The Network Monitor

With the advent of BYOD, it seems like just yesterday that a new mobile movement was making waves through enterprise organizations across the globe. BYOD offers new opportunities for increased productivity, but it also raises a slew of difficult security questions. While many IT pros are still wading through the repercussions of this mobile onslaught, a fresh, new user revolution is creating similar buzz (and similar problems).

Some say this is the year of BYOD management. Great news for businesses seeking to reduce costs and further enslave employees, but a little biased perhaps?

we covered machine learning and AI at a higher level—but never before have we had the chance to dive into how autonomous applications work by design.

For sysadmins and other IT pros, Halloween plays itself out all year long with all sorts of network nightmares and stranger things that can turn any server room into a house of horrors.

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.

The air you breathe has a direct impact on health and depending on the pollutants, a variety of health issues can result, such as respiratory ailments.

“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.

Due to unplanned service interruptions, all IT teams must spend some time fixing problems and preparing for future issues. It’s inevitable.

The IoT in healthcare can absolutely help make people more proactive about their health and provide physicians with better information, but it also becomes a nightmare to manage all this data and move it from device to device.

A network isn’t just a technology backbone that supports a business. It is the business. When networks, servers or apps fail, things can come to a full stop. That is, except help desk tickets. Those will start showing up like a flash mob, descending upon the IT team full of complaints and concerns that take up time needed to solve the problem. It’s a vicious cycle that no IT pro wants to deal with.

The promises and challenges associated with the Internet of Things (IoT), the fragmentation of mobile devices at the workplace and the diverse applications and services we use to get our daily work done, are just some of the issues IT pros have to deal with these days.

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, monitoring expert, author, and founder of Aster Labs, Mike Julian discusses his upcoming book, Practical Monitoring, Effective Strategies in the Real World

Michael Roth, senior systems engineer, at the University of North Georgia (UNG) is proud to tell his tale about how his team chose automation over IT complexity by changing a manual network inventory process across the school’s 5 campuses.

Taiwan-based KHS is one of the world's largest manufacturers of musical instruments with popular brands like Walden Guitars and Mapex Drums. The company's five business subsidiaries used to operate independently, each with its own IT team. KHS decided to centralize all IT operations at its headquarters which led to sorting out system integration and network troubleshooting. This major IT initiative included a data center virtualization project to standardize all Point of Sale (PoS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

My name is Jason Alberino and I am a senior engineer in our professional services group and a first-time blogger here on the Network Monitor. I interact with a good number of Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold customers every month and you may see me here from time to time offering advice to those of you using our network monitoring products.

Unfortunately, no one template can guarantee 100-percent system stability. There are, however, guidelines any sysadmin can follow to define policies and procedures that proactively ensure your network doesn't have a random fire drill.

When it comes to network performance, the 5 “Ps” rule helps guarantee uptime and speed: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. In today’s non-stop world, IT pros are tasked with the increasingly difficult job of keeping their organization’s network running effectively and efficiently. In support, we’ve identified three critical focus areas and solutions to ensure poor network performance doesn’t have you playing the blues in your server closet.

Many health care IT organizations create service-level agreements (SLAs) for new applications and infrastructure projects. It's important to collect metrics related to SLA line items and review your metrics on a regular basis.

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.