What are the best network management tools for your organization?

1 Network Discovery and Mapping

One of the first steps in network management is to discover and map your network topology and inventory. This helps you gain visibility and control over your network assets, dependencies, and configurations. A good network discovery and mapping tool should be able to automatically scan and identify your network devices, such as routers, switches, firewalls, access points, and servers. It should also be able to generate dynamic and interactive network maps that show the status, performance, and alerts of each device and link. Additionally, it should support various protocols and methods for network discovery, such as SNMP, ICMP, WMI, SSH, and Telnet.

2 Network Performance Monitoring

Network performance monitoring is crucial for ensuring the availability, reliability, and efficiency of your network services and applications. It involves collecting and analyzing various metrics and indicators of network health, such as bandwidth, latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput, and utilization. A good network performance monitoring tool should be able to monitor and display these metrics in real-time and historical graphs, dashboards, and reports. It should also be able to set baselines and thresholds for normal and abnormal network behavior, and alert you when they are violated. Moreover, it should be able to drill down into the root cause of network issues and provide actionable recommendations for resolution.

3 Network Configuration Management

Network configuration management is important for maintaining the consistency, security, and compliance of your network devices and policies. It involves backing up, restoring, updating, and auditing your network device configurations, as well as enforcing standard rules and best practices. A good network configuration management tool should be able to automate and streamline these tasks, and reduce human errors and manual efforts. It should also be able to compare and synchronize configuration changes across multiple devices, and detect and remediate unauthorized or malicious changes. Furthermore, it should be able to generate and verify compliance reports for various regulatory standards and frameworks.

4 Network Security Management

Network security management is essential for protecting your network from internal and external threats, such as hackers, malware, denial-of-service attacks, and data breaches. It involves implementing and monitoring various network security measures, such as firewalls, encryption, authentication, access control, and intrusion detection and prevention. A good network security management tool should be able to integrate and coordinate these measures, and provide a holistic view of your network security posture. It should also be able to identify and analyze network vulnerabilities and risks, and provide remediation guidance and prioritization. Additionally, it should be able to log and audit network security events and incidents, and generate and comply with security policies and regulations.

5 Network Application Management

Network application management is vital for ensuring the performance, availability, and quality of your network-based applications and services, such as web, email, VoIP, and cloud. It involves monitoring and optimizing various aspects of your network application delivery, such as response time, availability, user experience, and service level agreements. A good network application management tool should be able to monitor and measure these aspects from both the server and the client side, and provide end-to-end visibility and troubleshooting. It should also be able to identify and isolate network application issues and bottlenecks, and provide optimization suggestions and solutions. Moreover, it should be able to support various network application protocols and technologies, such as HTTP, SMTP, SIP, and DNS.

6 Network Automation and Orchestration

Network automation and orchestration is beneficial for improving the agility, efficiency, and scalability of your network operations and processes. It involves automating and orchestrating various network tasks and workflows, such as provisioning, deployment, maintenance, and recovery. A good network automation and orchestration tool should be able to simplify and accelerate these tasks and workflows, and reduce human intervention and errors. It should also be able to integrate and communicate with various network devices, systems, and applications, and provide a centralized and unified platform for network automation and orchestration. Furthermore, it should be able to leverage various network automation and orchestration frameworks and languages, such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, and Python.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?