Monitoring Complex Networks: Top Network Tools For IT Pros

There are network tools that IT professionals need to use. There are several available and the most suitable need to be selected based on the kind of work the professionals do. 

As the internet has grown, networks have become more and more dense and complicated with hundreds of devices, servers, even power systems being connected in a complicated and dense mesh. During the early days of the internet, data traffic could not be effectively controlled, leading to irregular movement and inconsistent speed. As the internet of things is leading to almost everything and every industry being connected, the need for effective network monitoring became a necessity. 

Monitoring Complex Networks: Top Network Tools For IT Pros

Here is a selection of the latest and the most modern tools in use in 2021

The Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor– Changes in configuration can lead to network security issues. The Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor uses several options such as solid vulnerability scanning to identify network security issues and resolve them.

Datadog Network Performance Monitoring– This is another very good network tool and specializes in resolving DNS, app, and infrastructure problems that come up. This facility offers an overview of not only network components but network traffic flow between the components. It is actually a SaaS infrastructure monitoring device that monitors network traffic flow. The Datadog monitoring system begins by exploring an entire network and identifying all connected devices. IT pros can examine each device and link to assess utilization and determine which apps generate the most traffic in a network

ManageEngine OpManager– This is a network device that monitors SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol) devices, virtualized network services, switches, and servers. The objective is to keep IT exports and Network managers updated on the performance of the devices within a network. The first use is Autodiscover to find and map new devices within a network. Customizable dashboards present within this OpManager produce 200 widgets that facilitate monitoring. Users and operators get email and SMS alerts from OpManager whenever it detects heavy traffic or any other emerging problem.

Site 24×7 Network monitoring– Site 24×7 Network Monitoring is a user behavior monitoring service along with IT infrastructure and app monitoring service. This is cloud-based and available in the cloud. This tool also detects all devices connected to a network and makes a topology map. The SNMP allows device agents to send an alert when a critical condition of the device being monitored is detected. The Site 24×7 tool monitors power supplies, load balancers, firewall appliances, routers and switches, even endpoints and servers.   

Paessler PRTG (Paessler Router Traffic Grapher) Network Monitor– This monitoring network software is free. It uses packet sniffing, WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), and SNMP for monitoring. This tool can be used to classify systems usage such as bandwidth usage and collect data from switches, routers, devices, and other apps. The special feature of this tool is a choice of sensors to monitor network segments. There are sensors for bandwidth, hardware parameters, and SNMP sensors. This system also uses a customizable dashboard and makes a real-time network map and issues alerts, The Paessler Network monitor is used to monitor large networks. It is free up to 100 sensors and then users need to pay.  

Zabbix- With SNMP and IPMP (Intelligent platform monitoring protocol) monitoring tools, this is an open-source monitoring software for devices such as servers and virtual machines. Zabbix is useful for checking network utilization, disk space consumption, and CPU load. Zabbix can also detect configuration changes which informs monitoring experts if any updates have been made.

Progress Whatsup Gold– This can be installed on a windows server. This is also a network performance monitoring tool that uses SNMP to check on the network conditions. The performance of Progress Whatsup Gold can be expanded by using paid to add ons. A key feature of the Progress Whatsup Gold is that it continuously updates the network inventory when devices are added, removed, or simply moved.  

Nagios Core-Consisting of a dashboard view, community plugins, and alert systems. Nagios Core is a leading open-source network monitoring tool. This tool also has a performance dashboard, also monitors devices and add ons, and also issues alerts if the unnatural flow is detected. The only difference is that this graphic user interface is color-coded and elements that are unutilized or compromised can easily be seen and identified.  

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