The Network Monitor

In this episode of Defrag This, monitoring expert, author, and founder of Aster Labs, Mike Julian discusses his upcoming book, Practical Monitoring, Effective Strategies in the Real World.

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.

Detecting attacks on network environments has become an unfortunate necessity of modern IT.

If you hadn’t heard, there is a fatal clock flaw that is effecting Cisco and Juniper routers and switches with the Intel Atom C2000 chip. Cisco has recently released a statement on the issue:

In this episode of Defrag This, we share stories from the trenches of IT and how we found unlikely solutions to troubleshoot business networks.

Ever think you have an issue with the interface active monitor in WhatsUp Gold being added back to devices after being removed? This is in fact, working as intended. Let me explain why!

“If there’s one thing I hate the most, it’s software licensing.” This was said to me, unprompted, by my friend Janine who works in government. She managed operations at large federal organization and handled budget items in the billions of dollars each year. But her biggest hassle was dealing with how her vendors handled software licensing.

It's that time of the year where analysts, vendors and other prognosticators share their IT trends for 2017. But do these IT trends actually mean anything to IT pros?

How did web automation help a self-described “chief cook and bottle washer” spend a lot less time on repetitive tasks?

If you’re an online retailer or any organization with an e-commerce presence, the quality of your buyers’ online experience on Cyber Monday can make the difference between a sale and an abandoned shopping cart. The only way you can keep the transactions flowing is to be the first to know of your website's performance problems, well before your customers do.

TriviumLindenhof is a Rotterdam-based healthcare organization that offers 24/7 crisis care, and to keep systems fully operational, its IT team's network monitoring processes need to offer 24/7 network uptime. The Dutch hospital network spans 70 locations and offers outpatient services and inpatient care for more than 2,500 children and adolescents each year.

Today in my first blog for Ipswitch I'll take you down network management memory lane to demonstrate how far we've come from the days of nascent networks - and where we are heading.

I had recently become a substitute teacher at a Boston-area high school and one morning not a single sophomore showed up for my sociology class. The French teacher in the classroom next to mine explained that MCAS season was upon us and educators in non-essential subjects are effectively ignored for the next three weeks while the students crammed like mad.

The final months of the year are often a time for housecleaning in IT which includes tasks like taking network inventory, confirming installed software is properly licensed, and prepping for compliance audits. Fortunately, these tasks are something a network monitoring solution can easily handle by gathering data and creating reports. Even better, you don't necessarily have to pay to get these tasks done.

The team that leads the enterprise network infrastructure services division at the largest school system in Georgia gets graded on network performance and high availability. With 140 schools in the district to support, earning a passing grade is no easy feat.

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

The computer security world uses a lot of military language and concepts. This is not just because it "sounds good" but because there are many useful analogies to be found.

The IT department of the Freehold Regional High School District (FRHSD) provides network management and support services to six different high schools located in New Jersey. Its network spans across over 200 square miles and is trusted to aid in the education of more than 11,000 students.

When an operating system crashes, a server stops responding to ping, or a simple PowerShell DSC configuration needs to be debugged, where's the first place a sysadmin goes? The event log. The Windows event log records a wealth of information. Let's see how we can automate log reviews.

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.