing it. But before we get into those details, let’s briefly describe what network management is.

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A Detailed Guide to Real Time Monitoring

Note: This post was originally written for the Netreo blog. You can check out the original here.

Past performance isn’t always a good predictor of “now” performance, so for this reason, real-time monitoring is a critical part of network management.

Organizations must know what’s happening on their network at any given moment. So let’s look at how real-time monitoring can help you accomplish this task.

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How to Analyze Network Traffic, Step by Step

Note: This post was originally written for the Netreo blog. You can check out the original here.

If you want to know how to analyze network traffic, you came to the right place.

Analyzing your network’s traffic can be daunting. It involves collecting, storing, and monitoring all the data traversing your on-premises, hybrid, or multi-cloud infrastructure. You’ll need to visualize and search this data for network planning and design. You also need notifications when something’s gone wrong to effectively troubleshoot. So it can be a lot to deal with.

To help you feel better about the whole thing, let’s break down the steps you need to take.

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What Is Network Traffic Analysis? A Helpful Walkthrough

Note: This post was originally written for the Netreo blog. You can check out the original here.

Network traffic analysis is the method of collecting, storing, and analyzing traffic across your network. Traffic data is collected in or near real time so you can have up-to-the-second information about what’s happening. This allows you to take action immediately if a problem arises. You can also store this data for historical analysis.

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Service Level Agreement (SLA) Metrics by Example

Note: This post was originally written for the Netreo blog. You can check out the original here.

In today’s hybrid and multi-cloud world, you need to be more sure than ever that you have a handle on your service-level agreement (SLA) performance. But how do you make sure your cloud providers are giving you what you’re paying for? You have likely read, or maybe skimmed, their SLA. How do you find out if they’re meeting that SLA? You do so by monitoring your SLA metrics.

In this post, you’ll learn about SLAs and the metrics you can use to monitor their performance. This can help you hold your providers and your team accountable. You’ll also see some examples of SLA metrics to help you get an idea of exactly what you can monitor.

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Why SPAN Port is Bad for Packet Captures

Sometimes when you’re troubleshooting a network problem, you need to look at the packet data. It could be to find security threats or investigate strange network behavior. One of the common ways to capture packet data is with SPAN ports. But with the data deluge found on today’s networks and infrastructure, you can easily run into problems analyzing the packets captured using a SPAN. TCP sequence gaps are one problem that can result from capturing using SPANs.

In this post, let’s get into more about what a SPAN port is. Also, you’ll find out how different capture methods using SPAN can lead to TCP analysis problems and how you can reduce their occurrence.

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What Is Network Management? A Comprehensive Introduction

Note: This post was originally written for the Netreo blog. You can check out the original here.

What Is Network Management?

Network management is the process that helps you know the working state of your network. It also enables you to fix various discovered or undiscovered network problems.

In today’s networks, it’s a complicated exercise to monitor and maintain how well your network is functioning. Network management involves so many different components that you need the right people, technologies, and tools to do it well. So in this post, you’ll learn more about network management, why you need it, and what’s involved.

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Application Monitoring in a Modern Cloud World

Note: This post was originally written for the Cpri me blog. You can check out the original here.

Applications are no longer simple two-tier architectures. Back then, application monitoring was easy compared with today. But as the shift to the cloud happened, applications became more efficient and effective. Application architectures now include many tiers across multiple locations and sometimes in multiple clouds.

Monitoring applications with this level of complexity is a challenge, to say the least. So, today’s application monitoring is completely different from just a few years ago. In this post, let’s get into some of the application monitoring changes and how it matters in the modern cloud world.

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What is Observability and Why You Need It

Note: This post was originally written for the Cprime blog. You can check out the original here.

As more organizations move from on-prem to cloud infrastructure, IT teams are finding that traditional monitoring solutions just aren’t getting the job done. Many monitoring vendors have moved beyond monitoring to observability. Sadly, some are doing nothing more than putting a good spin on the same old monitoring solution.

The bottom line is that traditional monitoring isn’t enough for today’s cloud applications and infrastructure. You need real observability, which can tell you not only when there’s a problem but also what its underlying cause is. In this post, let’s discuss what observability is and how it can help.

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Elasticsearch Alternatives for Event Data: 5 Options

Note: This post was originally written for the Scalyr blog. You can check out the original here.

The amount of event data to collect has seen a dramatic increase in the last few years. It continues to grow as more companies move to microservices, containers, and the modern infrastructure stack. For many, Elasticsearch has been the solution to help.

With more data comes some common scaling problems, so you may consider solutions that are Elasticsearch alternatives.

Choosing the wrong alternative can be risky. So in this post, you’re going to learn about five Elasticsearch alternatives you should consider. You’ll learn about some of their benefits and drawbacks, and also how they’re priced.

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