What is Network Monitoring? | Definition | VMware Glossary

Network monitoring is the process of constantly monitoring a computer network for problems such as slow traffic or component failure. Network Monitoring tools are always scanning the network and are designed to automatically notify network administrators via text, email, or other application such as Slack when a problem occurs. Network monitoring software differs from network security or intrusion detection systems in that network monitoring is focused on internal network issues such as overloaded routers, server failures, or network connection issues that could impact other devices.

Network monitoring solutions can also initiate failover to remove problem device or circuits from duty until remediation can be performed to repair the issue. Ideally, a proactive network monitoring solution will prevent downtime or failures before they occur by identifying anomalies that could lead to outage if unchecked.

Continuous monitoring is critical to maintaining network integrity. The best network monitoring tools provide visualization or a dashboard that provides at-a-glance status of monitored network components, indicating any out-of-norm parameters that require further examination or components such as switches, routers, firewalls, servers, and software services, applications, or URLs that could be the source of network disturbances. For maximum effectiveness, a network monitoring system should include high availability components so that a hardware or software failure of systems running the network management tool can be automatically remediated by fail-over to another network monitoring installation. Network Monitoring should provide: