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.
Company bandwidth usage has, for reasons other than expected growth, increased dramatically and continues to do so every year. Over time this usage is going to increase beyond your workforce's limitations, which poses an important challenge for IT teams.
Monitoring bandwidth usage is a vital aspect of any network management strategy. Bandwidth monitors collect, monitor and analyze network traffic volume by end-point (user), port, interface and protocol (application). This information enables IT Admins to:
As a former cubicle-based drone, I can readily identify with the bandwidth problems faced by users, with slowdowns and interruptions suffered for a variety of reasons, whether it is essential backups best run after-hours, problems with new security patches or updates, failing hardware or streaming video addicts.
For home users, monitoring bandwidth usage per device may seem like a pointless exercise but their business counterparts typically recognize the value of doing so. Bandwidth is not a limitless resource and total broadband bandwidth (as provided by your internet service provider or ISP) is shared between all the devices connected to the network.
A lot can change in a decade. In so many ways, we’re living in a completely different landscape than we were just ten years ago, and workplace technology is no exception. We’ve moved workloads to the cloud, introduced BYOD policies, and now rely on workplace wi-fi way for all corporate provisioned devices. All of this network activity puts enormous stress on enterprise networks, and IT teams need to be able to keep track of it to keep things humming. That’s where enterprise network bandwidth monitoring tools come into play.
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