The Network Monitor

In 2019, cloud computing hasn’t just hit the mainstream, it is the mainstream. In fact, some experts are predicting that upwards of 80% of enterprise workloads will live in the cloud by 2020.

If you are reading this, you are likely interested in or already utilize cloud solutions. Both Azure and AWS (Amazon Web Services) offer a variety of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) offerings. Selection between the two, with AWS the dominant market leader, is typically based on business requirements and online research or direct referrals (some of your contacts recommend a solution based on pricing, uptime or other). I could rehash vendor websites, favorable reviews, and other somewhat biased materials to prove the headline but, as always, I prefer to go my own route, bringing my own biases to the fore.

DevOps as a practice and philosophy includes the communication and teamwork between developers and IT operations. Traditionally, developers and operations are two very different teams who would point fingers when issues would arise with software. DevOps is an attempt to abolish this and has both teams work together. The business result of this is a more stable and reliable software to provide to customers.

Over the past week, news broke about a rogue device that had gone unnoticed on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) IT network. The fact that a Raspberry Pi went unnoticed for almost 10 months is a clear signal of network management issues and lackluster security policies in place within NASA, and other government agencies for that matter.

When troubleshooting problems or investigating potential security breaches, the Windows event log is a great place to start. Windows provides an extensive list of various event logs grouped by a provider with a sometimes staggering number of events recorded within. With all of these events being recorded, it's hard to figure out what's going on. One way to search event logs across not one but hundreds of servers at once is with PowerShell.

Working in a DevOps environment, agility is everything. That next release needs to get into production quickly, so even a minor network issue can hamper speed and efficiency.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) have simply become a fact of life for most IT organizations. The benefits of outsourcing networking to Amazon’s cloud are simply too obvious to ignore or to not take advantage of.

As a previous sufferer of imposter syndrome, I understand what it's like to feel like you're living someone else's remarkable life doing what someone else should be doing; but not me.

Windows event logs are a tool that every cybersecurity and IT professional should have in his or her arsenal. They can be used locally for troubleshooting or centralized for network awareness. When utilized centrally, powerful software known as a Security Information Event Management (SIEM) can be utilized to parse and search log files. But what if you are working locally?  Is there an efficient method to do the same? You will find the answer to these questions lies in Microsoft’s most powerful tool belt, Microsoft PowerShell.

It’s been predicted for years that most computers will run in the cloud and your screen will be the only connection between you and the cloud. Does that mean the business infrastructures will matter anymore, and what does that mean for the future of network monitoring?

Improper configuration changes to a network—or even just one server on a network—can cause huge issues. They can degrade network performance, shut down key services, and even result in noncompliance with regulatory standards like SOX, PCI, HIPAA and FISMA. And they can compromise network security.

Often perceived as a precursor to Industry 4.0, the rollout of 5G, if the marketing is to be believed, will allow innovations that were previously restricted or unreliable due to lack of bandwidth. Speeds of up to 10Gbps are promised by telecom companies but since we have yet to experience real-life usage scenarios, this is mere speculation.

Here’s a familiar refrain in IT media: Today’s corporate networks are much different than they were 10, five, or even two years ago. It’s cliched, but it’s true: Modern IT networks are bigger, messier, and more dynamic than they used to be. For system and network administrators, that means it's now a lot more difficult to keep track of what's connected to your network.

If you’ve ever said that or even thought it, then you know exactly how much fun taking inventory is. Or is not, rather. Every industry requires periodic asset inventory – that’s just a fact of life.

One of the more disheartening aspects of log collection within the Windows Operating system are the limited number of out of the box events related to security. It is often desirable to capture any unknown or malicious running processes, capture the source process for outbound connections, identify modifications to files and the registry, and to capture command and PowerShell commands that are run on a particular endpoint.  Luckily for systems administrators, Microsoft provides a great tool for this type of log capture within the SysInternals suite called system monitor, or Sysmon.

Your network is a living, breathing entity. Like a living body or an organic brain, it’s constantly moving things around and changing from moment to moment. Every single individual part is in continuous contact with and reacting to every other part. The job of your monitoring tool is to track all of this.

If you are a systems administrator or a security engineer, it is probable you have a requirement to filter and forward Windows event logs either directly or hierarchically. There are many alternatives available to accomplish this goal, one of which is Windows Event Forwarding (WEF).  In this article, you will learn to configure a simple source initiated WEF subscription which utilizes the HTTP protocol to forward events between a client and a collector in a single domain.

Everyone and everything in our modern connected world uses bandwidth. The pipes are now far bigger than the old 56kbps dial-up speeds most of the world endured once upon a time, so bandwidth is usually not seen as an issue by the vast majority of network users. Well, not until there’s a problem, that is.

The World Wide Web’s 30^th birthday came and went this week, and though there was much to celebrate—just look how far we’ve gone since the days of America Online CDs and Yahoo! chat rooms— it also seems like the problems the Internet causes are beginning to outweigh the problems it solves.

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.