Although there are many reasons for
network monitoring, the two primary reasons are predicting changes
for future growth and detecting unexpected changes in network status. Unexpected changes might
include things such as a router or switch failing, a hacker trying to
gain illegal access to the network, or a communication link failure.
Without the ability to monitor the network, an administrator can only
react to problems as they occur, instead of preemptively preventing
these problems from occurring.
In the previous semester network
management topics were covered with primary focus on
Local Area Networking. Monitoring a Wide Area Network involves many of
the same basic management techniques as managing a Local Area Network.
One of the major differences in a WAN-LAN comparison is the
physical placement of equipment. The placement and use of monitoring tools becomes critical to the
uninterrupted operation of the Wide Area Network.
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