Success Stories: How Obkio Transformed SMB Network Monitoring for These Companies

Explore real use cases of how Obkio revolutionizes SMB network monitoring, enhancing efficiency, and delivering top-notch user experiences.

The heartbeat of success for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) often echoes through the intricate network infrastructures that keep operations running smoothly. Yet, the journey to maintain and optimize these networks is riddled with challenges, a story familiar to many SMBs worldwide. This is where Obkio steps into the spotlight – a catalyst for transformation and automation in the realm of business network monitoring.

Imagine a world where the pulse of your business's connectivity beats steadily, free from the disruptions that can cripple productivity. This is the world Obkio envisions and brings to life. As we delve into the stories of these SMBs, the common thread is a struggle against the chaos of network intricacies, a struggle that found its solution in Obkio's network monitoring tools for small businesses and medium businesses alike.

Before we unfold the success stories, let's shed light on what SMB network monitoring is. In essence, it's the vigilant oversight of a network's endpoints and components. This involves tracking, analyzing, and optimizing network performance for SMBs to ensure seamless operations. Its core functions extend to providing continuous oversight through:

• Network health monitoring
• Proactive fault detection
• Traffic & device monitoring
• Performance and user experience optimization

Additionally, it serves as the informational backbone that empowers your network administrator to gauge the real-time efficiency of your network. This process equips administrators with the essential data needed to make informed decisions about the network's operational status. The ability to ascertain whether the network is running optimally at the moment is a direct result of the insights gleaned from comprehensive network monitoring.

Imagine yourself in this situation: you are asked to provide a detailed report on hardware performance by senior management, and you are left in a difficult position to justify the lack of a monitoring system.

The days of pulling together information from several sources or making educated guesses are long gone. In these kinds of scenarios, business network monitoring proves to be an efficient solution. Having a strong SMB network monitoring system in place makes it easy to access past as well as present performance information. With this wealth of knowledge at your disposal, you're not only able to identify network problems but also take quick corrective action, thus sustaining a competitive edge.

Limited resources, dynamic business environments, and evolving technological landscapes pose unique challenges for SMBs in managing their networks. The need to ensure seamless connectivity, prevent downtime, and optimize performance becomes paramount.

The benefits extend beyond mere troubleshooting. It's about proactive management, predictive maintenance, and, ultimately, ensuring that the backbone of your business remains robust. Small business network monitoring enables you as an owner, senior manager or network admin to:

Prevent Downtime: Identify and address potential issues before they escalate into disruptions, minimizing downtime.

Optimize Performance: Fine-tune network settings based on real-time data, ensuring optimal performance and user experience.

Enhance Security: Detect and mitigate security threats promptly, safeguarding sensitive data and ensuring compliance.

Cost-Efficiency: Pinpoint inefficiencies, bandwidth bottlenecks, and unnecessary costs, optimizing resource allocation.

Strategic Planning: Make informed decisions regarding network upgrades and expansions based on comprehensive data insights.

Obkio doesn't just offer a tool, it presents a holistic approach to network monitoring tools for small businesses. From LAN to WAN real-time performance tracking to proactive issue resolution, Obkio's solutions cover the entire spectrum.

This comprehensive methodology ensures that SMBs aren't just reacting to network issues but are strategically managing and optimizing their networks for sustained efficiency.

At the core of Obkio's robust capabilities are pioneering features that set it apart in the competitive landscape of network monitoring tools for small businesses. Active monitoring agents take center stage, generating synthetic traffic that goes beyond passive observation. This dynamic approach allows for a deeper understanding of network behaviour, guaranteeing uninterrupted connectivity for all workers and end users.

Network path monitoring becomes a linchpin, offering insights into the intricate journey of data across the network. Cloud network monitoring further solidifies Obkio's position as an industry leader, ensuring that the omnipresent shift towards cloud-based operations is seamlessly integrated into the monitoring framework.

Obkio's commitment extends beyond mere connectivity. It guarantees the efficient operation of crucial applications, recognizing the pivotal role they play in modern business operations. This commitment is a testament to Obkio's understanding of the multifaceted nature of network monitoring for SMBs.

From identifying bottlenecks to optimizing bandwidth usage, Obkio's solutions empower SMBs with actionable insights. Our user-friendly interface requires minimal training, ensuring that your IT team can harness the power of network monitoring without the burden of a steep learning curve. The straightforward setup procedure further solidifies Obkio's commitment to simplicity, making it not just simple to deploy but also effortless to operate.

