For many companies, the beginning of October is also the beginning of the fourth and final quarter of the fiscal year. In IT, it’s a time to prepare for the new year by defining our priorities and setting our budget. COVID-19 threw a wrench into all of our 2020 plans from last year and a lot has changed since then. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the need for a network monitoring system in your software stack.

Multicast networking is based on the simple concept that a single packet can be sent by a server and it will be received by many receivers. Multicast is different from broadcast because it’s more selective. Where broadcast packets are received by all receivers in a particular network segment (or broadcast domain), multicast packets are received only by receivers that want them. Also, multicast receivers can be distributed throughout a larger network behind routers.

When something goes wrong in your network, you often don’t find out about it until your users are affected. By then, you’re on the receiving end of an angry phone call and you’re left scrambling to identify the issue and understand its root cause. As soon as you hang up (if the affected user even lets you hang up), you’re in a race against the clock.

As COVID-19 cases began to rise around the world in March 2020, governments and businesses had no choice but to take extraordinary measures to flatten the curve. As an IT leader, you were likely tasked with helping entire companies transition to remote work all at once. Cubicles were replaced by home offices. Face-to-face meetings were replaced by video calls. Work performance was measured by tasks completed instead of hours worked. Digital connectivity became more important than ever before.