Best IT Infrastructure Monitoring Software

IT infrastructure monitoring is important in order for IT departments to run at optimal performance and prevent errors proactively before they cause a disruption or affect critical business operations and processes. IT monitoring is essential because it helps resolve problems that could otherwise create a major disaster.

Additionally, IT infrastructure monitoring is crucial because of the growing complexity of IT infrastructure. The different components of an infrastructure (devices, servers, networks, storage, applications, OS, hardware, etc.) all impact one another. If there is an issue, finding the source and fixing it will depend on having an effective infrastructure monitoring tool.

The different types of infrastructure monitoring include the following:

• Agent monitoring: Agent monitoring works by collecting, analyzing, and processing data, and is commonly designed and programmed to interface with a specific platform. For this reason, if you choose to change vendors, it can be very costly.
• Agentless monitoring: This type of monitoring relays data, statistics, and other information (via protocols such as SNMP, SSH, WMI, or others) to the monitoring software, without using additional agents, and is embedded into the software of a device or as a capability of the manager. Therefore, it does not require separate licensing or installation.

IT infrastructure monitoring tools detect IT infrastructure issues to help you resolve them before they can cause disruptions to your critical business processes. These tools enable infrastructure managers to be aware of how key infrastructure elements (e.g. network, compute, storage and databases) are working. IT infrastructure monitoring tools also help companies gain deeper insight into different systems (physical, virtual, or cloud) and maintain performance. In addition, IT infrastructure monitoring tools help you identify when system upgrades are necessary so you can respond to issues before they cause problems.

Asked what to look for in an IT Infrastructure Monitoring solution, PeerSpot members point to ease of installation, scalability and heterogeneous Operating System coverage as key differentiators. Members express a desire to have “out of the box” support for multiple applications as well as a Unified Monitoring Portal (UMP) and transaction monitoring. For some, a simple implementation of business and infrastructure dashboards is essential. Users like having a single point of configuration.

An intuitive GUI is considered a plus for administrative efficiency. Users want to monitor end user experience in context. For example, they want to be able to create business groups so they can track infrastructure performance by internal IT client.

Architecturally, members suggest that fully-featured, non-java, agent based technology can enable the user to install probes where needed. This is in contrast to trying to monitor everything, an approach used by some infrastructure monitoring vendors. Non-Java matters because it reduces the footprint of the agent on the server and can help with stability. A distributed, highly-available monitoring cluster capability is viewed as a “must have” for enterprises that run geographically distributed sites, especially organizations that have a high cost of service disruption.

According to PeerSpot members, the best infrastructure monitoring solutions do some of the work of forming insights for administrators. Users want granulated data on where traffic latency and bandwidth utilization issues are occurring. Reporting sophistication is also important, some users expressing an interest in infrastructure monitoring packages being able to report on compliance of the cloud environment, for example.

To make sure you get the safety and performance you need, it is critical to monitor your IT infrastructure. Below are 5 steps to do so:

1. Select what to monitor: It is best to plan what you want to monitor before you begin looking at which tool will be best suited for your organization. Consider which metrics you will want to measure so that you don’t miss any important data.
2. Track statuses and alerts: IT infrastructure monitoring tools that have a single dashboard are ideal because they present your data in a central location and provide a uniform and comprehensive view. When using multiple monitoring tools, you will need multiple screens, making it more likely for you to miss key information.
3. Customize alerts: Once you have selected a monitoring tool, prioritize and customize alerts to match your needs and processes.
4. Review trends: Schedule periodic trend assessments so that you can stay up to date with statuses and attend to issues that require immediate attention.
5. Design your IT infrastructure: The last step involves designing a robust IT infrastructure to accommodate critical alerts. You can do this by taking advantage of automations that work to speed up response times to problems.

There are several advantages to having effective IT infrastructure monitoring tools. These include:

• Early detection: IT infrastructure monitoring tools help you proactively rectify any sort of discrepancies of your system beforehand by continuously scanning and monitoring the activity throughout your IT environment.
• Real-time notifications: Receive alerts when there are performance issues, so you can address and resolve issues immediately.
• Performance monitoring: IT infrastructure monitoring tools give you a broad view of all IT activities and also allow you to measure the exact performance of your system.
• Prevent network outages: Monitoring tools prepare you to deal with network outages, whether they are internal or external, by instantly alerting you with key stats and data that might indicate a possible attack.
• Fix performance issues much faster: IT infrastructure monitoring tools help you fix issues more quickly than if you didn’t have a monitoring solution in place.
• Identify security threats: IT monitoring is crucial for detecting security threats that can lead to a security breach, data loss, or any other threatening security vulnerability.

Features you should look for when deciding on an IT infrastructure monitoring tool include:

• Network device discovery
• Automated topology mapping
• Live network statuses
• Customizable status alerts that warn you when performance drops or resources run short
• Monitoring of on-premises and cloud-based servers
• Metrics, data sampling, and log collection
• Diagnostic and forecasting tools

When researching which IT infrastructure monitoring tools would be best suitable for your organization, there are many criteria to consider. It is best to choose a system that has multiple capabilities and can easily trace all of your organization’s services, from your server’s resources to your applications. It is also helpful to select a tool that supports customized alerts for arising performance issues, an application dependency mapping service, as well as integrations for specialist vendor service monitoring. Additional, but not essential, features that you may want to consider when making your decision include a server status monitor that watches resource utilization, root cause analysis, and website performance monitoring that offers availability and response time capabilities. In addition, some IT infrastructure monitoring tools offer a free trial or demo system, which can be valuable as you assess which product will work best for your organization.