Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a networking protocol that aids in the transfer of data among devices, thereby managing and monitoring devices present in the internet protocol network. Networks have an array of devices connected to them, and new devices get introduced to them as trends in technology evolve. These new devices are often used to simplify complex processes but end up complicating simple networks.

When we talk about observability, we tend to focus first and foremost on the metrics, logs, and traces that you can collect from applications – such as request rates, error rates, and request duration. Infrastructure-level metrics, like CPU and memory utilization, might factor into the discussion as well. Here’s a third category of critical observability insights that teams tend to overlook: the network.

If you’re a person who works from home, you almost certainly have to deal with occasional internet connection issues. More often than complete outages, you’re likely dealing with occasional slowness. And you know from experience that any one of dozens of devices and services along the path can cause latency.

Continuous security (or control) validation helps me explain network security with one of my favorite analogies. Network security is like jiu-jitsu. You have no idea how strong your defenses are if you’re not rolling (sparring) regularly. Let’s take a closer look at continuous security validation, and explain why, just like jiu-jitsu, you need to keep your system in practice to keep it sharp.

Sometimes we associate “big” with power and success, but being small doesn’t mean you can’t compete—you just need to be smarter at creating a sustainable competitive advantage. Here are 10 things you can do as a small managed service provider (MSP) to punch above your weight.

Administrators are tasked with configuring interfaces on network devices more than any other single thing. This makes sense—interfaces are the main points of connectivity, sending and receiving traffic throughout an organization. Configuring interfaces can be deceptively easy. Switchports might require a VLAN assignment, and often function with no other configuration at all. Router interfaces can be up and running with only an IP address.