How to Monitor Network Performance: Q&A

The Obkio team has encountered an array of network problems on many different network infrastructures for companies of all different sizes. With every network problem we encounter, we keep improving our solution to locate and identify these network problems with more ease and efficiency.

After much demand from our users and partners, we’ve put together a list of questions about how to monitor network performance that Obkio’s Network Performance Monitoring Solution will help you answer! If you’ve ever asked yourself how you can locate a specific network problem, or how you can translate your customers’ complaints into actual network performance data, we can guarantee that Obkio’s solution has the answer.

We’ve separated the questions into sections so you can easily browse through the questions that are most relevant to you.

Topics Include:

1. Frequently Asked Questions
2. Network Metrics
3. Where the Problem is And Who is Responsible
4. The Impact on IT Services, Users / Customers and your Business
5. Network Performance Solutions

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1.1. How can I quickly reproduce, measure and identify a network problem?

1.2. How can I reduce the number of network outages, their duration and their consequences on users?

1.3. Is my network ready for VoIP, Teams or a critical application migration to the cloud?

1.4. How can I translate a user's complaint into performance metrics?

1.5. What are the network metrics and KPIs that I should measure?

1.6. Is my Firewall big enough to support all of the security features?

1.7. How can I be notified of a problem before it affects users?

2.1. How can I identify if a network problem is a one-off and isolated event or if it is a repetitive event?

2.2. What metrics can I use to compare current and past network performance results?

2.3. How can I identify precisely when a network problem occurred?

2.4. How do I know if my network has sufficient capacity?

2.5. What evidence is needed to speed up the processing time for a service call?

2.6. Does my supplier comply with its service level agreements (SLAs)?

2.7. Will I have the same performance with an SD-WAN network as with my MPLS network? (Can I monitor SD-WAN networks?)

3.1. How can I quickly identify if a network problem is located in my internal network or that of the WAN service provider?

3.2. If the problem is in my network, how can I identify which equipment is involved?

3.3. Does network congestion affect all of my users?

3.4. How can I measure the performance of the end-to-end network if I don’t control both ends of the network?

3.5. Who is responsible for identifying a fault with my Internet provider. Me or the service provider?

3.6. How can I measure a problem in my service provider’s network without having access to equipment?

3.7. How do I open a service ticket with my service provider without starting an endless game back and forth?

4.1. Will continuous monitoring add considerable load on the network?

4.2. What are the hardware requirements to deploy a performance monitoring solution?

4.3. How much effort is required to set up a network performance monitoring solution?

4.4. How can I measure network performance with limited resources?

4.5. Do I get my money's worth with a network performance monitor?

4.6. I am part of a small organization with limited IT resources, can we afford a performance monitoring solution?

4.7. I am part of a very large organization that has a complex network that is distributed across many sites. Is it possible to deploy a monitoring solution on the entire network?

5.1. What is the difference between a network performance monitoring tool and the monitoring solution that I have been using for a very long time?

5.2. How can I monitor network performance from the point of view of users with a centralized monitoring solution in a data center?

5.3. How can I test my remote sites if I no longer have IT resources locally?

5.4. How can I catch an intermittent network problem without a continuous network monitoring solution?

5.5. How do I perform a reliable speed test?

5.6. How do I know if my QoS is configured correctly?

5.7. How do I monitor the quality of VoIP “Mean Opinion Score” (MOS) without capturing traffic or activating Cisco IP SLA?

5.8. What is the return on investment (ROI) or return on effort (ROE) of the deployment of a performance monitoring solution?

Some of you may encounter these questions on an everyday basis if you’re an IT specialist or network administrator, while some of you may have questions come up when you’re dealing with an unforeseen network problem.

Either way, don’t panic! Learning how to monitor network performance isn't as daunting as you think, and our network performance pros have the answers for you.

Contact us with any questions you may have about how to monitor network performance, or about our solution and we’ll get the answers to you. You simply copy and paste your question from this article into the comment section and we’ll be happy to set up a meeting or send you a detailed answer.

Obkio will help you find the answers to some of the most difficult questions in minutes!

Try Obkio’s network performance monitoring software to monitor network performance and quickly pinpoint and fix issues such as intermittent VoIP, video, and application slowdowns.

Deploy network monitoring Agents anywhere from your head office, to your data centres, and continuously monitor your network to alert you of any current or incoming problems.