As networks incorporate new technologies like software-defined networking (SDN) and public and private clouds, network visibility becomes a significant challenge if IT doesn't have tools designed for a hybrid network environment. That lack of visibility can lead to major problems at network edge locations that frustrate users, reduce worker productivity and cost the business money. What are some of the visibility challenges facing these modern networks? ...

APMdigest asked experts from across the IT industry for their opinions on what IT departments should be monitoring to ensure digital performance. Part 4 covers the infrastructure, including the cloud and the network ...

The hardest part of managing and resolving an incident on the network is that users or customers know about incidents before they do, according to 30.1% of survey respondents participating in The 2018 State of Network Management report from Kentik ...

As a Network Operations professional, you know how hard it is to ensure optimal network performance when you’re unsure of how end-user devices, application code, and infrastructure affect performance. Identifying your important applications and prioritizing their performance is more difficult than ever, especially when much of an organization’s web-based traffic appears the same to the network. You need insight to maximize performance — not inefficient troubleshooting, longer time to resolution, and an overall lack of application intelligence. But you can stay ahead. Follow these 10 steps to maximize the performance of your applications and underlying network infrastructure ...

Over the past year, the enterprise network grew significantly more complicated, creating new challenges for network professionals, according to IDG’s 8th annual State of the Network study. Internet of Things (IoT) projects, the demands of an increasingly mobile workforce, and an explosion of apps prompted network professionals to enhance their network infrastructure and the skillsets needed to support it. Network professionals are now being asked to help shape IT strategy ...

A new breed of solution has been born that simultaneously provides the precision of packet-based analytics with the speed of flow-based monitoring (at a reasonable cost). Here are more reasons to use these new NPM/APM analytics solutions ...

If you are like most IT professionals, which I am sure you are, you are dealing with a lot issues. Typical issues include ...

While regulatory compliance is an important activity for medium to large businesses, easy and cost-effective solutions can be difficult to find. Network visibility is an often overlooked, but critically important, activity that can help lower costs and make life easier for IT personnel that are responsible for these regulatory compliance solutions ...

In a previous blog, I talked about how to get visibility into cloud networks and resolve the first part of the problem. This included why visibility was important and how to accomplish it. Once you have that information, the next thing you need to understand is the performance of your cloud network so that you can answer important questions. This includes ...

Many network operations teams question if they need to TAP their networks; perhaps they aren't familiar with test access points (TAPs), or they think there isn't an application that makes sense for them. Over the past decade, industry best-practice revealed that all network infrastructure should utilize a network TAP as the foundation for complete visibility. The following are the seven most popular applications for TAPs ...

Everyone wants to talk about how analytics is the future of network engineering and operations. The phrase "network analytics" is used by vendors of various stripes to imply that a particular technology is smarter and better than the average solution. But what is it? What does the term network analytics mean to the enterprise network infrastructure professionals? ...