5 Reasons to Consider Real-Time Monitoring

What is real-time monitoring?

Real-time monitoring is the use of applications and tools to track and record continuous snapshots of your network’s overall performance. Organizations use real-time monitoring to track network activity, improve network security, identify potential problems as soon as they arise, and protect their sensitive information. Every business, regardless of its size, can benefit from monitoring its network in real time.

What are the benefits of real-time monitoring?

Monitoring your network in real time provides several crucial benefits for small business owners.

1. Stronger network security

Network security, including e-commerce website security, should be a top priority for any business. Monitoring your network in real time is an excellent way to support security compliance. Real-time monitoring can help you or your information technology (IT) department identify and resolve security problems as soon as they arise. These issues may include unusual or suspicious traffic, unauthorized requests or devices, cyberthreats or any other potentially harmful behavior on your network. 

2. Optimized network performance

Your network performance has a large impact on your business operations. For example, if you run an e-commerce business, you’ll want to optimize your servers to avoid issues such as downtime, bandwidth overload and long load times. Monitoring your network in real time can reveal actionable insights about glitches and performance inefficiencies that must be addressed.

Anthony Petecca, vice president of technology at Health Street, shared some of the most common network performance elements you can monitor and why they are essential:

• Bandwidth usage: If you send or receive more data than planned, your network could become overloaded, thus reducing overall performance.
• Latency: This is the time between a request and the data response. Latency is more important in some situations than others; for example, it’s especially relevant for gaming.
• Network availability (uptime): Knowing your network’s uptime allows you to confidently advertise your service-level agreement.
• Speed: Your network speed can vary at any given time. Comparing the actual speed you receive with the expected speed is essential to maintaining good network performance.

“Having real-time monitoring allows you to track performance over time to finely tune your network for ideal performance levels,” Petecca explained. “With enough time passed, it also allows you to prepare for anticipated network spikes, such as Cyber Monday shopping.”

3. Faster incident response time

If a problem does occur, real-time monitoring allows you to respond more quickly.

“Not only do business leaders get to know the status of their network performance and security at all times, but when an incident happens, the real-time alerting allows for faster incident response,” said Pieter VanIperen, chief information security officer at Own Company.

Businesses must resolve incidents, no matter their size, as soon as they arise. While it may seem obvious to resolve a data breach or cyberattack immediately, even seemingly minor issues, like a slow-loading website or numerous 404 errors, can hurt your business severely. Monitoring your network in real time helps you catch these incidents as soon as they occur and respond immediately.

“Faster incident response means faster mitigation, which means less loss to the company,” VanIperen added.  

4. Increased employee productivity

Monitoring your network can increase employee productivity. When you use real-time monitoring to optimize your network performance, your team can send company emails, work on projects and collaborate with colleagues more efficiently. You can also use real-time monitoring to track employee data transfer and protect the sensitive information they work with.

5. Greater cost savings

Up-to-date knowledge of your network’s usage can ultimately save you money. Instead of overspending on advanced software or excessive site speeds, you gain a clear view of the exact technology and support you need. An optimized network can also increase revenue, especially if you sell online.

How can companies use real-time network monitoring?

Companies can use real-time monitoring for a wide range of purposes, depending on their industry and goals. Consider the following typical uses for real-time network monitoring:

• Performance optimization: By tracking network performance issues, businesses can identify bottlenecks, bandwidth limitations, and periods of high latency. This enables businesses to make the necessary adjustments to optimize traffic flow.
• Security threat detection: Businesses can monitor for deviations from established network baselines or typical network activity. This helps identify potentially malicious activities, such as security breaches, unauthorized access attempts and suspicious data transfers.
• Troubleshooting and incident response: Real-time data and activity logs can help companies diagnose network problems, thus reducing downtime and preventing recurring issues.
• Compliance and reporting: Real-time monitoring helps companies meet data protection regulations. Stored network history can also be invaluable for security audits.
• Capacity planning: By analyzing network usage patterns, companies can plan for future growth by aligning network infrastructure investments with projected needs.
• User experience improvement: Monitoring can help companies address potential areas of latency or other network performance issues to create a great customer experience. 

“At the very minimum, I recommend that companies at least utilize real-time networking to monitor speeds and latency of the network,” Petecca advised. “Having the knowledge of a network slowdown before you see degradation within your company’s performance can be the difference of tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of dollars.”

VanIperen emphasized that real-time monitoring can help companies identify what is “normal” for their business and set alerts around those metrics.

“When performance changes, or there is a security alert, the system can notify you so that fixes can be implemented,” VanIperen noted. “This is why it is key to know what is normal for the business ― without knowing what is normal, business leaders have no idea how to set alerts.”

How do you choose tools and resources for real-time monitoring?

Several real-time network monitoring applications are available with various features, technical specs and prices. You should choose an affordable platform that is easy to use but advanced enough to support your infrastructure and monitoring needs.

VanIperen offered the following advice for businesses that are searching for the right monitoring tools:

• Compare and vet all companies. Don’t look only at the cost; assess what you’re getting for that price. Ensure that the platform meets your business needs and that your chosen vendor is reputable.
• Check if your cloud provider offers monitoring services. All businesses should be using cloud services anyway, and your cloud provider may know what is typical for your business better than you do.
• Understand that real-time monitoring is not foolproof. It’s best to use multiple tools to monitor your business and set different alert levels for various activities. 

Finding the right tools may seem daunting, but every business should implement some form of network monitoring as soon as possible. If you are new to network monitoring, it’s OK to start small and expand later.

“Even having simple monitoring in place for something like speed is going to save you time and money when growing or troubleshooting issues,” Petecca said. “I recommend choosing a solution that is easy to implement and use. If you need more complex tools later on, you can upgrade. There is a tool to fit every scenario.”

Jeremy Bender contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.