6 features you need in your network traffic management system

Staying aware of your network's efficiency requires deep visibility and extensive insights. When different technologies are used in an IT environment, it's even more crucial to know how your users interact internally by reviewing external WAN links. To understand unusual traffic behavior, such as why there is a traffic spike in non-business hours, the data volume being transferred, the type of file being exchanged, and finding users within the network is helpful.

Getting a clear context of your network's activity when there's congestion or a network outage requires a tool that provides end-to-end visibility of bandwidth usage. This includes visibility into every device, interface, protocols and IP addresses to break down where the issue started, and whether it is because of overutilization of bandwidth because of an application or a protocol.

Most days, a network traffic management job relies on critical duties like monitoring the application servers, or configuring devices. Network's performance monitoring should be carried out as a routine, and that's where a centralized tool dashboard makes a big difference. With traffic statistics visualized in the form of graphs and charts, you gain a summary of the top performing endpoints.

IT infrastructures reflect different architectures and complexities, so a monitoring tool you can use to view with the dashboard and tailor to your requirements is crucial. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer is a network traffic management tool you can view through a dashboard, and ensure accessibility to it is only granted to those in the appropriate roles. Just like how each infrastructure is different in complexities and architecture, their demands can also vary. The tool you rely on should make this easier with a dashboard which you can tailor according to your requirements. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer is a network traffic management tools which allows you to configure the dashboard, while also helping you secure the visibility of these data with the option to grant access to only those in the appropriate roles.

Tools are often chosen for the automation and easier troubleshooting advantages they provide. In your IT environment, there can be many aspects that can go wrong, from a device becoming unreachable, network speed becoming too slow, or even a sudden traffic spike from an entirely different region. While these incidents can be considered a typical network issue, they can also indicate a severe performance degradation or a hacking attempt. It's necessary to choose a tool that enables you to set a performance baseline, and alerts you when this baseline is not met or when its exceeded. You should be able to configure these alerts to the severity level you want to define, and how you want to be notified.

It can be difficult to choose the ideal network traffic management tool for your needs. Some organizations fall into an unfortunate loop of trying a high-priced product that demands a challenging learning curve, as well as an agonizing process to integrate it with the existing infrastructure. Often, they opt to try another tool, requiring additional expenditures and time investments. An ideal option is a tool that offers a freemium model enables the IT team to gain hands-on experience as it evaluates various software features to determine the advantages of integrating with their IT infrastructure.

With dynamic applications used everyday, your organization's bandwidth demands might change. An effective network traffic management tool also addresses these requirements by helping anticipate and plan for future needs. An ideal tool should report on traffic statistics that depicts how your network is being used, the performance gaps, and which avenues will need more bandwidth. Efficient capacity planning can help you fine-tune an expanding budget so resources are allocated smartly.

Protecting security with large amounts of data passing through the network requires a closer look to identify threats, and visibility across the environment. Classifying traffic that are unknown to the IT landscape is where most security systems fail. Efficiency of such security systems depends on how they identify bad actors and alert for what's not normal from the specified baseline behavior. The tool should simplify detecting today's cyberthreats that can be disguised as a normal traffic request, and alerting network traffic anomalies to correlate and report.