• 14-day free trial of all premium features
• Deploy in just 10 minutes
• Monitor performance in all key network locations
• Measure real-time network metrics
• Identify and troubleshoot live network problems

In exploring the success stories of SMBs harnessing Obkio, a common thread goes through each narrative. Let's break these triumphs into the 3 most prevalent and impactful use cases:

1. Network Assessment

One of the paramount applications of Obkio in the SMB landscape is facilitating comprehensive network assessments. Unveiling the intricacies of the existing network infrastructure, Obkio empowers SMBs to make informed decisions about their network's health. Whether it's understanding the baseline performance or identifying potential bottlenecks, network assessment stands as a pivotal chapter in the success stories.

2. Network Troubleshooting

In the dynamic world of network management, challenges are inevitable. However, Obkio emerges as a reliable partner in the face of adversity. Through real-time insights and proactive monitoring, Obkio aids SMBs in swift and effective network troubleshooting. Pinpointing issues, identifying their root causes, and facilitating prompt resolutions, network troubleshooting becomes a testament to Obkio's dynamic role in these success stories.

3. Continuous Network Monitoring

For SMBs, maintaining network health is not a one-time endeavour but an ongoing process. Obkio's solutions foster an environment where networks are not just managed but nurtured consistently. This relentless commitment to continuous monitoring emerges as a cornerstone in ensuring sustained efficiency and resilience in the face of evolving network dynamics.

Now, let's dive into the real-world scenarios of these applications through our case studies.

ThinkTel, a division of Distributel Communications Ltd., stands as a seasoned provider of advanced hosted and on-premises voice, video, conferencing, and data solutions catering to Enterprise, Carrier, and SMB markets throughout Canada. With a rich legacy of over 15 years, ThinkTel operates as one of the longest-serving business solution providers, covering a vast carrier network footprint across 1,200 cities in Canada.

Recognizing the importance of readiness assessment for Real-Time Media workloads, especially for services like Microsoft Teams via Direct Routing and Skype for Business, the ThinkTel team sought to ensure a seamless technology adoption experience for their clients.

This required a thorough network assessment to evaluate the capacity of WAN infrastructures to support new communication services.

Understanding the critical role of Real-Time Media assessments, ThinkTel turned to us for a comprehensive network evaluation. This strategic move aimed to identify and address issues with LAN, WAN, firewalls, and internet connectivity before the deployment of Unified Communication solutions.

With Obkio's software in place, ThinkTel specifically aimed to improve Real-Time Media Assessment and guarantee a more thorough grasp of clients' network performance. This approach aimed to swiftly identify and resolve network issues proactively, preventing disruptions post-deployment. Obkio's UC Monitoring solution provided invaluable data on metrics affecting UC apps the most, enabling ThinkTel to deliver an optimized experience.

For service providers like ThinkTel, a robust network connection is the backbone of new services. By performing Real-Time Media analyses before deployment, service providers can guarantee end-to-end network performance meets the thresholds for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business.

Obkio's role extends beyond pre-deployment assessments, offering continuous network performance monitoring after deployment. This proactive approach ensures sustained network health, mitigating post-deployment risks and ensuring client satisfaction.

To sum up, the advantages include:

Capacity Planning: Assure clients of sufficient network bandwidth for the implementation of new unified communication services through capacity planning.

Finding Network Problems: Quickly locate and fix problems that can impede the performance of services after deployment.

Constant Monitoring: To identify problems even after deployment, keep an eye on a variety of network metrics that affect audio and video services.

Improved User Experience: Make certain that customers continuously gain from the best possible network and unified communication performance.

A Canadian leader in health and safety, SPI Health and Safety has been delivering specialized products, consulting services, and training for companies prioritizing health and safety in their work environment since 1972.

Evolving considerably over the years, SPI Health and Safety took a significant step during the 2019 pandemic, shifting all their call center employees to full-time remote work to ensure the safety of their staff while continuing to provide essential health and safety services.

The move to remote work brought the crucial task of ensuring that remote call center employees had the necessary network and VoIP performance to respond to support calls effectively. SPI Health and Safety faced challenges with poor VoIP quality during support calls, leading to disruptions and dissatisfaction among customers.

Troubleshooting these issues remotely became a substantial task for their IT team, especially considering that call center employees serve as the first point of contact with clients.

To address these challenges, SPI Health and Safety turned to Obkio's network performance monitoring software. The goal was to monitor network and VoIP performance for remote workers, identify problems swiftly, and collect data for internal troubleshooting or coordination with their Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

1. Deploying The Windows Agent:

SPI Health and Safety opted for the swift deployment of Obkio’s Windows Agents on each remote worker’s workstation. The Windows Agent, known for its simplicity and quick setup, allowed users to commence monitoring network performance within minutes, making it ideal for troubleshooting with remote users.

