The Network Monitor

To get an idea of how massive a healthcare network infrastructure is, imagine you’re the manager for a healthcare network that has two corporate data centers, 1,300 servers (1,000 of which are virtual), 120 active directory domain controllers across the country, and three VM environments and their 600 more servers.

Technology in the financial sector, otherwise known as fintech, has matured at an impressive rate in recent months. Much of this progress can be directly attributed to growing interest from brick-and-mortar banks. In fact, these pillars of the financial sector have raised $14.6 billion in venture capital last year for a tech movement that some thought might herald the end of traditional banking. Despite the sometimes contentious relationship, banks are clearly seeing promise in financial technology as it continues to evolve. With that in mind, here are a few ways banks are currently using this innovative technology.

We're excited to announce WhatsUp Gold 2018 (WUG 2018)! The new version brings cloud performance monitoring and the ability to track virtual resource usage. Now you always know how much you're spending on cloud services such as Azure and AWS.

Today’s tale from the front lines comes from a customer who manages a dispersed wireless network for a large U.S. city’s public school system.

Take pride in knowing that your company depends on its help desk. And when it comes to information technology problem solving, few skill sets are more valuable to ensure business continuity. Yep, even marketing execs and similar partners pale in comparison to those whose workload is defined by troubleshooting.

Many companies that never dreamed they’d be developing their own software are having to “roll their own.” Sometimes it’s an internal-use-only, as a custom layer over an existing platform like Salesforce, sometimes as a product they’re selling. This is what has driven the DevOps methodology over the past several years.

In this article, we share some tips on how to construct an Request for Proposal (RFP) document. It will list the major things to consider when compiling your RFP (many of which often get overlooked) and provide guidelines on a typical RFP lifecycle.

Selecting a network monitor solution should come down to value for most IT teams.

Providing fast access to applications and data while protecting digital assets are the two biggest challenges faced by network administrators. Performance and security represent the two-pronged mission that administrators find themselves facing every day.

Servers, networks and applications aren’t the only remote devices that some companies need to manage. Did you know WhatsUp Gold can also monitor point-of-sale devices such as vending machines, in-store video games and ticket turnstiles? In fact, any device that supports ping, SNMP or WMI management protocols.

Two regional auto parts companies merged to increase their competitiveness with national chains. But they almost immediately ran into an unexpected network monitoring problem. The IT manager tasked with consolidating the two companies’ network infrastructures found that neither company’s network monitoring products had Layer 2 and Layer 3 discovery capabilities. This would give them enough detail to determine what devices to keep and which to upgrade and force them to spend more than they had budgeted for the project.

Today’s tale from the front lines of network management comes to us from a company that’s been in business for eleven decades. They’re a logistics company with offices around the U.S. And they literally started with a horse and a cart. They have bought several companies along the way, keep their eyes on the future, and learned the value of technologies that help them grow.

The IT life was simpler when employees each had one desktop computer and one landline phone. Technology did not move. It was stationary. Nowadays we have laptops, smart phones, and tablets that are both mobile and connected. And they have no wires. You are told that applications are mission critical,  expected to be accessible by people at a speed that optimizes productivity, and available to people inside and outside the organization. And who else wants access all the time? Hackers and other online criminals. As if you had enough to worry about.

Breach, which is set for release in a few weeks, focuses on the true story of an FBI upstart who must investigate his boss who is suspected to be selling secrets to the Soviet Union. For those of you who read the story in paperback or in weekly new journals, a strong lesson materializes in a story early on that is applicable to the numerous breaches we have heard about at TJX and other retail and insurer organizations. Regardless of how strong and robust your physical and digital security plan is, the success or failure of the plan more likely will lie with the human capital charged with installing, managing and watching the systems.

From Network World's Network/Systems Management Newsletter:

Network Monitoring comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be as complex as a multi-site WAN distributed solution. Or, it could be as simple as reacting to end-users phone calls claiming that they can’t receive email.

Leading up to Ipswitch Innovate 2015, we were fortunate enough to survey the presenters at our upcoming virtual conference. We asked each of them several questions about their pain points as IT professionals.

Leading up to Ipswitch Innovate 2015, we were fortunate enough to survey the presenters at our upcoming virtual conference. We asked each of them several questions about their pain points as IT professionals.

Do you get bogged down trying to both maintain sufficient performance across your Microsoft applications, while troubleshooting related problems as they happen? If so, here are seven tips that will help you manage your software from Redmond:

CES, the first big technology event of 2016, wrapped in Vegas last week and as expected, the Internet of Things (IoT) was a hot topic. If last year’s show was the one where everyone heard about the potential impact of disruptive technology, this year was certainly the year we saw the breadth and depth of the IoT. From the EHang personal minicopter to more fitness tracking devices than you could, erm well, shake a leg at, CES 2016 is abuzz with news of how technology is shrinking, rolling, flying and even becoming invisible.