What is Monitoring Software?
Monitoring software is designed to enable an IT Department to retain visibility of all their IT systems, from standard PCs to complex infrastructure designed for datacentres.
A network management agent allows you to monitor all desktops, servers, laptops, printers, firewalls, routers and switches. This is achieved through leveraging SNMP, NetFlow, Syslog, Traps and configuration backup – in effect everything every IT system uses to report on their status.
Our Security Operations Centre (SOC) As A Service solutions also uses monitoring software which enables the security team to have complete visibility and presence on every system which interacts with your business.
Monitoring software is a cost-effective way to remotely manage, access and administer an IT Estate as well as pro-actively identify issues or resolve them more quickly in the event they cannot be prevented. There are many open-source monitoring software solutions so it can be implemented for free, with a bit of knowhow.
How does Monitoring Software add value?
Monitoring software is part of your foundational IT Security solutions, otherwise your business will be compromised and you would have no visibility or means to react.
This in turn means that using monitoring software which is configured well will allow you to automate otherwise costly exercises such as penetration tests, hardening, patching and many other activities. Hayachi Services include patching as part of our services to ensure your business stays protected.
Monitoring software will also enable your teams to get support faster, rather than having to call a colleague or Service Desk in order for them to assist. For example, if you have an issue with an add-in not loading in an email client such as Outlook, an Analyst would be able to to remotely administer a ‘Registry Key’ fix to force it to load going forward.
The utility of monitoring software is shown how, having confirmed this as per the above, a fix could then be deployed throughout a business without need for further intervention within minutes. Remote management and monitoring software prevents small issues from turning into large ones.
There are significant productivity gains by having joined-up systems which talk to each other, these are often referred to as ‘Unified’ systems. Monitoring software ensures your business can actively continue to flourish and maintain accountability.
Ensuring Monitoring Software talks to your business
Anyone can install software but it often takes expertise to correctly configure it so that the software is useful. Each individual business will decide for itself what capabilities they require and what is a worthwhile investment.
It is also the case that poorly-designed monitoring software is unable to talk to critical elements of your business, such as a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server running critical SAP workloads. This lack of vendor-neutrality prevents monitoring software from talking to the present concerns of your business.
At Hayachi Services we are proudly vendor neutral, and so are our technology partners. This in turn means that the monitoring software we deign to recommend for you is also vendor-neutral, and we implement it to have flex for your future endeavours too.
Our Deskside Support service also ensures your monitoring software is consistently added to and developed – because all software is a dynamic, living thing. We regularly consult with Managed Service Providers to help them better utilize their existing monitoring software and you can benefit from this shared industry best-practice.
Being consultative is therefore the critical element in using monitoring software effectively – asking the right questions and finding the right answers in partnership, and continuing the conversation after initial implementation to ensure the system stays relevant.