Network Monitoring And Management
Discover the top Network Traffic Monitoring Solutions with features including intrusion detection, threat intelligence, and data loss prevention.
Last updated on Jul 01, 2024
Written by Joel Witts
Technical review by Laura Iannini
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The Top 10 Network Traffic Monitoring Solutions Include:
- 1. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
- 2. Auvik Network Management
- 3. Azure Network Watcher
- 4. Broadcom DX NetOps
- 5. DataDog Network Monitoring
- 6. Dynatrace Network Monitoring
- 7. ExtraHop Reveal(X) NPM
- 8. LogicMonitor Automated Network Monitoring
- 9. ManageEngine OpManager
- 10. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor
Network Traffic Monitoring solutions provide network admins with detailed management and monitoring into network traffic, showcasing devices and users connecting to the network, and when. Key features of network traffic monitoring solutions include real-time network monitoring and insights, viewing network users, source and destinations, visibility into DNS performance and analytics for network services.
There are many benefits to collecting and visualizing this data. By monitoring network traffic, tools can identify and alert users to suspicious network activity, which can help to prevent network attacks. They can also be used to measure and improve network performance, and to implement policies and infrastructure to reduce network costs and better meet specific business needs.
In the realm of network management, the spectrum of available solutions is vast. To help you find the right Network Traffic Monitoring solution for your organization, we have compiled a list of the top Network Traffic Monitoring solutions. This list covers standout features, scalability, integration capabilities and user friendliness, based on our internal independent market research.
1
Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
Paessler PRTG Network Monitor, developed by Paessler GmbH, is a network monitoring software tailored for small to enterprise IT infrastructures. This solution runs on Windows servers, ensuring scalability and control over data, configuration, and updates. Designed to oversee both IT & OT environments, Paessler PRTG can be employed to monitor various components, ranging from network devices such as servers, switches, and routers to applications, websites, operating systems, and resource consumption. This includes virtual and physical environments either on-premises or in the cloud.
The software offers a centralized monitoring approach, allowing users to view their entire IT infrastructure from one unified interface. Its automatic network discovery aids in setting up initial monitoring seamlessly. For a comprehensive view, users can utilize custom maps and dashboards. The software ensures real-time monitoring with alert notifications available via different channels, including email and text messages.
Users can generate customizable reports and benefit from the software’s support for various technologies and protocols. The mobile-friendly platform ensures users can monitor their network on the go. Key features also include preconfigured monitoring templates for popular vendors, customizable alert systems, and a transparent one-time licensing model. The platform is distinguished by its user-centric design, simple installation process, and wide-ranging monitoring capabilities.
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Auvik Network Management is a cloud-based network monitoring and management solution. The platform delivers automated network discovery, documentation, and real-time inventory updates, allowing for a comprehensive view of the network’s evolution. It emphasizes visual representation of network traffic through a comprehensive dashboard, offering users a clear understanding of their network’s status.
Auvik Network Management includes features that automate network visibility, IT asset management, and configuration backup and recovery. It aids in real-time network issue response, deep troubleshooting with centralized syslog, and enhanced network traffic analysis with Auvik TrafficInsights™.
With Auvik, users can remotely access and manage their network devices, standardize management across multiple sites, and prioritize security with tools like two-factor authentication and audit logs. Additionally, Auvik offers APIs for integrating data into third-party applications or personal use. This platform also ensures compatibility with various other tools, facilitating seamless integration into existing workflows.
Azure Network Watcher is a cloud-based service developed by Microsoft, designed to monitor, diagnose, and view metrics for Microsoft Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) resources. It primarily targets resources like virtual machines, virtual networks, application gateways, load balancers, and other components in an Azure virtual network.
Network Watcher’s suite of tools encompasses three main areas: monitoring, diagnostics, and traffic. Under monitoring, features like Topology offer visual representation of network configuration, while the Connection monitor monitors connectivity between Azure and hybrid endpoints. For diagnostics, tools include IP flow verify, which detects VM-level traffic filtering issues and VPN troubleshoot, which helps diagnose virtual network gateway concerns. For traffic insights, Network Watcher employs Flow logs, recording IP traffic data, and Traffic analytics, providing in-depth flow log visualizations.
The service also includes the Usage and Quotas feature, detailing the network resources used in a particular subscription and region against their set limits, assisting in future deployment planning. Automatic enabling of Network Watcher occurs when a virtual network is created or updated in a subscription, ensuring the network’s region is consistently monitored.
