Network Diagramming Channel Feature

Implementing Network Diagramming to Solve Complex Problems

By Erin Harrison
Executive Editor, Cloud Computing

When dealing with different operating systems and applications across multiple locations, monitoring and managing a network can be a monumental task. This is where proactive – as opposed to reactive – network monitoring and device management can be of great value.

There are many monitoring tools on the market today, including Microsoft (News - Alert) Operations Manager, WhatsUp Gold and Solarwinds. As with any kind of monitoring tool, there are pros and cons to each product, as pointed out by Paul Wilkinson, support services team leader at Knowledge I.T.

In terms of drawbacks, “for example, monitoring tools come with an equal amount of required configuration; tuning and maintenance of these systems is often just as time-consuming to maintain as the monitored systems themselves,” explained Wilkinson.

But rather than moving in this direction, Knowledge I.T adopted the Kaseya (News - Alert) platform, investing a considerable amount of time and resources in developing a platform that meets the company’s service and customer needs – and dubbing the product OneTouch.

“With OneTouch, we’ve been able to implement a robust, scalable and automated monitoring platform. This platform has given us the ability to combine all of our remote management, reactive monitoring, reporting, patch management, deployment, auditing and much more under one single interface,” Wilkinson explained.  “This can be extended to our customers and even their end users to deliver a single pane of glass  report on their availability and system status.”

For Knowledge I.T, using OneTouch has not only brought all of the company’s remote monitoring and management tools under one roof, it has also allowed the company to implement innovative solutions to complex problems.

In addition, OPNET, a provider of solutions for application and network performance management, has been seeing a lot of customers investing heavily in virtualized infrastructures. Since the company has seen virtualization grow to become so popular in the industry, it has decided to provide customers with a closer look into how virtualization works for their networks.

With OPNET’s solution, users can visualize the topology of a network. The company has added intelligence to NetMapper so that its users can get a deeper look into network virtualization, according to Vinod Jeyachandran, vice president of engineering and product manager at OPNET.

With NetMapper, users can see the actual physical connectivity of the server, which tells them exactly where the server enters the network. This is where they should start investigating and following the trail of where the network problem might be.

By taking a proactive approach with network diagramming, IT departments can pinpoint and correct issues on a global scale, which means system uptime is improved, maximizing productivity.

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