Network downtime costs businesses millions, and IT teams often don’t know there’s a problem until it’s too late. Network monitoring changes that provide real-time visibility into performance, usage, and security issues, helping teams detect and resolve problems before they disrupt operations.
According to a recent report from Expereo, network failures result in revenue losses of up to $5 million each year for more than a quarter of businesses worldwide. This figure doesn’t even account for the user inconvenience and compliance risks that come with network downtime. Yet, without real-time visibility into the networks they are servicing, IT teams may not know there is a problem until it’s already too late.
Key takeaways
- Network monitoring provides real-time visibility into network performance across an organization’s endpoints.
- Proactive monitoring helps prevent costly downtime by detecting and alerting teams about potential issues.
- Modern network monitoring systems unite multiple data sources from across an IT ecosystem.
- Many network monitoring and management features, like network mapping, device management, and performance troubleshooting, can be supported by modern RMM solutions.
- With the right network monitoring tool, IT teams can easily scale operations while improving quality and satisfaction.
Network monitoring definition
Network monitoring solutions use specialized software to collect, monitor, and analyze data from various network components, such as:
- Business Line Applications
These systems work by gathering metrics such as bandwidth, response times, error rates, and device status across the entire network. This data is then used to spot patterns, detect anomalies, and trigger alerts.
Today’s network monitoring tools integrate seamlessly with cloud services and virtual environments. This makes it easy for hybrid or distributed workforces to reap the benefits of end-to-end network monitoring. Through various monitoring protocols, including SNMP, WMI, or flow-based monitoring, these tools can review and analyze data.
Why is network monitoring important?
Effective network monitoring and management ensure IT teams have full visibility into their environments, enabling them to detect failures or anomalies early, trigger alerts, and resolve issues before they escalate. By taking a proactive approach, teams can conserve resources, minimize downtime, and focus on projects that drive greater business value.
Here are several key benefits of implementing a strong network monitoring strategy:
1. Simplify scalability as networks grow
Modern organizations often depend on multiple business-critical systems, including cloud platforms and VPN services. As networks expand and new technologies are layered in, operations become harder to manage. A network monitoring solution provides the visibility needed to confidently scale infrastructure, identify stress points, and reduce risks during growth.
2. Prevent disruptions with proactive performance monitoring
With continuous oversight of device health, bandwidth usage, and response times, IT teams can detect performance issues before they impact business operations or end users. This proactive insight helps maintain service quality and avoid fire drills.
3. Minimize downtime and support costs
Faster issue detection means faster resolution. By addressing problems before they escalate, IT teams can reduce the frequency and duration of outages, cutting costs related to emergency support, service-level agreement (SLA) breaches, and productivity loss.
4. Make smarter use of IT resources
Automation and alerting help reduce time spent hunting for problems, freeing up skilled technicians to focus on higher-value initiatives. This efficiency becomes especially important as teams are asked to do more with fewer resources.
5. Strengthen security through anomaly detection
Network monitoring tools can identify unusual activity, such as unauthorized devices or suspicious traffic patterns, that may signal a cyberattack in progress. Early detection is key to preventing breaches and safeguarding sensitive data.
6. Plan ahead with usage insights
Monitoring bandwidth and traffic trends gives IT teams the foresight to prepare for high-demand periods, such as seasonal spikes or recurring login surges. Anticipating peak loads helps ensure a smoother experience for users and less reactive support.
7. Lay the foundation for managed services and unified monitoring
Comprehensive network visibility is the backbone of effective managed IT services. Tools like RMM and unified monitoring and management software centralize oversight across devices, locations, and platforms, helping providers scale operations, meet evolving client needs, and deliver consistent service quality.
How does network monitoring work?
Network monitoring works by collecting and reporting on several types of data gathered from a client’s network. The collected data is then filtered and analyzed to identify a variety of network problems or potential issues like device failures, poor response time, and outages.
In addition to sending intelligent alerts to network administrators, modern network monitoring tools allow IT teams to define custom thresholds and alerting rules based on specific network conditions. These rules can automatically trigger alerts in response to events like high error rates, offline devices, or unexpected traffic behavior, enabling faster response and resolution.
Monitoring systems typically collect and analyze data across a range of categories, including:
- Configurations (and changes to those configurations)
To build an effective network monitoring strategy, it’s important to ensure full visibility across the entire IT infrastructure, spanning connectivity, core network components, and security systems. Understanding the unique needs and risks of each environment helps determine which monitoring types and alerting criteria will be most useful.
What are the most used types of network monitoring?
There are several types of network monitoring approaches commonly used by IT teams to help oversee and monitor the state of client networks, but the volume of data can be overwhelming. That’s why it’s important to tailor a networking strategy to each project’s needs.
To effectively navigate the volume of data, teams can configure their network monitoring software to prioritize and filter types of data that best align with their operational needs. Common types of network monitoring examples include:
- Performance monitoring. Monitor key performance indicators, such as CPU usage, memory consumption, and even device temperature, to ensure that network components are operating within expected thresholds and to proactively address performance degradation.
- Event monitoring. Track system and device-level events to identify recurring issues or unusual activity. By focusing on high-priority events, teams can reduce alert fatigue and respond more efficiently to the incidents that matter most.
- Network change and configuration management (NCCM). Monitor and log changes to network device configurations to detect unauthorized updates, maintain compliance with internal policies or regulatory standards, and ensure consistent system performance.
