IT Management Assignment help online writing report analysis:: Advantages and limitations of PRTG monitor

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Write a report on Advantages & limitations of PRTG Monitor??

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HSBC

Introduction

Today network is one of the major elements of carrying out a business globally. HSBC being a global organization which carries out its task from almost every corner of the world the network is the only element which keeps it carry out its operations seamlessly. The moment the network goes down employees cannot send or receive emails and further end up losing the medium to be connected. This further affects the business of the company and restricts people from availing of the services. In order to avoid expensive outages the best solution could be to address the issue and safeguard against any unforeseen crisis. This could only be done by the purchase of a hardware which may be costly but could prove to be a cost effective solution in the long run.

PRTG Network Monitor is one such tool which runs on the Windows platform within the network and collects various statistics from all the machines, devices, software as dedicated by the administrators. The feature which can help the administrators manage operations of a large scale organisation such as HSBC is that it comes with the auto discover feature which maps the entire network on its own. So the pain to prepare network maps and connect each system manually would be taken care of. The only things administrators need to do are setup the application and connect it to the desired network. The rest of the things of adding the devices, integrating monitoring system, applying the settings would all be done by this application automatically.

Body

The installation is pretty simple of the PRTG Monitor where any network operator would take a couple of minutes for installing it on the server.  PRTG monitor come with a very easy to use web interface application where it also comes with a point and click configuration. Once the program is installed on the servers the next step is Configuration Guru of PRTG Network Monitor where the administrators need to set up the entire settings for the application to monitor the network. Around 10-11 sections need to be filled and saved which includes the basic information regarding the network, systems in use, the company specific websites, monitoring specific cloud services and more (paessler 2012).

While the installation is carried out administrators would surely notice that it comes with very easy to install procedure, which means that the administrators would have more time to spend on the important aspects of the product rather than scratching their brains to set the software right. Further the installation questions and options have been reduced with a simplified window containing the sections required.

The survey conducted globally by the company had revealed that the software is advanced and comes with high quality services, faster installation, easy to be used by the administrators, and available at competitive pricing. “We are pleased with the numerous positive reviews that respondents have provided, as well as the fact that 97 percent of them had or would recommend our solution,” said Christian Twardawa, COO of Paessler, in a statement (tmcnet 2012).

Why for HSBC?

HSBC is a large organization and as network takes care of the majority of the work that goes into its operation an advanced network monitoring tool such as the PRTG Monitor could be a great network monitor. It will help the organization to minimize the downtime for any critical system and provide the administrators with the warnings in case of possible outages. The best thing about this application would be that it would warn the organization beforehand rather than after the outage has actually happened. So it will ensure that operation runs in a smoother way and no need of raising tickets or registering complaints arises.

Advantages of the PRTG Monitor

The software adds several advantages to the company in order to monitor and stay connected through the internet as well as the intranet in a local branch. Some of the advantages have been discussed below:

