Why network performance assessment tools

One cannot emphasize more the need for a network assessment solution as an average of 545 man-hours are lost on employee productivity per organization per year due to IT problems. Network assessment tools are indispensable for any business that is supported by an IT infrastructure, as they:

  • Detect and resolve network performance bottlenecks.
  • Inspect security loopholes and prevent network exploits.
  • Identify areas in the network that lack or have underused resources.
  • Ensure a faster mean time to repair.

Before performing the IT assessment, it is crucial to list all the internal and external needs of the business. This helps you check if the IT infrastructure is aligned with the business goals.

How to perform a network assessment

Here's a checklist for the IT admins to perform a complete network vulnerability assessment.

Unfortunately, evaluating various aspects of the network is complex, and most tools do not have the features to provide a holistic assessment of the IT infrastructure. Learn how you can use OpManager to assess your network.

ManageEngine OpManager: All-inclusive network assessment software

OpManager is a powerful, network performance assessment tool, designed for all networks. OpManager provides a comprehensive set of IT assessment tools for identifying performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, and configuration violations in real-time. OpManager makes network infrastructure assessment effortless by providing intelligent automation and forecasting based on machine learning (ML).

Identify all resources in the network infrastructure

Discovery: OpManager discovers all the devices present in a network by automated network scanning. The IT admin is not limited to any specific protocol as OpManager discovers devices using SNMP (v1, v2 & v3), ICMP, WMI, and Telnet protocols.

Network assessment tools - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Device Inventory: OpManager maintains an inventory of all devices and interfaces in the network, and collects information such as IP address, DNS name, vendor, OS version, system description, monitoring protocol, device health, traffic counter, and more. With OpManager, you can always keep tabs on devices connected to your network.

Network assessment monitoring software - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Assess network performance by analyzing networking devices, interfaces, bandwidth and URLs

Device monitoring: OpManager monitors the availability, health, and performance of network devices, including physical and virtual servers, switches, routers, interfaces, and firewalls, and can monitor more than 2,000 metrics that provide critical insights on device performance.

Network performance testing software - ManageEngine OpManager

 

WAN monitoring: All global organizations have WAN connections that help in internal communications. It is a significant business tool as it is more secure to send sensitive company data through your internal network rather than through the Internet. OpManager's WAN monitor uses IP SLA technology to proactively monitor your WAN connections, WAN latency, WAN RTT, and raises alarms when faults are identified.

WAN monitoring software - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Bandwidth monitoring: Bandwidth is an important metric to be assessed in an enterprise network. If bandwidth usage reaches critical levels, business crucial applications might get affected disrupting services. With OpManager, you can monitor packet loss and bandwidth usage by Top N users, Top N applications, and Top N devices with flow technologies such as NetFlow, Jflow, IP Fix, NetStream, and AppFlow. It also supports various Cisco technologies such as NBAR, CBQoS, AVC, and IP SLA.

Bandwidth monitoring software - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Assessing log files for diagnosing system errors

The log files contain information relating to system components such as hardware failure, programs, and login attempts. Assessing log files helps in efficient troubleshooting and security auditing. With OpManager, you can monitor syslogs and Windows event logs, add multiple rules, and get alerts in real-time.

Log files assessment  - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Assess security threats by analyzing firewall and VPN connections

Firewall log monitoring: A firewall is a device that secures a company's network infrastructure by blocking trojans, spyware, and other malicious programs. Firewalls are governed by firewall rules and policies. With OpManager, you can monitor firewall logs, analyze policy effectiveness, and manage firewall rules for increased network security.

Firewall Log monitoring - ManageEngine OpManager

 

VPN monitoring: A VPN provides an encrypted tunnel for safer data transmission between a remote user and the company network. With OpManager's VPN monitoring, you can monitor the number of active VPN sessions, VPN tunnel status, VPN tunnel count, and VPN traffic, and protect your network from malicious attackers and data thefts.

VPN monitoring - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Assess device configurations and compliance

A device configuration is what makes the networking device work in a desired state. The lack of configuration change information poses a serious threat to the stability of the IT infrastructure. With OpManager's NCM, you can back up the existing configurations, track the configuration changes in real-time, approve, and restore configuration changes.

