What Is Infrastructure Monitoring? A Complete Guide

Posted on January 29, 2022 How-To Guides

Did you know that infrastructure monitoring is actually what drives value across your organization? If you’re not sure of what this type of monitoring is, think about it this way. Just as a building’s foundation is essential to its stability, a company’s IT infrastructure is critical to its success.

As you would monitor a building’s foundation for any signs of wear and tear that could lead to future problems, it’s important to monitor your company’s IT infrastructure on a regular basis.

You may still be wondering what infrastructure monitoring is exactly. Or you may want to know how it can benefit your business operations.

In this comprehensive infrastructure monitoring guide, we’ll answer those questions. We’ll also include a more in-depth look at how the process works and how to choose the right solution based on what you need.

Keep reading for some interesting and useful infrastructure monitoring tips. Learn how it can help your business.

What Is Infrastructure Monitoring and What Are Its Main Purposes?

Put simply, infrastructure monitoring is the process of tracking and measuring the performance of your company’s IT systems. By doing so, you can identify any potential issues before they cause problems for your business.

There are a few main reasons why you would want to monitor your infrastructure, and these are its main purposes when applied to a company workflow.

Ensuring Your Mission-Critical Systems Are Always Up and Running

One of the most important purposes of infrastructure monitoring is ensuring that critical systems remain online and operational. Any downtime can have a serious impact on your business, leading to lost revenue, customers, and even jobs.

By monitoring your systems up close, you can catch any issues before they cause problems. You can also take corrective action before anything becomes detrimental.

Preventing Costly Outages

Outages are another common problem. With regular infrastructure monitoring, they are often minimized. When an outage does occur, it can cost businesses hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That is for every minute in lost productivity.

Not only that, but outages can also lead to customer dissatisfaction. And there’s a loss of business reputation in some cases. Preventing outages is one of the main goals of infrastructure monitoring.

Improving System Security

Another key reason to monitor your IT infrastructure is to improve system security. By identifying and addressing vulnerabilities early on, you can help prevent various potential cyber-attacks. Many businesses now consider infrastructure monitoring to be a key element of their overall cybersecurity strategy.

How Does Infrastructure Monitoring Work?

Take a closer look at how infrastructure monitoring actually works. There are two main types of infrastructure monitoring. They are passive and active-based monitoring.

Understanding what each entails will help you to understand the process behind infrastructure monitoring.

Passive Monitoring

Passive monitoring is what it sounds like. It involves gathering information about your systems without interfering in their normal operation. This type of monitoring is done through log files most of the time.

These files are what track all activity on your systems. By analyzing these logs, you can get a detailed picture of how your systems are performing. You can also identify any potential issues.

Active Monitoring

Active monitoring is a bit more hands-on. This involves the use of tools or agents that probe your systems for information in real-time. This type of monitoring can be used to detect system problems as they’re happening.

This allows you to take corrective action before they cause serious damage.
Active monitoring is also useful for gathering data about system performance.

They’re often analyzed for trends and patterns. Monitoring user behavior and checking system connections are part of this proactive way of testing.

Your business could benefit from one or the other. Or, it may benefit you more to adopt a hybrid model. This would depend on the size of your company, your needs, and the types of data that you handle.

What Are the Benefits of Using It?

Utilizing this form of monitoring can optimize the user experience. It can also streamline report generation. You’ll also notice that you can prevent any unneeded loss of profit.

This is all while increasing your system security. Aside from that, there are many benefits of using infrastructure monitoring tools. Some of the most important ones are:

  • Improved performance and reliability of your systems
  • Early detection of problems
  • A better understanding of how your infrastructure is performing
  • The ability to learn where potential points of congestion may be
  • Improved ability to troubleshoot and diagnose issues quickly and effectively
  • Avoidance of network outages
  • The ability to plan for budgeting and forecasting with accurate data
  • Real-time data gathering

Infrastructure monitoring provides visibility into all aspects of IT infrastructure. This includes hardware, software, networks, and endpoints. By identifying issues with these components early, companies can avoid costly downtime or data loss.

Additionally, this form of monitoring helps optimize resource utilization. It does this to help ensure that businesses run in the most efficient way possible.

What Types of Data Can Be Collected With This Tool?

One of the most important aspects of Infrastructure Monitoring is being able to collect data from a variety of sources. This allows administrators and engineers to have a comprehensive view of what is happening on their network infrastructure. The types of data that can be collected include:

  • Network traffic (packet headers, payloads, etc.)
  • System performance metrics (CPU utilization, memory usage, disk space, etc.)
  • Application performance metrics (request response times, database queries per second, etc.)
  • Log files (syslogs, application logs, security logs, etc.)
  • Environmental data (temperature sensors, humidity sensors, power consumption meters, etc.)

Each type of data provides valuable insights into the health and performance of your infrastructure. For example, network traffic data can help you identify which applications are consuming the most bandwidth. They can also help to identify potential bottlenecks.

System performance metrics can help you track how much CPU or memory is being used by each application. It can also help with making sure that your resources are adequate. And log files can help you troubleshoot issues and investigate security incidents.

By collecting data from these various sources, including servers, applications, networks, and devices, you can get a complete view of your infrastructure. This information can help you to identify the overall health of your system.

It can also help with identifying areas that could use attention. Or it can help find areas that may need potential modification from an operational standpoint.

How to Go About Choosing the Right Infrastructure Monitoring Solution for Your Needs

If you’re interested in finding a tailored solution to your business needs, it could help to look for a few key things throughout your search.

Here are a few tips:

  • Start by defining your goals and needs
  • Look for a solution that is scalable and adaptable to your changing needs
  • Choose a company that has a strong track record and a good reputation
  • Make sure the solution is easy to use and configure
  • If you have questions, always consult with a professional

Once you’ve found a solution that meets your requirements, it’s time to get started. The sooner you start monitoring your infrastructure, the sooner you can begin enjoying the benefits. Wherever you use technology, cybersecurity will always be a concern.

This is especially true for businesses. Technology is always evolving. This means that there are always going to be new ways to exploit system vulnerabilities.

Thus, making sure an organization’s IT infrastructure is monitored closely has become critical. to maintain optimal system performance and protect the company from costly outages, data breaches, or other cyberattacks. Working with a company that focuses on security, privacy, and keeping your data collection up to date and well-managed can make the process more manageable while giving you peace of mind.

What Are Some Best Practices for Implementation?

One of the most important steps in successfully implementing an infrastructure monitoring solution is planning. You need to plan out your environment. This would consist of identifying which devices and applications need to be monitored. It also consists of determining what data needs to be collected.

Once you have a plan in place, you can start deploying your monitoring tools. Be sure to select tools that are compatible with your existing infrastructure. Along with that, make sure the tools will provide the data you need.

After the tools are in place, it’s important to configure them properly. Then test them thoroughly. This will help ensure that they’re working in the correct way and providing accurate data.

Additionally, don’t forget about ongoing maintenance. Check your monitoring logs on a regular basis and tweak your settings as needed. This will help ensure that your monitoring solution continues to meet your needs.

To make the process easier, it would be beneficial to work with a professional and knowledgeable team like NETdepot. They can assist you with systematic transitioning and data security. In addition to that, they can also take care of data management, and even data recovery.

Get Started

At NETdepot, we offer a wide variety of solutions for Infrastructure Monitoring. We also have a team of experienced professionals who can assist you with every step of the process. With carefully curated approaches, high-quality services, and easy-to-use and configure solutions, your projects could remain ongoing without unexpected delays due to cyberattacks, or general security issues.

Interested in getting customized solutions for your company or project? Click here to find out how we can help.

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