2. Mass Deployment:

Leveraging Obkio’s Deployment Profiles, SPI Health and Safety executed a mass deployment of Windows Agents. The Deployment Profiles streamlined the installation process on multiple computers, ensuring a quick and efficient rollout.

3. Custom Dashboards:

Post-deployment, SPI Health and Safety created custom dashboards to visualize network performance and Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for every remote worker at a glance. These dashboards, showcasing graphs of network performance and VoIP quality, empowered the team to identify, analyze, and address network problems promptly.

1. Address User Complaints:

Obkio allowed the SPI Health and Safety team to translate user feedback into tangible network metrics, collecting data on:

• VoIP Quality
• Jitter
• Latency
• Packet loss and more

2. Identify and Troubleshoot Performance Issues:

Network data from Obkio’s Monitoring Agents enabled SPI Health and Safety to identify issues within the user's local network or the ISP network. From Wifi connection problems to ISP network issues, Obkio provided comprehensive data for efficient troubleshooting.

3. Proactive Call Routing:

With automatic monitoring alerts set up for network problems, SPI Health and Safety proactively identified call center employees experiencing performance issues and redirected calls. This proactive approach reduced downtime by allowing quick network issue resolution.

4. Increase Customer and User Satisfaction:

Continuous end-to-end network monitoring ensured a superior support experience for both customers and employees. Poor VoIP quality over calls became a rare occurrence, and call center employees experienced less downtime, receiving immediate remote assistance from the IT team.

bravad TI is a prominent Canadian technology agency offering a range of products and services, including IP communication systems, business Internet, support for computer and network equipment, and cloud computing solutions. Serving diverse industries such as multisite companies, large enterprises, RPA, and hosting centers, bravad TI prioritizes comprehensive and scalable solutions to meet the needs of both organizational users and customers.

Committed to delivering an exceptional customer experience, bravad TI recognized the crucial role of proactive VoIP monitoring. The challenges they faced included:

1. Quicker Resolutions:

The lack of tools to predict or anticipate VoIP performance issues led to relying solely on customer feedback for issue identification.

2. Improved VoIP Visibility:

VoIP Quality is highly sensitive to network performance, necessitating enhanced visibility to identify and resolve performance issues.

1. Deploy Hardware Agents:

Choosing Obkio's Network Monitoring Agents for their ease of deployment, bravad TI initiated with Hardware Agents for internal network monitoring. These plug-and-play agents proved ideal for locations without IT servers, ensuring swift and hassle-free deployment.

2. End-User Monitoring:

Extending the deployment to client locations, bravad TI placed Hardware Agents to continuously monitor network performance. This step provided end-to-end visibility, ensuring the VoIP Quality met expectations.

3. Monitor VoIP Quality:

Leveraging Obkio’s end-to-end monitoring solution, bravad TI gained comprehensive visibility into network and VoIP performance. The solution measured VoIP Quality using the MOS Score, presenting performance results on a detailed VoIP Quality graph.

1. Network Assessment Before VoIP Service Deployments:

Obkio enabled bravad TI to perform network assessments before deploying VoIP services for new clients. This proactive approach identified network issues, optimizing performance for a seamless VoIP service deployment.

2. Analyze the Obkio Dashboard:

Obkio's custom dashboards empowered bravad TI to create location-specific dashboards with essential performance metrics. The dashboards became crucial in foreseeing performance issues and reacting promptly.

3. Identify VoIP & Network Issues:

Automatic alerts set up within the dashboards allowed bravad TI to receive real-time notifications of network and VoIP issues with tools like SNMP network monitoring. This proactive identification enabled them to troubleshoot swiftly, avoiding manual communication delays.

4. Troubleshoot VoIP & Network Problems:

Armed with data from Obkio, bravad TI utilized advanced tools like Obkio Vision, including the Visual Traceroute Tool. This aided in pinpointing network issues using visual Network Maps and Traceroutes, streamlining the troubleshooting process.

Bravad TI can gather crucial troubleshooting information regarding:

• What the issue is
• When the issue first came up
• Where the issue happened
• What led to the issue
• Who is in charge of making the necessary troubleshooting

5. Improve the End-User Experience:

With the collected data, bravad TI supported customers in resolving intermittent network problems and VoIP issues. This not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also increased trust by providing improved support and expertise.

As you navigate the landscape of network monitoring for SMBs, one aspect that demands your attention is the performance of your Internet Service Provider (ISP). The relevance of ISP performance is a crucial consideration for businesses in their pursuit of seamless network operations.

The ISP Impact on Your SMB Network Performance:

Your ISP serves as the gateway to the vast realm of the Internet, making it a pivotal player in ensuring the connectivity and functionality of your organization. Understanding how your ISP influences your business is integral to grasping why its performance matters.

