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You may have seen EMA ’ s 2020 Network Management Megatrends survey that showed more than half of NetOps teams rely on between four and 10 network monitoring tools . So what key data types should you be able to monitor ? Here are four :
• Flow data – Some platforms ingest flow data for full visibility into the network performance across multi-vendor , multi-domain and multi-cloud networked environments . By using just flow data about 80 % of the most common network traffic issues can be resolved .
• Packet data – Troubleshooting tricky network application issues requires packet data for forensic level analysis , especially with VoIP and video . Additionally , using packet capture appliances is useful as these appliances extend the monitoring of network traffic and applications to remote sites and branches , WAN edge and data centers .
• Wi-Fi data – Wireless is ubiquitous in the enterprise and a critical source of data for monitoring users and end devices including IoT devices . Packet capture of wireless 802.11ac and newer Wi-Fi 6 is critical for understanding wireless performance analysis .
• Device data – Organizations are increasingly relying on technologies from Cisco , HPE / Aruba , Juniper and others . Many of these devices traditionally used SNMP for monitoring , but more and more APIs are being used as well for things like SD-WAN controllers . This data is useful for troubleshooting and resolving network issues quickly on devices and systems .
2 ) The next step is to map the network including devices , routers , switches and how they are interconnected . Tools that provide a network topology mapping function can auto-discover the network infrastructure and determine the various devices and how they are connected , the IP addresses used and in cases of SD-WAN , be able to automatically map the various sites and their IP ranges .
3 ) Next , you need some type of NetFlow analyzer . NetFlow is a term originally coined by Cisco , but now a generic term used to describe flow data ( and IPFIX is an IETF standard used with many vendors as well ). NetFlow analysis of network traffic is essential to see the full picture of all the applications including SaaS apps , voice , video and web conferences . Some advanced flow telemetry includes information about application performance like delay , jitter , loss and even HTTP response codes or TCP retransmissions . Through flow analysis , most network traffic issues can be resolved .
4 ) A packet analyzer with Deep Packet Inspection ( DPI ) capabilities is critical for determining the root cause of many application issues and also security use cases . While NetFlow Analyzers are useful for most network traffic issues , packet analyzers allow you to analyze each packet and can troubleshoot application issues down to the request and responses in applications or complex issues related to Voice Over IP ( VoIP ) and video conferencing .
5 ) Network monitoring dashboards , reports and alerts are critical to get an overview of what ’ s
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