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Networking Intermediate

What is Network Monitoring?

The practice of continuously observing network infrastructure to detect failures, performance degradation, and security threats.

Network monitoring tracks bandwidth utilization, packet loss, latency, device health, and security events across network infrastructure. Tools include Nagios, Zabbix, PRTG, and LibreNMS for infrastructure monitoring; Wireshark and tcpdump for packet analysis; NetFlow/sFlow for traffic analysis; and SNMP for device metrics. Modern monitoring systems use agents or agentless collection, define thresholds for alerts, generate performance reports, and support auto-remediation. Effective monitoring covers availability (is it up?), performance (is it fast?), and security (is it safe?) across all network layers.

Related Terms

DHCP
A protocol that automatically assigns IP addresses and network configuration to devices on a network.
VLAN (Virtual LAN)
A logical grouping of network devices that creates separate broadcast domains on the same physical network infrastructure.
Network Segmentation
The practice of dividing a network into isolated segments to improve security, performance, and management.
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)
The routing protocol that makes the internet work by exchanging routing information between autonomous systems.
Network Packet
A formatted unit of data carried over a network, containing headers with routing information and a payload with the actual data.
Bandwidth
The maximum rate of data transfer across a network connection, measured in bits per second.
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