What is Network Availability?

• Network Availability Definition

  Network Availability Definition

  Network availability, also referred to as network uptime, denotes the overall duration for which the clients can seamlessly access the resources, such as servers and printers, available on a computer network. Most organizations aim for five nines (99.999%) of availability, a widely accepted, high-availability standard, to avoid potential revenue losses due to network sluggishness or unavailability.
• Identifying and troubleshooting network issues

  Identifying and troubleshooting network issues

  Building a highly available and reliable network requires organizations to regularly track and resolve the issues causing network slowdown or failure. Power outages, device failures, configuration errors, faulty connections, and malicious attacks are some of the reasons for subpar network performance. Performing an in-depth network assessment is vital for identifying the root cause of your network problems. However, seeing how business networks are extremely complex and spread over multiple geographical locations, it can be challenging to pinpoint the exact location in your network where the issue persists. Manually gathering network performance data from IT teams in different business locations can also be time-consuming and costly. Therefore, you should utilize automated solutions for faster and more reliable network availability troubleshooting.

  Network monitoring tools can rapidly scan all the network assets and report back immediately upon discovering uptime, bandwidth, and other performance issues so you can promptly fix them and optimize network performance.
• Network availability measurement

  Network availability measurement

  Network availability calculation requires two key values: network uptime and the total duration of the given period. Dividing the former value with the latter and multiplying the result by 100 gives you the availability value in percentage form. Network uptime is constantly monitored by organizations to maximize the availability of their hosted services or applications. Determining overall uptime requires you to track your network devices for configuration errors, CPU overuse, and other performance issues leading to network slowdown or failure.

  Achieving 100% network uptime is ideal for most organizations, but reaching this level of availability requires considerable costs and resources. Therefore, most organizations focus on achieving five nines (99.999%) of availability.
• Network availability monitoring

  Network availability monitoring

  Monitoring network uptime is crucial for organizations to deliver uninterrupted services to customers. However, with increasing network and device complexity, manually monitoring the performance and uptime of every device can be challenging for network admins. Therefore, employing availability monitoring tools is preferable for companies wanting to track network uptime status quickly and efficiently. These tools rapidly detect and eradicate the issues causing network slowdown. Network uptime monitors rely on protocols like SNMP and ARP to discover network devices and create intelligent maps, unveiling device dependencies responsible for performance and availability issues.

  Automated tools offer real-time insights into critical network performance metrics through dashboard visualizations. These tools send timely alerts when a device performs below the expected standards, so you can quickly initiate troubleshooting. Network availability monitors also generate customized reports regularly to help you observe the availability status of monitored devices and services and avoid potential failures. Additionally, these tools can gather network uptime and performance data over an extended period to uncover hard-to-detect recurring issues and remediate them for optimal performance.
• Network availability monitoring benefits

  Network availability monitoring benefits

  Outlined below are the key benefits of network availability monitoring:

  • Uninterrupted business operations: Availability monitoring is a fundamental part of a company's network management strategy and can help ensure steady business operations. It enables you to build a highly available network infrastructure providing continuous access to mission-critical applications and services to customers while meeting pre-agreed SLA requirements.
  • Faster troubleshooting: Continuously tracking network uptime and performance through availability monitors helps detect and fix potential problems quickly before they affect your end users. Proactively tracing network problems also helps limit the frequency of unplanned downtimes, which often lead to lost productivity, damaged reputation, and poor customer satisfaction.
  • Improved network performance: Round-the-clock monitoring allows you to obtain more granular data related to overall network performance, including bandwidth utilization, throughput, and uptime status. Tracking these critical network metrics over an extended period helps detect and fix hard-to-trace issues and optimize overall network health and performance.
• Optimizing network availability

  Optimizing network availability

  Network uptime is a crucial prerequisite for ensuring seamless access to mission-critical data and applications. For businesses like eCommerce, a single minute of website downtime during peak traffic hours due to server failure or any other network problem can result in hefty financial losses. Various factors affect network uptime, such as equipment failures, power outages, malicious attacks, and planned maintenance.

  Outlined below are some of the key techniques for improving network uptime and performance:

  • Redundancy and failover: Redundant or backup systems can help build highly available and reliable networks by eliminating single points of failure. These systems become active when critical network components, such as servers and routers, experience slowdown or failure. You can also employ load balancing solutions to improve network uptime and reliability. Load balancers smartly handle the increasing client requests by rerouting them to the servers most apt to handle them, preventing sudden failures. Introducing high redundancy in a network is typically expensive and best suited for companies looking to maintain five nines (99.999%) of availability consistently.
  • Network security and backup power: Employing advanced security solutions and policies can help you prevent unexpected network slowdowns or failures due to malicious threats, such as APT and DoS attacks. An advanced security solution, such as security information and event management (SIEM) software, can integrate flawlessly with other network monitoring solutions to improve your network's security posture and availability status. Employing backup power supplies for mission-critical network assets is also a viable option for keeping your network operational in case of power outages.
  • Network monitoring: Regularly tracking network performance and availability status through monitoring tools can help reduce unexpected failures and provide maximum network uptime. Availability monitors regularly track critical network assets for configuration errors, bandwidth overconsumption, and other performance issues and provide intelligent alerts for quick troubleshooting to maintain network uptime.