The process of mapping and monitoring a company’s computer network in order to prevent performance degradation, security breaches, and additional financial overheads is known as network monitoring. The network security best practices to create and implement a network monitoring system within your organization is described in this article.
What is Network Monitoring?
The process of identifying, mapping and collecting data across the system of interconnected devices communicating with each other within your organization. This allows businesses to focus on enhancing performance and security, and minimizing financial overheads.
The foundation of modern enterprises IT infrastructure is the network. All of the company’s devices, servers, services, and data stores are connected by a computer network. Employees depend on this network to do their jobs effectively and it is vital in order to deliver products and services to customers. The consequences of a computer network failure are extensive for any company. Facebook lost almost $90 million in sales during its one-day outage in 2019. Facebook was forced to scramble to maintain its brand value and reassure its users that their data was in good hands.
The computer network is affected by the changing nature of today’s technology. Virtualization and cloud adoption means there is continuous change and networks have to adapt to facilitate these new technologies. Cybercriminals are constantly searching for methods to breach your network and access the vital confidential resources and information. Cybersecurity has become a key focus as businesses are now receiving more customer data than ever before, and industry regulators have passed laws that require enterprises to secure and protect sensitive data.
Network monitoring is the process of gathering data from the various sources below and visualising that data in useful dashboards:
- Network devices: Examples of network equipment include printers, routers, switches, firewalls, laptops, and mobile devices.
- Links: Network interfaces and physical wire, such as fiber optic cables, are examples of links that allow devices to communicate.
- Servers: Among an organization’s most important assets are email servers, web servers, application servers, and data centers.
- Service providers: The majority of businesses utilize service providers for everything, from cloud services like AWS to collaboration tools like GSuite.
Important metrics including response time, disk consumption, CPU utilization, uptime, and network availability are examined by a monitoring system. Additionally, it examines hardware factors including power supply status, temperature, and fan speed. Network monitoring encompasses more than just keeping an eye on different parts like switches, routers, and firewalls. It includes setting up these parts and fixing them in response to vulnerabilities and overloads that are found.
Key Advantages of Monitoring Networks
A company’s network can make or break its services if it is continuously monitored. There are numerous benefits to network monitoring, including:
1. Reduces Expenses
Network monitoring enables security teams and IT administrators to identify questionable activity early on. It stops data breaches from causing harm. It finds overloaded and compromised systems, both of which can result in major network outages. As everyone knows, outages may be costly and ultimately lead to the loss of paying clients. Administrators can reduce the number of overheads by using network monitoring to identify components that are being over or underutilized.
2. Strengthens the Security of Infrastructure
To identify unexpected traffic, unusual activity, unknown devices attempting to access the network, and rogue applications, all security information and event management (SIEM) technologies rely on network monitoring data. This is crucial because it acts as a warning sign for ransomware or cyberattacks. Complete network visibility is another benefit of a properly installed network monitoring system, which also removes attackers’ unaccounted-for network device beaches. Monitoring access management also prevents insider threats.
3. Makes it Possible to Automate Important Tasks
Corrective action is triggered by alerts generated by monitoring systems. For instance, a new server can be launched to take over the workload while administrators investigate whether the issue of CPU utilization is above 80% for more than 30 minutes. Admin teams are also given enough warning by these notifications to enhance capacity or upgrade as needed.
4. Directs the Deployment of Disaster Recovery
Network monitoring gives administrators adequate time to start the disaster recovery plan (DRP) by alerting them to possible problems and disasters. In addition to listing the circumstances that activate incident response plans and DRPs, the network monitoring playbook describes baseline behavior and anomalies.
5. Boosts Output
Performance problems that could impede staff productivity and slow down company operations are detected by monitors. Instead of continuously investigating alerts resulting from capacity and utilization issues, network administrators should concentrate on improving the infrastructure.
6. Offers Information to Predict Future Needs
Making decisions is aided by the data that monitoring systems provide. It offers preliminary information about where infrastructure improvements are required. Network monitoring offers historical performance information that can be used to forecast future needs for scalability. They can also be used to identify network flaws that, depending on their severity, would need to be rectified within defined service level agreement timelines.
Without a doubt, network monitoring is crucial. Three out of ten businesses, according to a recent Positive Technologies report, have little to no network visibility. This suggests inadequate network monitoring procedures. The recommended practices for creating and putting into place an extensive network monitoring system are covered in the section that follows.
Best Practices for Network Monitoring
Best practices for network security monitoring includes:
1. Determine Baseline Network Behavior
Establishing baseline network activity is the first step in implementing any network monitoring system. A document must specify which devices are linked, the permissible range of values for all monitored metrics, and what constitutes typical network activity. It also describes how the network communicates with external devices and services.
All decisions about the architecture of the monitoring system are based on the fundamental building blocks created by this information. Assuming that we are fully aware of the network of our company, it may be tempting to omit this stage. But keep in mind that the final result won’t be scalable or sustainable if the basis is weak.
2. Make Sure the Monitoring System is Highly Available
The network security monitoring tools are frequently housed on the same network that they are keeping an eye on. This implies that monitoring will also go down if the network goes down or significantly slows down, which makes it practically impossible to analyze the data that has been gathered.
