Your network support staff in your Network Operations Centre (NOC) are the unsung heroes of your business. They support your business by keeping your network running smoothly and help resolve issues quickly. But to operate efficiently, these people need to have the right tools to help diagnose the problem, solve it themselves or direct it to the right team for a quick resolution.

In the early days of tech, this wasn’t much of a problem. Server and network issues were easily identified, the edge of the network was clearly defined and desktops were fixed assets which could be easily identified and secured.

But today’s network is a different beast. These staff have to contend with BYOD, guest networks, software-defined networking, WiFi and Internet of Things devices. And then there are evolving threats which need to be addressed. See my blog on Shadow IT.

If network support staff are to keep doing its job effectively in this environment, they need access to the right information at the right time. With the network evolving so quickly, many legacy applications simply can’t provide the data and insight needed to keep on top of the situation. They need a consolidated view.

If you are still using legacy software to manage and monitor your network, the following three scenarios will be familiar to you.

1. Poor situational awareness

In a fluid and constantly changing environment, your people need realtime information about the devices currently active on the network. Legacy software simply can’t provide this information quickly enough. This causes people to guess where the problem might be.

The solution is to implement a network management tool which offers real-time insight into the state of the network, maps dynamic changes automatically and highlights issues as they occur. To do this effectively it must provide a consolidated view of the infrastructure under management.

2. Poor escalations

The traditional method for escalating tickets in the NOC is to troubleshoot the issue until all possible solutions have been exhausted and then pass it on to another IT department or supplier. This is known as a functional escalation in ITIL and it is often the primary source of complaints from IT users and helpdesk employees alike.

Using the functional escalation method, key information is often missing, troubleshooting is not carried out effectively and the importance of the device in the network hierarchy is not considered. A better solution is to implement the Quality Assurance method which not only identifies the device and its user, it creates a clear path for resolution and escalation for helpdesk analysts to follow.

3. Unreliable data

Early iterations of network management software were very good at generating reams of data from every monitored device. But that data wasn’t displayed in context, deduplicated or linked to any single device or event. As a result, hundreds of alerts would be generated from a single point of failure which made it almost impossible to identify and solve the issue.

Our network management software works to solve the issue of information-overload by automatically triaging events and classifying them based on their impact on the business, not their technical nature. This rules-based approach makes it easy to identify issues which need to be fixed quickly, regardless of the size of the network.

Here at Opmantek, our next-generation network management software is designed to take the stress out of managing your network. Our software provides a real-time 360º view of your network, helps you identify issues quickly and creates a clear path for escalation, thereby lowering response times.

If you would like more information about how Opmantek can help you solve network issues more efficiently, get in touch with us today. Opmantek specialists are technically led and not sales-based, so you can be sure of knowledgeable answers to any questions you have about our products with no hard-sell.