The internet is now a critical part of any business and as more business make the move to the cloud the need to avoid unnecessary downtime has never been more important.
While most business use network monitoring as a tool for discovering issues within internal IT infrastructure, many are unaware that network monitoring software can also detect issues in external networks, e.g. the internet we all use daily. Unexpected downtime can cause unnecessary frustration and in some cases lost business or reputation, all because you can’t connect to an important server, sometimes for an entire weekend.
The release of Pokémon GO in 2016 is a prime example of this, Niantic learnt a valuable lesson as they became a victim of their own success. In its first month, Pokémon GO experienced outages around the world as Niantic’s servers failed to keep up with demand and, of course, angry users quickly took to social media to voice their complaints.
With the hype comes the pressure to perform: user experience is paramount for success and a poor one can spell disaster for a product. The need to actively monitor a network and the strains to which it’s subjected has never been more critical than during today’s on-demand culture where users expect a seamless experience without any disruptions. Every business must ensure their infrastructure can handle spikes in interest, regardless of their industry. Tech giants like Apple learn this lesson every year when their loyal customers pounce on the website the second a new iPhone goes on sale. Network downtime often translates directly to dissatisfied customers and losses in revenue.
But how can businesses plan for added infrastructure challenges and the impact they can have on user experience to ensure they don’t have a Niantic experience? It all comes down to networking monitoring. Yes it sounds simple but ensuring you have cloud sensors enables business to test the connection to a web server from various locations around the world.
This can be done by entering a URL into the network monitoring software which then sends back a report on the response time and response code received. So, immediately you will know whether your most critical Internet services are responding well from locations around the world. With this, it gives you complete control over your own network and devices and forewarns of any issues with any of your partner systems and warns you before an issue becomes a problem, adding the benefit of peace of mind.
Internal and external IT infrastructure are directly related to business success. Knowing when there are issues that may impact a business deal, customer experience or financial payment is vital as it provides the opportunity to set expectations or restore issues, ensuring no outages cause temporary or lasting damage to reputation or future business.
About the author
Andrew Timms is the Sales Director for APAC at Paessler AG.