Configuration management - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Generate network assessment reports for developing long-term network management strategy

Reports play an important role in network assessments as they act as a reference document for future assessments, and help in audits. OpManager offers more than 100 prebuilt reports on device performance, availability, and much more. These reports are highly customizable, and can be exported as PDFs and Excel sheets for documentation purposes.

Network assessment reports - ManageEngine OpManager

 

Apart from managing bandwidth, firewall logs, and configurations with add-ons, OpManager makes networking assessments effortless with intelligent automation and ML-based forecasting.

Discovery Rule Engine: Discovery Rule Engine automatically associates device templates and rules to network devices as defined by the user, thereby automating the device management process.

Storage capacity forecasting: With the help of ML-based forecasting techniques, OpManager pinpoints when the device storage will reach 80 percent, 90 percent, and 100 percent of the allocated storage, and helps with planning buying decisions.

Notification profiles: OpManager lets you notify network faults via Slack channels, trouble tickets, and, web alarms if they are not acknowledged, so no alarm goes unnoticed.

Workflows: Workflow is an intelligent automation that enables users to define rules, conditions, and commands. With Workflows, you can perform network assessments and generate reports based on triggers.

Alarm Escalation: Alarm escalation rules can be configured for mission-critical devices such as application servers, so any fault about availability, health, and performance is escalated to a higher authority via email or SMS based on user-defined criteria.

Scheduling: You can schedule configuration backups, reports, and device downtime with OpManager to meet your requirements.

10,000+ Device Templates: OpManager offers over 10,000 device templates and more than 53,000 vendor templates out of the box, which makes device identification and management effortless.

Dashboards: OpManager provides intuitive dashboards that provide a 360-degree view of your entire IT infrastructure on one screen, and makes fault identification easier.

Visualizations: Determine the availability of crucial services in multiple branch offices with maps and business views. With OpManager, you can easily monitor remote locations visually, and get alerted in real-time before network services are disrupted.

Multi-level thresholds: OpManager offers multi-level thresholds with color codes, so you can identify show-stopping network faults and promptly take action.

FAQs on Network assessfment tools

What is network assessment?

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Customer reviews

OpManager
OpManager - 10 Steps Ahead Of The Competition, One Step Away From Being Unequalled.
- Network Services Manager, Government Organization
Review Role: Infrastructure and OperationsCompany Size: Gov't/PS/ED 5,000 - 50,000 Employees
"I have a long-standing relationship with ManageEngine. OpManager has always missed one or two features that would make it truly the best tool on the market, but over it is the most comprehensive and easy to use the product on the market."
OpManager
Easy Implementation, Excellent Support & Lower Cost Tool
- Team Lead, IT Service Industry
Review Role: Infrastructure and OperationsCompany Size: 500M - 1B USD
"We have been using OpManager since 2011 and our overall experience has been excellent. The tool plays a vital role in providing the value to our organisation and to the customers we are supporting. The support is excellent and staff takes full responsibilities in resolving the issues. Innovation is never stopping and clearly visible with newer versions"
OpManager
Easy Implementation With A Feature Rich Catalogue, Support Has Some Room For Improvement
- NOC Manager in IT Service Industry
Review Role: Program and Portfolio ManagementCompany Size: 500M - 1B USD
"The vendor has been supporting during the implementation & POC phases providing trial licenses. Feature requests and feedback is usually acted upon swiftly. There was sufficient vendor support during the implementation phase. After deployment, the support is more than adequate, where the vendor could make some improvements."
OpManager
Great Monitoring Tool
- CIO in Finance Industry
Review Role: CIOCompany Size: 1B - 3B USD
"Manage Engine provides a suite of tools that have made improvements to the availability of our internal applications. From monitoring, management and alerting, we have been able to peak performance within our data center."
OpManager
Simple Implementation, Easy To Use. Very Intuitive.
- Principal Engineer in IT Services
Review Role: Enterprise Architecture and Technology InnovationCompany Size: 250M - 500M USD
"Manage Engine support was helpful and responsive to all our queries"
 
 

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