Broadcom DX NetOps is a network monitoring software developed to accommodate the evolving needs of modern network teams, especially in contexts like supporting remote work, cloud migration, SD-WAN adoption, and the shift to an internet-centric networking model. This software integrates real-time performance monitoring with machine-learning-driven analytics to provide large-scale, unified visibility. This encompasses both traditional and software-defined as well as cloud-based network architectures.
Broadcom, having integrated with AppNeta, extends its monitoring capabilities beyond just the enterprise, covering ISPs, SaaS, and cloud provider networks. This integration seeks to give operations a holistic view of network delivery from the perspective of any end-user, on any device, anywhere globally. Referred to as Experience-Driven NetOps, the combined offering of DX NetOps and AppNeta leverages both active and passive monitoring to ensure continuous, end-to-end visibility.
The software also emphasizes prioritizing network operations based on user experience metrics and offers advanced features like predicting network congestion using network telemetry and chipset integrations. It aims for a comprehensive understanding of the network experience from the end-user’s vantage point, regardless of the user’s device, network, or location.
Datadog specializes in monitoring solutions for cloud applications by integrating data from various sources like servers, containers, databases, and third-party services. This enables a comprehensive view of a user’s tech stack, assisting DevOps teams in maintaining application uptime, addressing performance challenges, and ensuring optimal user experiences.
With Datadog’s Network Performance Monitoring, users gain detailed insights into their on-premises, cloud, and hybrid network environments, emphasizing the connections between hosts, services, virtual private clouds, and more. This monitoring extends to application-layer performance and bare-metal appliance health.
Key features include real-time network data visualization, monitoring of key metrics such as TCP retransmits and latency, and the ability to analyze communication patterns between various cloud resources. The solution provides comprehensive DNS performance analytics, enabling users to evaluate DNS server health and differentiate between client-side and server-side issues. Lastly, it offers specialized monitoring for connections to managed cloud services like Amazon S3 and GCP BigQuery, allowing users to drill down into specific components for nuanced analysis and identify whether issues stem from cloud providers or their systems.
Dynatrace offers a unified platform for network monitoring, providing detailed observability into software operations. It integrates advanced AIOps to derive insights and intelligent automation from vast amounts of data. One of the platform’s distinguishing features is its emphasis on continuous runtime application security.
Dynatrace goes beyond traditional host-level network monitoring by offering process-level insights, offering an integrated view of process-to-process communications. Dynatrace delivers this by revealing the performance and quality of network connections between processes, even when these processes span virtualized cloud environments and traditional datacenters. Users can benefit from a holistic view of their virtualized network infrastructure, including real-time statuses of VMs, ESXi hosts, and cloud instances. As network landscapes evolve, Dynatrace adjusts by recognizing infrastructure changes and initiating automatic monitoring for new elements.
The platform also provides a unified view of key machine resource metrics like CPU, memory, disk, and network health, ensuring that users can gauge the health of their operations at a glance. Dynatrace’s all-in-one approach consolidates various monitoring functionalities, offering insights from user experience to server and network monitoring in one tool.
ExtraHop Reveal(X) NPM is a network performance monitoring solution designed to offer organizations a comprehensive view of their network activity. It positions the network as a primary source of factual data, leveraging real-time analytics and cloud-native machine learning to quickly identify potential network and application performance challenges. The aim of the platform is to hasten the response time to these issues, thereby reducing possible downtime. It processes all traffic, recognizing a variety of assets connecting to the organizational network and enhancing the efficiency of problem detection and investigation.
ExtraHop NPM provides passive discovery, classification, and mapping of assets, services, workloads, and applications at an enterprise level. The platform can decrypt traffic throughput up to 100 Gbps with a single device. Its machine learning capabilities are applied to over 5,000 metrics, which helps in anomaly detection. Additionally, it offers automated correlation of network events and provides access to transactions and packets. The system ensures long-term storage of packet and network metadata, aiding in troubleshooting and root cause analysis.
Visualization tools are integrated, facilitating both network-driven and application-centric troubleshooting. Reveal(X) NPM is designed to work across various environments, encompassing hybrid, multi-cloud, virtual, and IoT settings.
LogicMonitor offers a comprehensive network monitoring solution. Its platform allows users to monitor the health and performance of their network infrastructure, integrating various devices and applications within a unified observability framework. Employing an agentless collector, the platform can automatically discover resources and visualize network connections and health. The system provides insights into both on-premises and cloud-based networks, simplifying the process of hybrid monitoring.
