Network monitoring is the continuous observation of a computer network to track its health, performance, availability, and activity. Monitoring systems collect information from devices, connections, servers, and network traffic, then analyze metrics such as response times, bandwidth usage, connectivity, and errors. This helps identify unusual behavior, service interruptions, or performance problems before they significantly affect users or applications.
For example, an IT team can monitor a company’s network and receive an alert when a server becomes unreachable or traffic suddenly increases. This allows administrators to investigate problems and restore services more quickly. Network monitoring is useful for maintaining reliability, detecting potential security issues, managing infrastructure, troubleshooting failures, and ensuring consistent network performance.
