As enterprise networks grow in complexity due to high volume of access requests and mass data transfer, real-time monitoring becomes increasingly important. Unsurprisingly, a greater number of organizations recognize the opportunities with implementing state-of-the-art systems that help troubleshooting problems and eliminating latencies or other critical network problems in minimum time.

Among the organizations that highly depend on network performance, healthcare institutions, campuses and enterprises can greatly benefit from proactive network monitoring systems. Namely, even a seemingly small network problem can eventually lead to serious downtime, which is why these organizations need to be able to detect network changes as soon as possible.

The importance of this was recently demonstrated at InteropNet Live, a global IT event that gathers professionals who help building a high-performance network for more than 10,000 show participants. This year, the show highlighted the possibilities of proactive network monitoring with NetBeez.

Proactive network monitoring on a test at InteropNet Live

NetBeez, a Pittsburgh startup that provides distributed network monitoring solutions for large organizations was one of the shining stars of this year’s InteropNet Live. Namely, the company installed 42 clients across two collocation centres and in the cloud to enable real-time tracking of network connectivity problems. “As expected, when thousands of participants entered the show, the time needed to fetch the internet pages increased. This end-user experience degradation was captured by NetBeez, allowing the NOC team to be on top of their game.

An overnight routing change caused a performance issue with Interop’s network. NetBeez was able to detect it and confirm with the NOC team that this was a planned change.

The problem was immediately detected by the system and later analysed by the event’s NOC team, which planned the change initially. Through the timely alert, the team successfully demonstrated how early detection can help in preventing connectivity issues. Therefore, this is an excellent example of how NetBeez can help maintaining network connectivity and performance on occasions when a large number of users request specific pieces of information from a server.

In a chat with the Crucial team, NetBeez CTO Panickos Neophytou explains why this was an important event for the company:

“InteropNet was a perfect use-case for NetBeez, given the multiple network locations of the conference’s network, as well as the high availability requirements of the wired and wireless network. It was a great opportunity to showcase the scalability of our system. The high volume of attendees (12,000) was enough to create a bend in network performance, which was easily detected by our agents. Of course, the highly skilled conference NOC team had already planned for the situation and alleviated the problem immediately.”

The idea behind NetBeez

Currently, NetBeez offers one of the most powerful distributed network monitoring solutions, including a recent innovation in the form of wireless monitoring agents that represents  “a killer product that is generating strong demand from universities and from retail customers,” according to one of the company founders Stefano Gridelli.

More specifically, NetBeez uses low-cost sensors that collect data in real-time and can automatically detect a problem that occurs on the network. Such a system enables both large institutions and smaller offices to easily track network performance and report detected issues to a support group before end-users request a help desk assistance. Their wireless agents represent a true innovation in the realm of proactive network monitoring because they further facilitate system setup, while retaining its advanced features.

Founded in 2013 with the support of Carnegie Mellon University Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and Innovation Works, NetBeez has been focusing on network monitoring innovation to enable more organizations minimize downtime and outages. Clearly, the need for such a solution is growing at a rapid pace and is largely influenced by increased complexity of enterprise networks.

Summary of benefits

In organizations that need to maintain the highest possible network connectivity for thousands of users, proactive network monitoring can significantly improve overall network performance and end-users’ satisfaction. In particular, the benefits come down to the following:
–          Improved accessibility and reliability through timely management of network problems

–          Cost-efficiency, given that such systems prevent extended downtime that can bring potential money losses, especially if subsequent repairs are needed

–          Higher productivity for all the end-users accessing the network resources

As pointed out by Gridelli, this solution can help organizations of different sizes see the outlined benefits, regardless of the number of users they are serving. This means that both small remote offices and large campuses can eliminate network problems and deliver excellent experience for the end users.