Interconnection, the practice of establishing direct and private connections between different networks or organizations, has become increasingly prevalent in today's organizations. This practice has gained significant traction due to the proliferation of several factors, from cloud computing to distributed workforces, IoT, partner and supplier networks, data centers, and colocation.

Today, organizations rely heavily on computer networks to facilitate these processes and enable seamless communication, data sharing, and collaboration. However, with increasing complexity and interconnectedness, network issues and security threats have also become more prevalent. This is where network monitoring software applies.

Network monitoring software is an application designed to monitor and analyze computer networks for performance, availability, and security. These platforms provide real-time insights into an organization's network infrastructure, devices, applications, and traffic, allowing IT teams to proactively identify and resolve issues, optimize performance, and ensure network security.

How Does Network Monitoring Software Work?

These platforms typically collect data from several network devices, such as routers, servers, switches, firewalls, and other network components. Network monitoring software platforms achieve this through protocols like the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), NetFlow, or packet analysis, to gather adequate information about various network metrics, from its traffic to device health, bandwidth utilization, and error rates.

The data is then processed, analyzed, and presented in a user-friendly interface, often through customizable reports and dashboards. With these platforms, organizations can monitor their network performance in real-time, set up alerts for specific events, and access historical data for analysis and planning.

What Constitutes a Quality Network Monitoring Software

IT teams can benefit significantly from proprietary or freely available network platforms. These platforms provide several features that make monitoring and analyzing computer networks easy.

First, this software provides network administrators with prompt alerts whenever the network experiences a crash or deviates from its established baseline. These platforms also offer data visualization that enhances administrators' comprehension of performance metrics and empowers them to make informed decisions.

Network monitoring software encompasses functionalities similar to those found in typical application performance monitoring software solutions. These include real-time monitoring, alert and notifications, traffic analysis, mapping and visualization, historical data storage, reporting, and analytics. However, they focus on monitoring the entire network rather than a specific application.

A product must satisfy specific requirements to meet the criteria for inclusion in the best network monitoring software platforms. These include:

● The ability to continuously oversee and monitor the performance of an entire computer network

● Establish a reference point or baseline for network performance metrics

● Prompt notification in the event of a network crash or any deviation from the established baseline

● Providing recommendations and suggestions to address performance issues promptly as they arise.

● Providing visual representations and graphical displays depicting network performance data understandably.

By encompassing these features and functionalities, a reliable network monitoring software solution empowers organizations to optimize network performance, ensure availability, and enhance overall network security.

Best Network Monitoring Software of 2023

Implementing network monitoring is imperative for any organization operating in a connected environment. However, the vast array of network monitoring software and tools available can make the selection process challenging to find the most suitable option for your specific environment and budget.

In this section, we comprehensively compare the finest network monitoring tools to assist you in making an informed decision.

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Catchpoint Network Experience
Catchpoint Network Experience

The Catchpoint Network Experience is a performance-monitoring module included in Catchpoint's cloud-based platform, which helps seamlessly deliver web applications. The Catchpoint platform provides a unified package encompassing all the components for comprehensive network monitoring and optimization.

Catchpoint Network Experience service conducts performance checks on the connections to various servers involved in efficiently delivering a web page and its content. These servers encompass content delivery networks (CDNs), DNS servers, and serverless hosts responsible for microservices triggered by user interactions within the web page.

The comprehensive Catchpoint platform is purpose-built for monitoring website performance, making it less ideal for businesses seeking LAN monitoring services. However, it is particularly well-suited for companies that self-host their websites. Organizations utilizing hosting services and content delivery networks can still benefit significantly from the Catchpoint service.

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Pulseway
Pulseway

The Pulseway platform provides comprehensive monitoring and management capabilities for IT infrastructure, offering real-time insights into the performance, availability, and security of networks, servers, workstations, and other critical components. With Pulseway, IT teams can monitor network devices like routers, switches, and firewalls to optimize performance. Furthermore, it proactively monitors network metrics and helps to detect and resolve issues before they affect productivity.

For some organizations, Pulseway stands out with its mobile-first approach, providing a user-friendly mobile application for network monitoring and real-time alerts. This empowers IT professionals to stay informed and take immediate action at all times, enhancing their flexibility and productivity. The platform also offers advanced alerting and notification capabilities and other management functionalities such as remote desktop, patch management, asset tracking, and reporting.

