When should an administrator establish a network baseline? That is the question that many IT professionals find themselves asking when they are starting to manage a new company. This is not always easy to answer, as it depends on what type of company you have and how complex your network infrastructure is. However, if you want to get started with establishing a network baseline, there are some steps that can help make this process easier!
Gather all the information for each server in the environment and record its configuration settings so they can be restored later when necessary. Some things that need to be recorded include IP address; hostname; operating system; software versions like antivirus or backup tools; firewall rulesets and traffic shaping configurations etc.; directory permissions.
Build a list of all the servers in your environment and make sure that each is configured to log events when they are booted up, shut down, or rebooted. This includes any virtualized infrastructure as well!
Document network device configurations so you know what ports should be open based on the traffic required for business operations. You can use some free utilities like Putty (Windows) or SecureCRT (mac/Linux)
If there are any physical devices such as routers, switches, etc., document their configuration settings too – especially Port Mirroring which can help when troubleshooting Layer One issues. The administrator will need this later when trying to resolve connectivity problems with remote sites; it’s also highly recommended when doing security audits since it will show when and what was running on the network when something goes wrong.
Gather data for real-time monitoring like CPU, Memory, Disk Usage to help identify when it’s overloaded and needs more resources from the administrator or when there is a pending outage due to lack of capacity
Identify critical applications in use such as eCommerce stores that have high traffic volumes to know how much bandwidth they should be allocated so users don’t experience problems with pages loading slowly
Establish metrics for latency between locations – this can come in handy if you are trying to troubleshoot connectivity issues with remote offices; also helps when doing security audits since it shows when these devices were communicating last
Setup backups of all configurations including logs when it comes to troubleshooting when issues arise
Utilize software like Microsoft System Center Operations Manager for monitoring when devices go offline or restart when the server goes from running at 95% of CPU usage and suddenly drops down to zero
Network administrators have the ability with tools such as packet capturing utilities (Wireshark) that can monitor traffic on networks in real-time; this is useful when there are network outages – they will be able to identify where packets might be getting dropped due to low bandwidth/congestion, etc.
Admin Insight: Network Monitoring Tools Used by IT Professionals
Wireshark – a general-purpose tool used for diagnosing many different types of networking problems including packet loss and congestion.
Netflow Analyzer (Cisco) – can be used for monitoring bandwidth utilization. It is a customizable solution that will work in tandem with the network infrastructure you’ve already put into place. The traffic on your networks are sampled via probes installed throughout the environment; this data is then analyzed by an appliance that provides visibility into where congestion might exist as well as how much bandwidth has been utilized over time
NetFlow Now: Application Monitoring Made Easy With NetFlow Technology
Gain insight into applications being used across your organization including who they’re being used by, when they’re being accessed, and how much bandwidth is consumed during those activities
View the top applications being utilized on your network in realtime
Track application usage to learn where potential bottlenecks exist
Monitor any time period you choose with daily or monthly reports
Decide what data points are important for monitoring based on specific goals. These include the number of connected devices, the number of apps downloaded per month, etc. For instance: if your goal is to reduce bandwidth consumption while also not impacting productivity then you can monitor when users log into their machines after hours when it’s more likely that there will be less traffic overall. This way you’ll know when there might be a spike in activity when you need to deploy a new bandwidth management solution.
To get started, install the NetFlow Analyzer for Windows Server and configure it with your IP address ranges
Choose which data points are important when monitoring network usage within the software’s dashboard
Configure alerts on high priority issues or when any alarms occur (e.g., when an alarm exceeds a given threshold) in order to be notified when potential problems arise