Thus, high availability and failover solutions must be considered while deploying monitoring instruments. Replicating and storing all monitoring data in a separate data center is the simplest and least expensive method. A failover strategy allows you to automatically bring up the network monitoring system in the case of downtime.
3. Get Rid of Tool Sprawl
To concentrate on network operations, the majority of businesses today have NetOps teams. NetOps teams seek to optimize network-related operations, just like DevOps teams investigate the automation and validation of development tasks. Therefore, they are largely responsible for network monitoring.
The majority of NetOps teams begin with open-source tools that are very basic and specialized, and they add more tools as needed. Tool sprawl occurs when network monitoring teams begin managing three to ten tools at once after a few years of scaling up.
Because it takes time and resources to extract pertinent information from tool sprawls and then build the connections, they are extremely inefficient. Businesses must begin with scalable monitoring systems that can be configured to interact with both newer and older tools in order to eradicate tool sprawl. Interoperability must be one of the most important characteristics to look for, even if the number of tools being utilized cannot be reduced to just one.
4. Keep an Eye Out for Alert Storms
This can be described as excessive alerts being triggered in a short time frame due to factors like performance degradation, downtime, and device failures. Legitimate alerts need to be taken seriously, but often the alert storms are false positives caused by incorrect implementation such as poor configuration. These need to be identified and removed swiftly as they can have large negative impacts on network operations teams which detracts their time from more important tasks.
5. Verify that Configuration Management and Monitoring are Related
Data flow over a network is maintained by a number of devices. Compared to a switch, a router has different setup parameters. For a network to be secure and robust, proper configuration is essential. It is customary to keep the device’s default settings. The requirements of an organization are continually changing, so customizing configuration specific to these requirements is recommended via configuration management. Changing individual settings without having a big effect on the network is known as configuration management.
Administrators have full network visibility and control over users and devices when configuration management and monitoring solutions work together. They can test impending changes on a smaller scale and make fewer mistakes as a result. While maintaining the baseline and network map updated in the network monitoring platform, configuration management also automates the addition of new network components.
6. Gather Information from Several Network Devices to Get a Comprehensive Picture
A mix of data gathered from different devices connected to the network paints the full picture of network health. To determine what kind of insights may be gained from each piece of data-whether it be packet sizes or SNMP data-it is necessary to examine it in conjunction with other data points.
As with any significant effort, the network monitoring design exercise must start with goals. These objectives can then be narrowed down to the insights needed to achieve each one. These insights can then be traced back to the source of the information. Additionally, monitoring needs to be adjusted to eliminate noise. A good network security practice is necessary for this type of analysis. Hiring a consultant or speaking with a service provider makes sense if an organization lacks the necessary time or experience.
7. Set Up and Keep Up Reliable Dashboards
The key to network monitoring is dashboards that offer total insight into all network components. Administrators must be able to identify unusual activity simply by looking at the dashboard. For any kind of monitoring, visualization is crucial. Although the majority of monitoring programs create network maps automatically, the ability to add specific input must be included. Additionally, dashboards must be adaptable to the location and role of the user viewing them.
Giving priority to the most important elements and displaying the others as part of event processes at first glance is the optimal dashboard design. As the network expands and analysis and repair get slower, a cluttered dashboard will only get more complicated.
8. Establish a Defined Procedure for Escalation
The network monitoring dashboard is where most incident responses begin. Every other threat to the network, excluding natural calamities, appears on the monitoring dashboard first. For this reason, an escalation matrix ought to be a feature of network monitoring. Plans for incident response typically include the escalation matrix. It is a document that specifies who must be involved at each level, what procedures must be followed, and when an escalation should occur.
Any networking problem that is detected on the dashboard needs to be resolved via the appropriate channels. This is particularly important for big businesses with international networks that are managed by numerous teams and administrators.
9. Generate Reports for Every Network Tier
While some networks continue to rely on the seven-layer paradigm of the open systems interconnection (OSI), most networks adhere to the four-layer model of TCP/IP. Every layer, including the application, transport, internet, and network access layers, has a specific purpose. Information is displayed at each level of these tiers by a decent network monitoring program. This offers thorough coverage of every facet of the network.
In addition, reports need to be grounded in problem management and incident flows. Network monitoring relies heavily on reports because:
- They verify the current network.
- They draw attention to material that is historically pertinent and reveal patterns that can be utilized to scale or restructure the network.
- They give proof of compliance to regulators.
10. Make Sure Each Monitoring Aspect has the Appropriate Knowledge
As previously stated, application monitoring, web service monitoring, and a variety of other monitoring features are all combined to form network monitoring. To obtain the best information possible for each type of monitoring, the appropriate kind of expertise is needed. These all adhere to different communication protocols; some even make use of APIs.
Every monitoring exercise has a different strategy. Web servers, for instance, simulate user flows to check for interruptions. In a similar vein, employing a database scripting language, such as SQL, to query is necessary for database server monitoring. The NetOps team must take into account the fact that each of these requires a distinct set of skills.
Conclusion
The network infrastructure monitoring of a business is closely related to its posture. Since the network expands along with the business, big businesses require specialized professionals to enhance network security, stability, and performance. Depending on their available resources, businesses can choose to subscribe to services or create a monitoring system from the ground up. It is essential since network monitoring covers everything from routine business operations to safeguarding customer data.