Network visualization is the practice of creating and displaying graphical representations of network devices, network metrics, and data flows. In plain speak, it’s the visual side of network monitoring and analysis. There’s a variety of different subcategories of network visualization, including network maps, graphs, charts, and matrices. In the world of IT networks, network management software will usually have some type of network visualization features built-in.

Every IT team has its own strategies, goals and objectives to help move themselves and their company forward as a whole. As part of this, management relies on the metrics and data reports from their networking department to help signal if the effort is making progress towards those goals and objectives. The data for which lives within the tools and systems used by techs every day.

Network optimization is a set of tools and techniques used to improve network performance and reliability. As such, it’s not a “one and done” operation but an ongoing process. Business requirements dictate a certain level of performance, but time and budget often limit what you can and can’t tweak. So, you optimize within those constraints.

Connecting to nearly any web page today, you’re more often to see a URL that begins with “https://” instead of “http://”. Wondered what the “S” is for? It stands for “secure”, but more importantly, it identifies that the connection is taking place over a secure channel using the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. But what is TLS, and beyond that, what’s a TLS inspection?

By 2024 there’ll be an estimated 83 billion connected devices on our networks. All these devices, made by a wide variety of vendors, use different types of software, making everything more complicated for IT staff trying to get network devices working together. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) acts like a magic wand to untangle that ball of yarn with a simple gesture.

There’s a point in every IT professionals’ career where they inevitably ask themselves,“do I want to stay technical, or get into management networking jobs?” Sometimes this point occurs when they find themselves already are in management, either by design, or as I like to say, “by accident”.

There are few areas of networking so problematic, and at the same time so fixable, as network congestion. Understanding the common causes network congestion causes can help you detect them, fix them, and keep them from cropping up again. Network congestion is generally seen by the end-user as “network slow down”, or response times on our computer not being up to par.

Bottlenecks and performance issues are the bane of network engineers everywhere. They can be hard to nail down, have a variety of different potential root causes, and give people an excuse to “blame the network”. Understanding network backplanes, backplane throughput, and concepts like blocking vs non-blocking switches, can help you better understand network design and troubleshoot bottlenecks when they come up.

The technology industry is predicted to reach a $5 trillion valuation in 2021, an additional 4% growth over 2020. This steady growth of the industry has, unsurprisingly, led to an increase in the number of jobs in networking and IT. As the last year has shown, when an enterprise is forced to switch work models to a remote or distributed approach, they need network specialists to set up and maintain the necessary infrastructure.

If you’re an Auvik user, you’ve likely come to realize our software can provide value to your business in more ways than one. From automating tedious and repetitive tasks like documentation and config backup, to cutting down on troubleshooting time, Auvik’s cloud-based network monitoring and management system gives you true network visibility and control.