To effectively support and manage a client’s network, you need to know what’s really on the network. Sure, a tour of the IT environment will help. You’ll be able to slowly document information about the devices you can see, like the make, model, and serial number. But what about the devices you can’t see—or that the client doesn’t know about?

WATERLOO, ON / August 28, 2018 — The network hardware market is highly fragmented, with hundreds of equipment vendors vying for market share, says a new report from Auvik Networks. There’s intense competition in the network switch, router, firewall, and access point hardware markets, with upwards of 40 vendors competing in each category.

Whether you inherit an IT environment or build it from scratch, managing your clients’ network infrastructure can be a real headache. Keeping clients’ network devices functioning so they stay connected and productive requires complex manual tasks, expensive expertise, and tons of valuable time—that is, if you don’t use software to simplify and automate network management activities.

We live in an incredible global economy where workers from all over the world pitch in to complete major products, develop new technology, and change the world. Here at Uptime.com, our workforce is spread across the globe, and we know many of you reading probably have a similar setup. The benefits of hands on a website at all hours of the day are numerous, so long as connectivity remains alive and well. That’s where a TCP/UDP Check provides immeasurable value.

There are few office experiences more frustrating than sending a document to the printer and hearing… nothing. No whirring, no thumping, no document. Your client will probably check if the device is plugged in and turned on, if there’s enough ink, and if paper needs restocking. But if these simple fixes don’t uncover the problem, then they’ll likely call you—and in the past, that meant jumping in the car and driving to the client site.

Thomas Stocking, co-founder and vice president of product strategy, recently wrote an article titled How to Efficiently Discover Network Resources, featured in The Data Center Journal. The article talks about network discovery tools and processes, and why it’s important to automate and standardize. Many business processes (security management, service delivery and service support) depend on the administrator’s knowledge of the network details.