Limited Metrics Offered by ISPs:

Typically, ISPs provide metrics that focus on monitoring the backbone or network core. Unfortunately, this leaves out crucial elements such as local loops (connections to individual customers) and comprehensive performance monitoring. Relying solely on these metrics from ISPs may lead to delayed detection and response to performance issues, potentially impacting your business operations.

Empowering SMBs through ISP Monitoring:

Taking charge of ISP performance monitoring is a strategic move for SMBs aiming to maintain network health proactively. While ISPs play a substantial role in your company's performance, it's imperative to have direct visibility into their operations. This strategy allows you to identify and address performance issues promptly, fostering a more resilient and reliable network infrastructure.

By actively monitoring your ISP, you position your organization to receive immediate notifications when problems arise. Proactive issue resolution becomes a key advantage, minimizing downtime and potential disruptions. Network monitoring tools for small businesses precisely pinpoint the location of performance problems, streamlining the decision-making process and enhancing the efficiency of issue resolution.

The Pitfalls of Lengthy ISP Support Cases:

Relying solely on ISP support for issue resolution can be a lengthy and hectic process. When faced with Internet problems, waiting for support responses can result in prolonged disruptions.

Monitoring ISP performance allows SMBs to diagnose and solve problems independently, reducing dependency on external support. This not only expedites issue resolution but also ensures that your organization is equipped to address problems promptly.

Leveraging ISP Network Monitoring for Competitive Edge

Unlock ISP Network Monitoring's transformative power for proactive issue detection and seamless client support, reshaping the competitive landscape.

Learn more

VPharma, amidst rapid expansion, operates over 50 pharmacies, catering to 135,000 customers. Despite their non-IT-centric core, a robust network and IT infrastructure are vital for seamless operations. With a distributed network architecture relying on local connections, traditional centralized monitoring struggled to assess end-user perspectives.

Growing reliance on swift Internet connections for Point of Sale (POS) systems resulted in frequent user complaints about application slowdowns, unstable VoIP, and poor Internet connectivity. Compounded by the absence of on-site IT resources, VPharma needed a solution to identify and troubleshoot intermittent network issues promptly.

VPharma explored various solutions but encountered complexity issues unsuitable for their small IT team. The search led them to Obkio, a revelation in terms of functionalities needed, ease of use, and SaaS flexibility. Within hours, Obkio Network Monitoring Agents were deployed across all sites for end-to-end network monitoring.

Custom dashboards provided real-time updates on network performance via Chord Diagrams and Network Response Time Graphs. Monitoring external performance through Google Cloud Public Monitoring Agents allowed benchmarking.

1. Reduced Downtime and Troubleshooting Time:

Obkio's continuous measurements of core metrics empowered VPharma to escalate issues swiftly to higher-level engineers, minimizing downtime and resolving problems faster.

2. Proactive Issue Identification:

Immediate visibility provided by Obkio enabled VPharma to identify ISP-related problems impacting all sites. Proactive monitoring allowed them to troubleshoot before users experienced disruptions.

3. Remote Issue Resolution:

VPharma's IT team could now monitor and troubleshoot network problems remotely, even for employees working from home, eliminating the need for on-site visits.

4. Simplicity and Focus:

Obkio's simplicity catered to VPharma's team who aren’t network professionals, offering visual graphs and SNMP polling without the need for intricate configurations. The focus on end-user performance ensured efficient troubleshooting.

5. Identifying Intermittent Problems:

Obkio's continuous monitoring, historical data collection, and analysis proved invaluable in identifying and troubleshooting intermittent network problems, enhancing overall network resilience.

In summary, VPharma's experience with Obkio showcases the pivotal role of ISP monitoring in the SMB landscape. The ability to proactively address network issues, simplify monitoring complexities, and ensure uninterrupted operations becomes a strategic imperative for SMBs aiming for sustained growth and reliability.

In each of these use cases, Obkio's network monitoring solutions played a pivotal role in addressing specific challenges and contributing to the overall efficiency of SMB operations. Whether it was ensuring seamless technology adoption, troubleshooting issues in remote work setups, or proactively monitoring network health for VoIP services, Obkio's comprehensive approach and robust features made a tangible difference.

Obkio stands out as a transformative force for SMBs, reshaping their approach to network monitoring, enhancing operational efficiency, and ensuring unparalleled user satisfaction. With cutting-edge features and ongoing innovations, Obkio empowers hundreds of SMBs globally, providing them with the tools to excel in the dynamic market and attain lasting business expansion.

Curious about the transformative capabilities Obkio can bring to your SMB network monitoring? Schedule a free demo today!