- Digital experience monitoring (DEM). Simulate user interactions and test the performance of applications, websites, or services to assess availability, response time, and overall user experience across different locations or network conditions.
- Network packet monitoring. Analyze the individual data packets flowing through the network to gain deep visibility into traffic behavior, user activity, and potential data exfiltration—helping IT teams detect misuse, misrouting, or security threats in real time.
- Access monitoring. Continuously monitor who is accessing the network, when, and from where. This helps detect unauthorized access attempts, enforce security policies, and mitigate risks from compromised credentials or insider threats.
Ultimately, opting for network monitoring software that provides maximum visibility can enable technicians to make better decisions, and make decisions more quickly. Organizations with more complex network infrastructure will find that leveraging a UEM solution solution or RMM software can support many of their network monitoring needs, while providing the additional benefit of consolidating/centralizing their tech stack.
Types of network monitoring protocols
Network monitoring protocols are the underlying methods used for monitoring devices across the network. Different protocols serve different purposes, from checking device availability to analyzing traffic patterns. Together, they provide the depth of insight needed to manage today’s increasingly complex environments.
The most popular examples of these protocols are:
- Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP): This industry-standard, and still widely leveraged, protocol for monitoring network devices allows systems to query device status, performance metrics, and configuration information.
- Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP): This protocol is used by network devices to send error messages when a host or router cannot be reached. Unlike SNMP, ICMP doesn’t exchange performance data but is essential for tools like ping and traceroute.
- Flow-Based Protocols: This protocol provides detailed visibility into network traffic patterns by analyzing packet flows between devices. This helps identify bandwidth consumption, application usage and performance, and security threats. Some popular examples include NetFlow, sFlow, and IPFIX.
- Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI): A Microsoft protocol that enables detailed monitoring of Windows-based systems, including access to event logs, performance counters, and system configurations.
Network monitoring use cases
Real-world examples for network monitoring span a wide range of industries. Common applications include monitoring e-commerce sites during peak shopping periods, tracking healthcare systems for compliance requirements, or observing manufacturing networks for operational continuity.
Here’s a closer look at other unique types of network monitoring:
- Cloud network monitoring: If an organization hosts services on cloud networks, a network monitoring tool can ensure that all applications communicate with each other and maintain business continuity across distributed cloud environments.
- Data center monitoring: If an organization has data centers, network monitoring collects real-time data and identifies problems, including temperature spikes, service degradation, power outages, or device failures that could impact critical infrastructure.
- Network monitoring for applications: If an organization has containerized applications, either on-prem or cloud, network monitoring can help make sure that all the applications are running smoothly and communicating with each other.
Benefits of network monitoring for IT
Network monitoring offers measurable gains for IT teams, from improved operational efficiency to reduced downtime costs. Through proactive issue detection, teams can resolve problems before they impact business operations.
- Increase network visibility: Use continuous scanning of networks to gain complete visibility into all connected devices and their data flows. This enables comprehensive network oversight and informed decision-making.
- Use limited IT resources: Optimize resource allocation by automating routine monitoring tasks and focusing skilled technicians on high-value projects.
- Save time and resources: Reduce time to resolution through automated intelligent alerts and streamline your troubleshooting processes, minimizing costly downtime and emergency response efforts.
- Pinpoint security threats: Detect unauthorized access, unusual traffic patterns, and device anomalies early, often before they evolve into larger security incidents.
Remember: Implementing comprehensive network monitoring can present challenges, including data overload, false positive alerts, and the complexity of monitoring hybrid cloud environments. Be sure to account for an onboarding period for staff when transitioning to any new tools.
Network monitoring best practices
To get the most value from network monitoring, IT teams can align their tools and strategies around full visibility, operational efficiency, and proactive issue response. Here are some essential best practices to guide your approach:
Maximize visibility
- Network segmentation: Organize devices into logical groups (by client, location, or function) to simplify monitoring and surface issues faster.
- Comprehensive asset discovery: Ensure your monitoring tool can automatically detect all devices and endpoints, and maintain an accurate inventory for full oversight.
- Virtual machine monitoring: Extend visibility to virtual environments to support growth and hybrid infrastructure.
Improve operational efficiency
- Automated monitoring and alerting: Set intelligent thresholds to reduce noise and surface actionable insights to help teams stay focused and productive.
- Root cause identification: Use correlation and historical data to quickly diagnose underlying root-cause issues, not just symptoms.
Strengthen data-driven decision-making
- Customizable dashboards and reporting: Build visual, role-based dashboards that highlight the most relevant metrics for each client or use case.
- Device grouping and filtering: Segment and manage devices by OS, location, or usage type to streamline analysis and response.
Improve network monitoring with ConnectWise
Effective system network monitoring demands intelligent, automated, real-time insights. ConnectWise RMM delivers robust network monitoring and management functionality to help IT teams feel confident in their ability to detect potential issues early, troubleshoot easily and deliver optimal network performance.
From one seamless solution, ConnectWise RMM supports automated device discovery, custom thresholds, and real-time alerts to enable proactive issue resolution before disruptions impact business. Whether supporting hybrid environments or managing multiple client sites, our unified solution provides IT with the tools to improve service delivery, strengthen security, and scale.
Get started with a ConnectWise RMM demo today to see how smarter monitoring can lead to better IT outcomes.