These features make Pulseway a versatile tool, offering robust capabilities for organizations to manage, monitor and secure their network infrastructure efficiently. This platform is ideal for organizations of all scales.

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Obkio
Obkio

The Obkio Network Performance Monitoring tool is a user-friendly Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that focuses on monitoring and troubleshooting network performance from the perspective of end users. This platform caters to the industry's requirement for a simplified monitoring solution for all network types. Obkio achieves this level of simplicity by utilizing Network Monitoring Agents and synthetic traffic to consistently and accurately identify the root cause of intermittent issues like VoIP, video, and application slowdowns within seconds.

The Obkio Network Performance Monitoring tool provides innovative features that empower organizations to improve the end-user experience and enhance overall network performance. One such feature is its end-to-end monitoring. This platform employs distributed monitoring to monitor modern network architecture and prioritize end-user experience effectively. It also covers the entire network, from LAN to VPN, WAN, ISP, and Internet Peering, providing a holistic view of network performance and enabling comprehensive monitoring of critical components.

Obkio's network metric measurement feature also uses synthetic traffic to monitor the performance metrics that matter the most. Some of these key network metrics include jitter, packet loss, latency, VoIP quality, network speed, QoS, and more. It also monitors performance metrics related to network devices like bandwidth and CPU usage.

Finally, organizations can use tools like Obkio's Advanced Visual Traceroute tool called Obkio Vision to monitor performance and identify intermittent network issues in their local or service provider network. With these features, organizations can pinpoint precisely where and when network issues occurred in real-time or in the past using historical data.

All in all, Obkio's Network Monitoring SaaS solution provides simplified network performance monitoring in modern decentralized networks. With the evolution of network architectures due to the rise of hosted services and SaaS applications, Obkio covers all network types, caters to any industry, and provides scalability to accommodate businesses of all sizes. Get Started with Obkio's Free 14-Day Trial!

NinjaOne
NinjaOne

● NinjaOne

NinjaOne, formally NinjaRMM, delivers robust and user-friendly endpoint management software ideal for managed service providers (MSPs) and IT professionals. This comprehensive solution equips organizations with a complete toolkit for monitoring, managing, securing, and enhancing the performance of their network devices, including Windows and Mac workstations, laptops, and servers, regardless of their geographical location.

With NinjaOne, an organization's MSP or IT professional can effectively streamline their endpoint management responsibilities and ensure the optimal functioning of their network infrastructure. Other features of this platform include managing and monitoring the health and performance of every network device remotely, providing complete hardware and software inventories, and automating OS and third-party application patching. The NinjaOne platform is a powerful, intuitive tool that drives efficiency and improves ticket resolution times.

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Datadog
Datadog

The Datadog platform effectively monitors the performance of network devices by leveraging its cloud-based infrastructure. This service has the capacity to comprehensively scan and identify all connected devices within a network. Using this gathered information, the network monitor generates an asset inventory and constructs a detailed network topology map. Every step in this process is automated, allowing the system to perform its setup routine seamlessly.

Furthermore, the Datadog Network Monitoring platform provides log messages, offers visibility into all connections within a network, and effectively correlates them with performance issues identified in those log messages. This cloud-based system can be accessed through any standard web browser, providing centralized access to network performance data from several sources and end-to-end insights. Datadog is an easy-to-use system ideal for businesses of any scale.

Conclusion

2023 marks an exciting time for network monitoring software, with a wide array of advanced solutions available to meet the diverse needs of organizations. The cutting-edge solutions highlighted offer real-time monitoring, comprehensive performance analytics, intelligent alerting mechanisms, and intuitive visualizations. With these features, IT professionals can gain valuable insights into network performance, identify potential bottlenecks or vulnerabilities, and take proactive measures to ensure optimal network health and security.

The best network monitoring software of 2023 is designed to adapt to the evolving network landscape, including cloud-based architecture, SD-WAN networks, and distributed environments. Therefore, organizations implementing these platforms can mitigate downtime, improve troubleshooting efficiency, optimize network resources, and enhance the end-user experience.