Most businesses, be they small retail operations or large multinationals, rely heavily on the total efficiency of their data networks. For these systems to deliver the desired results downtime has to be eliminated or at the very least kept to an absolute minimum. Unfortunately an "always on" status is tricky to maintain as network problems have the annoying habit of occurring when IT staff are off duty or busy elsewhere. A very efficient solution to this problem is the use of network monitoring software.These applications are third party monitoring services that keep track of your network at various levels and are set up to notify you should any potential problems develop. At the emphasis is on potential. Most downtime situations can be identified before they develop to failure status and this is part of the beauty of this type of service.The really great thing about having this sort of early warning functionality at your finger tips is the fact that many, if not most, dow n time events can be caught in time to prevent them occurring at all. And unavoidable failures don't go undetected so they can also be addressed rapidly to minimize downtime. This cuts out a lot of guess work and makes forward planning for maintenance a breeze.Of course, one of the biggest benefits of using network monitoring software is the staffing relief and potential payroll savings implications that will be experience due to the reduction in workload. Valuable human resources can be freed to carry out other more pressing tasks as the network monitoring seamlessly continues unseen.Security breach prevention is also a considerable plus point of remote network monitoring. Conventional measures such as firewalls can only do so much to protect your network and having the extra vigilance of an off-site watchdog is an extremely reassuring bonus.There is no need for you to install or maintain any extra software because, as mentioned, the software is run off-site. These services are also easy and quick to set up and require little more than defining your exact coverage needs to be set to go. Once your network URL's are stored and the monitoring company has set up your monitoring profile the process goes live immediately.Once the process is set in motion any one of the pre-determined parameters that are exceeded will cause a notification to be sent to you instantly which will give you the opportunity to rectify the situation before it can become a serious failure. In addition these applications usually feature impressive ranges of reports that can build a very accurate diagnostic profile of your network for forward planning purposes.Network monitoring services differ in the levels of cover available but typical functionality includes FTP, POP3 &SMTP, voIP, DNS, DNS blacklist, SOAP/HTTP, UDP, ping/ICMP, custom scripting and temperature monitoring which covers enough ground to exclude most common network failure causes.Network monitoring software is o ne of the simplest and most efficient ways of ensuring the long term availability, security and efficacy of your businesses data lifeblood. Any costs involved would almost certainly be offset by the savings and peace of mind involved and any business that relies on its network for its day to day operations should give serious consideration to this great business tool.
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