Commonly measured metrics in network monitoring
Your network’s performance can be affected by a number of different factors. That’s why when it comes to monitoring it, there are various forms of metrics you can analyze.
With the help of a network performance monitoring (NPM) solution, your business can find these factors and understand just how they’re hurting your network and its performance.
Bandwidth usage
Bandwidth is the maximum rate of data transmission possible on your network. In order to achieve optimal network operations, you would want to get as close to your maximum bandwidth as possible. But without reaching critical levels, of course. This would mean that your network is sending as much data as it can within a certain period of time, but isn’t being overloaded.
With the help of an NPM, you can monitor how much bandwidth your network is currently used, as well as how much bandwidth is used during daily operations. This solution will also alert you when your network is using too much bandwidth and is coming to crashing.
Availability or uptime
Network availability, also known as uptime, simply measures whether or not your network is currently operational. You probably just scoffed at your laptop, saying something along the lines of “Of course, my network is operational!” However, you can never actually guarantee 100% availability. But you should be aware of any time your network is down that you weren’t expecting.
It’s imperative to be alerted when your network goes down, which your NYC managed IT services can help you with. They should also be able to help you discover your actual uptime percentage and how often your network goes down, allowing you to fix these discrepancies to the best of your abilities.
Throughput
Throughput is similar to bandwidth. It measures your network’s actual rate of data transmission, which probably varies wildly through distinct areas of your network. While a network’s bandwidth measures the theoretical limit of data transfer, throughput tells you the amount of data actually being sent.
Specifically, the latter measures the percentage of data packets that are successfully being sent. This would mean that a low throughput implies that there are a lot of packets that failed the first time around and had to be sent again.
Latency
Latency is defined by how much time it takes to get a response to a data packet. It’s usually measured bi-directionally. One direction of measurement examines how a local host, such as an application or load-balancing server, to send a packet to a remote host, noting the time it took to receive a response.
On the other hand, the other direction looks at the exact opposite: how long an application takes to send a response after it has received a packet from a remote host.
Connectivity
Connectivity refers to whether or not the connections between the nodes on your network are working the way they should be. If there is an improper or malfunctioning connection on your network, it could really harm your company, posing as a significant hurdle.
Ideally, you would want every connection to be operating at peak levels at all times. However, performance issues like malware can target specific nodes or connections, affecting the overall performance of the network.