The platform offers a comprehensive view of cloud, on-premises, and virtualized infrastructure. It integrates smoothly with other tools, supporting a range of monitoring protocols like SNMP, jFlow, and NetFlow. LogicMonitor provides advanced automation and AIOps capabilities. Automated onboarding and resource discovery ensure users can rapidly access pivotal data.
Integrated analysis tools are also a central component of LogicMonitor. Users benefit from real-time network data visualization through auto-generated topology mapping. Machine learning-anchored thresholds expedite issue detection processes. Furthermore, the platform marries log and metric analysis, streamlining troubleshooting. It also proffers crucial insights into application performance, amplifying the overall user experience. With LogicMonitor, monitoring complex network setups, whether on-site or in the cloud, becomes streamlined and efficient.
ManageEngine OpManager offers detailed insights into various components of network infrastructures. The platform enables users to monitor the performance of devices such as routers, switches, servers, VMs, printers, and storage units. With a focus on both physical and virtual servers, the software is compatible with platforms like Hyper-V, VMware, Citrix, Xen, and Nutanix HCI.
OpManager provides a range of monitoring tools, including wireless network stats for devices such as access points and wireless routers, and WAN link performance ology. Users can discover and monitor components of the Cisco ACI infrastructure, and also monitor storage devices for capacity utilization and growth trends.
OpManager provides advanced network visualization capabilities, which include Layer2 Maps and 3D views for datacenters. The software’s fault management system classifies alarms based on severity, offering an efficient approach to network event correlations. Additionally, OpManager offers a mobile app support for Android and iOS, allowing users to monitor their network remotely and customize dashboards for real-time updates.
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is a network monitoring solution designed to scale with the complexities of diverse networks. This product aids in analyzing network availability and performance, while also providing tools for advanced fault detection and troubleshooting.
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor software offers a range of features to enhance network oversight. It provides Network Insights for an in-depth view of your network, intelligent mapping capabilities for custom visualizations, and streamlined troubleshooting. Advanced alerting ensures timely notifications regarding network health.
The solution supports monitoring for a variety of network devices and infrastructures, from Cisco ASA firewalls to F5 BIG-IP application delivery components. SolarWinds’ diagnostic and optimization tools aim to swiftly identify and rectify potential issues, minimizing downtime and enhancing overall network performance. With capabilities for both real-time and historical data collection from SNMP-, API-, or WMI-enabled devices, SolarWinds NPM offers a comprehensive view of your entire network ecosystem.
Network Traffic Monitoring Solutions: Everything You Need To Know (FAQs)
What Are Network Traffic Monitoring Solutions?
Network Traffic Monitoring solutions ensure the smooth and secure operation of enterprise networks. Network Traffic Monitoring tools provide an eagle-eye view into the data traversing networks, allowing teams to detect bottlenecks, monitor bandwidth usage, identify malicious activities, and ensure optimal performance.
What Are The Benefits Of Network Traffic Monitoring?
As organizations increasingly rely on networks to run key operational processes, ensuring networks are running efficiently, securely and quickly is critical. There are several reasons it’s a good idea to implement a network traffic monitoring solution:
- Clear Network Visibility: Network traffic monitoring provides a clear overview into the devices connected to a network, with detailed reporting, tracking and policies to manage network traffic.
- Improved Network Planning: By having a clear way to view and measure network data, admins can help to better plan network infrastructure and upgrades to enhance performance for both internal users and customers.
- Enhanced Network Security: Network traffic monitoring can improve network security, by giving admins enhanced visibility into network traffic and providing alerts on suspicious network activity, so teams can quickly identify and remediate against issues.
- Cost Reduction: Network traffic solutions can reduce network costs by highlighting areas that can be optimized, streamlined or improved to cut down on unnecessary expenditure or improve efficiency in network processes.
- Compliance: Many data protection regulations mandate that organizations take steps to protect data held within the corporate network. A robust network traffic monitoring solution can help maintain secure network processes and prevent network compromise.
Joel Witts
Content Director
Joel Witts is the Content Director at Expert Insights, meaning he oversees all articles published and topics covered. He is an experienced journalist and writer, specialising in identity and access management, Zero Trust, cloud business technologies, and cybersecurity. Joel is a co-host of the Expert Insights Podcast and conducts regular interviews with leading B2B tech industry experts, including directors at Microsoft and Google. Joel holds a First Class Honours degree in Journalism from Cardiff University.
Laura Iannini
Cybersecurity Analyst
Laura Iannini is an Information Security Engineer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity from the University of West Florida. Laura has experience with a variety of cybersecurity platforms and leads technical reviews of leading solutions. She conducts thorough product tests to ensure that Expert Insights’ reviews are definitive and insightful.