• The administrators can easily share data using this tool with the non-technical colleagues and customers with ease. Using the well simplified options the process can be way simpler than the manual sharing options. The data includes live graphs, custom reports, etc. As network monitoring tools are always complex in terms of usage it comes to the simplicity to assist and make the process of monitoring much easier. The PRTG Monitor has been built with the aim to be simple in terms of use so that even the engineers would not face any difficulties to setup and monitor the entire network.
• The software comes with a completely redesigned web interface and features the customizable tree view displays as well as the individual libraries providing an improved at a glance monitoring. It also comes with the drag and drop ease for moving as well as closing the sensors.
• PRTG monitor supports the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) which is applicable to almost all the server types and includes the Packet Sniffer. It also comes with the auto discovery option of the IPv6 networks. This is one of the most talked about features of the software as IPv6 is now being adopted by several clients globally (aquion 2012).
• When it comes to network expansion this tool comes in pretty handy, it monitors the applications which are being used widely within the entire connection making sure that there is no misuse of the resources. So monitoring activities of the employees over the network becomes easier.
• The feature of the bandwidth monitoring would help the administrators track the people who are using the network and the purposes it is being used. The tool supports multiple protocols in order to collect each and every data within the network. These protocols include the SNMP, WMI, jFlow, Packet Sniffing, sFlow and NetFlow.
• The PRTG Monitor comes with a firewall to monitor the traffic. This would ensure to warn the network administrators before a few things could actually go wrong. This network monitor has more than 130 sensor types to monitor all the common network services which include the HTTP, FTP, SMTP/POP3, etc. (tmcnet 2012). Having this software will ensure alerts for the outages much before the time when it would have been noticed by the users (aquion 2012).
• The software also comes with the monitoring results of the Ping sensors where it shows the ping times of the cloud server and can be traced from 5 different locations from the world.
• Being a global organization HSBC has its offices in various countries where it might require different languages for different regions. The software brings out a solution for this as well. It supports several languages which include English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Simplified Chines, Czech, Dutch, and German.
• The network administers are provided the flexibility to track the network from any place they wish to. It could even be any platform they are using. Using the native iPhone/iPad or the Android apps by the company the network administrators can keep a track on the move.
• The software comes with a new feature of integrating with the Google Maps, which means for a company like HSBC which has branches around the globe it would come in very handy. It will help to stay connected and manage the network in its large geographically dispersed networks.
• Simplifying the printing options it comes with an inbuilt wizard where users could manually add the sensors for products by selected vendors such as Dell, APC and Dell, Hewlett-Packard (eweek 2102).
• As there are different bodies and departments which the organization has segregated to carry out the tasks in teams, the Enterprise Console would come as a major advantage. It offers infrastructure hoteling, and offers the MSP like services where multiple entities have to be kept separate and monitored as a whole. The Enterprise Console should prove to be a useful tool for those offering infrastructure hoteling, as well as those looking to offer MSP-like services, where multiple entities need to be kept separate, but monitored as a whole.
• The customization option includes the ability of creating customized device tree libraries. What this would mean is that administrators can now design a tree like structure where the groups can be monitored in the way they need to be.
• HSBC is an organization which usually manages a busy network involving clients, employees, and other users within the network. This means that there is often very less time to spare for monitoring and managing the entire network as a whole. With PRTG this concern is easily addressed where by incorporating the auto-updating option the patches, enhancements, and updates could be easily applied to the program. So there would be no need for the organization to look up to the administrators to keep the product up to date every time there is a need for one.
• In the organization the administrators deal with several multiprotocol networks along with quality of service issues. PRTG with its QoS reporting system which comes with a two way sensor and helps in calculating the round trip QoS between the devices. It would actually be an important ingredient for meeting high demand bandwidth needs of the VOIP and video conferencing services which are so essential in the day to day operations of the HSBC.

Limitations of the PRTG Monitor

• PRTG monitor is easy to setup and start the monitoring process but though it is easy to use it will take time before the administrators become familiar with all the features the program comes with. It is recommended that the administrators go for formal training sessions or tutorials that the company may provide on demand (eweek 2011).
• The software comes with the option of building custom network maps but the biggest drawback is that it cannot be done automatically. This means that network maps have to be generated manually which might take time as well as high level understanding for the administrators to set up by themselves.
• Another limitation or criticism about this software is the amount of information that it presents on occasions. It might be a bit confusing to locate the exact monitoring of the things that people might be looking for in the initial stages.

Conclusion

Manufactured under the brand name of Paessler, this is a promising product that can be highly beneficial for the company when implemented. Although there are a few limitations to it the advantages presents a wider scope of managing and monitoring network. Be it the usage or the process of managing the network the simplicity with which the software comes with makes a good application for ease of operation. The enhancements further add a great deal of value to the product making the troubleshooting process much easier. Implementing the software can also provide a comprehensive alert system keeping them secured from any unforeseen damages, which means it facilitates the administrators to be proactive and deal with matters related to the network with ease (eweek 2011).

The program although comes with the recent changes while incorporated with the advanced features the pricing by the company has been kept unchanged from its previous versions. To conclude mentioning the incorporation of the IPv6 capabilities also deserve a mention which has brought a key change in the entire enterprise administration for the network managers. The only reason to say this is that the industry is adopting products with more and more IPv6 application. After a detailed usage of the application it was concluded that it would offer advanced solution and assistance to the network administrators at HSBC.

The implementation of this product is highly recommended within the organization as here managing tasks manually or use of some other manual tools could be very difficult. The automated monitoring system by PRTG Monitor would carry out the process on its own leaving only the preferences to be selected by the administrators. Hence, a large scale organization like the HSBC would surely get benefitted with the added features which simplify the task of monitoring the entire network for an uninterrupted operation from wherever they may be operated.

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