How to find and fix network issues before they impact business

No one likes it when the network is down. We have come to rely so heavily on the network for data sharing, remote access, communication and collaboration, when it’s down work can quickly grind to a halt. It’s not great for business, slowing down teams, stopping sales and impacting customers.

One of the biggest challenges in maintaining a high-performance network with great up-time is that there are many different points where the network can break. With interconnected devices including computers, servers, routers, switches and other hardware all linked with both wired and wireless connections, the network can fail at any one point. Add to this application and cloud performance issues and it becomes even harder to track and fix the source of the problem.

It’s critical that network managers have visibility of the entire network, so they can see if a network issue is hardware or software related, and exactly where on the network the issue has occurred. In some cases, the network may not actually be the source of the problem, but being able to determine this quickly speeds up the process of getting everything back online.

Here are a few ways that greater network visibility can help to find and fix issues before they impact business.

  1. Proactive monitoring: Network visibility tools allow businesses to continuously monitor the network infrastructure, collecting data on network performance, traffic patterns and device behaviour. This proactive monitoring helps detect anomalies, bottlenecks or unusual activity that may indicate a network issue before it escalates into a major problem.
  2. Real-time troubleshooting: With network visibility, IT teams can access real-time data and insights into network traffic, device status and performance metrics. This allows them to quickly pinpoint the root cause of network issues, such as network congestion, faulty devices or misconfigurations, allowing them to take immediate action to resolve the problem.
  3. Traffic analysis: Detailed traffic analysis, including protocols, bandwidth usage and traffic patterns are possible with network visibility tools. This helps in identifying abnormal traffic behaviour, unauthorised access attempts or network security threats. By analysing traffic patterns, network managers can quickly identify and mitigate potential network issues or security breaches.
  4. Device monitoring and management: With comprehensive monitoring of network devices including routers, switches, firewalls and servers, IT teams can monitor device health, performance metrics and configurations to identify any device-specific issues that might impact network connectivity or performance. Timely detection and resolution of device-related issues can minimise network downtime and improve overall network reliability.
  5. Troubleshooting collaboration: Network visibility tools facilitate collaboration among IT teams by providing a centralised platform for sharing network data, logs and analysis. When troubleshooting complex network issues, different team members can access the same set of network visibility data, allowing for efficient collaboration and faster problem resolution.

Better network visibility with ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes is an enterprise-class solution that delivers unprecedented visibility by combining network and application synthetics, end user monitoring, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) route visualisations and network and application outage detection. This visibility helps to identify the source of a network issue in real time, so businesses can diagnose and fix problems quickly.

Orro leverages ThousandEyes in network architecture to speed up troubleshooting and provide unparalleled visibility and insights into the digital experiences of users. With an end-to-end view and ability to simulate transactions, VOIP calls and other activity on the network, businesses can understand and improve the digital experiences of every employee and customer. ThousandEyes can also help check network status before and after any migration, and when used in conjunction with our unique One Touch Control (OTC) network management platform, delivers clear evidence of any problem.

Networks play a crucial role in helping businesses with better communication, collaboration, data sharing, resource utilisation and overall efficiency. To keep the network running smoothly, network visibility is critical for quickly identifying and resolving any network-related issues.

With real-time monitoring, traffic analysis, device management and collaborative troubleshooting, network visibility is the ultimate tool for IT teams. By leveraging these insights, businesses can quickly identify and resolve network issues, reduce downtime, optimise performance and ensure a more reliable and efficient network infrastructure.

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Gain better visibility of your network infrastructure for greater performance, resilience and efficiencies with an Orro secure network and ThousandEyes. Find out more today.

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