Network monitoring refers to the system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, SMS or other alarms) in case of any breakdown. Sometimes it is said as a subset of the functions involved in network management. In order to see the operation of the computer network, it uses some specialized management software tools. Network Monitoring systems are used to ensure availability and overall performance of computers and network services.
The main features of Network monitoring is it can detect and report the failures of devices or connections which means it can alert a network administrator to problems caused by overloaded systems, lost network connections, crashed servers, virus or mall-ware infections, and power outages and other things. It normally measures the host’s processor utilization, the network bandwidth utilization of links and other aspects of operation. Sometimes, it will often send messages over the network to each host to verify it is responsive to requests. When failures occur, compulsory there will be a slow response, or other unexpected behavior is detected, these systems send alerts to respective locations such as management server, an email address, or a phone number to notify system administrators.
Network monitoring can be done by sending a “ping,” or test, to each computer on the network. Is the computer does not respond or takes too long to respond, the network monitoring system does its job by notifying the problem to the network administrator.
However, network monitoring is also a basic tracking of the flow of visitors to and from a website, also tracking such statistics as visit time, number of pages on the sited visited, and entry and exit URLs. Large scale corporate and university IT networks only employs this network monitoring system.
