What are Network Performance Metrics?

• Network Metrics Definition

  Network Metrics Definition

  Network metrics are qualitative and quantitative ways to observe and determine network behavior.
• How to monitor network metrics

  How to monitor network metrics

  Network performance metrics can help provide you with a more profound understanding of how your network infrastructure and services are operating. These metrics can provide real-time insights into the potential issues, outages, and errors of the network. With this crucial information, you can deploy and prioritize IT resources to respond according to the impact. Moreover, network performance metrics enable you to understand end-user demands and help you create an adaptive network to meet future business needs. But to gain and monitor network metrics comprehensively, you need a networking monitoring tool with advanced capabilities.

  Network performance monitoring tools are designed to deliver out-of-the-box visibility into network availability and performance metrics. They’re also designed to be fast, lightweight, and easy to use. To monitor network metrics, you can set alerts and get real-time notifications for outages and potential errors. This way, you can make more informed decisions to minimize downtime and fix network failures. In addition, some of these tools allow you to monitor and track network bandwidth, network configurations, VoIP devices, and IP addresses. These comprehensive monitoring tools include advanced capabilities designed to ensure your network is functioning correctly and delivering uninterrupted services. The features of these tools can include the following:

  • Built-in reporting system
  • Bandwidth utilization monitoring
  • Intuitive centralized dashboards
  • Network traffic monitoring
  • Flow-based monitoring and reporting
  • Dynamic and intelligent network mapping
  • Automatic alerting
  • User experience monitoring
  • Automatic recovery
  • Remote administration
  • Wireless network performance metrics monitoring
• How to measure network performance

  How to measure network performance

  Due to the complexity of network systems, it’s challenging for manual approaches to gather network metrics and evaluate network performance. As network demands increase, qualitative and quantitative aspects need to be captured to generate metrics and measure business-critical data in case of network performance problems. The major challenge in determining network performance manually is the lack of real-time provisioning, which helps detect problems instantly while routing, measuring bandwidth, and more. The data gathered this way is incomplete and full of inaccuracies. It can’t detect packet loss, latency, and other similar issues capable of eventually leading to an IT crisis in the long run. 

  Network performance monitoring tools are advanced solutions with comprehensive monitoring and reporting capabilities designed to help you gather key performance metrics, directly impacting business networks.
• Why is monitoring metrics important for network troubleshooting?

  Why is monitoring metrics important for network troubleshooting?

  Network performance metrics help distinguish between application issues and data transmission issues so it’s easier to resolve potential problems by connecting to the relevant teams. This approach includes two main metrics known as round-trip time (RTT) and server response time (SRT), which are calculated from passive observation of network traffic:

  1. Round-trip time: This refers to the transmission time a data packet takes to reach its destination and the time it takes to acknowledge the packet has been received. To calculate RTT, you need to establish a TCP session.
  2. Server response time: Server response time is the amount of time required to complete a request and respond to it. 

  Network performance metrics monitoring offers several benefits capable of helping you improve your entire network performance, such as the following:

  • Provides complete network visibility: You need to track every bit of your network traffic and the devices connected to it. Network monitoring tools can provide comprehensive monitoring and reporting capabilities with crucial performance metrics, which provide complete visibility into your network and help ensure the delivery of uninterrupted services to the end users.
  • Prevents network downtime: Network performance metrics help you predict and prevent network downtime by identifying potential and unexpected errors and outages. Using network monitoring solutions, you can track and observe network traffic and the devices associated with it. This helps you resolve errors instantly and maximize service availability.
  • Observe bandwidth usage: Bandwidth usage is one of the most crucial performance metrics. It helps you determine how much bandwidth your network is utilizing. Moreover, monitoring solutions alert you when these metrics reach critical levels so you can take timely action.
• Key network performance metrics

  Key network performance metrics

  Outlined below are a few important network performance metrics capable of helping you quickly determine unexpected issues:

  • Bandwidth usage: Bandwidth refers to the maximum data transmission rate on a network at a particular time. To achieve optimal network operations, it’s crucial to maximize your bandwidth usage without exceeding the threshold limits. With the help of a network performance monitoring tool, you can easily monitor the amount of bandwidth your network is using. Such tools can also alert you in real time by sending notifications if you exceed the bandwidth threshold.
  • Packet Loss: Packet loss refers to the number of data packets lost during transmission from one destination to another. This impacts end-user services, as data requests can’t be fulfilled at a committed time. Packet loss can occur for several reasons, such as software issues, network congestion, or router performance issues. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) can track the lost data packets and ensure they’re transmitted to their destinations. It’s important to monitor the entire process thoroughly. 
  • Retransmission: The data packets lost or dropped need to be retransmitted to complete a data request. Retransmission helps you determine the congestion on your network by measuring the frequency at which data packets are lost.
  • Throughput: Throughput is a metric allowing you to measure the actual data transmission rate through different areas of your network. While bandwidth lets you set the theoretical limit of data transfer, throughput measures the actual amount of data packets successfully sent to the destination via the network. Throughput may vary depending on the areas of the network. A low throughput indicates dropped packets needing to be retransmitted.
  • Latency: Latency or network delay is a network performance metric measuring the amount of time it takes to transfer data from one destination to another. Several factors, such as packet queuing in switched networks and fiber optic cabling refractive index, are responsible for increased network latency. Consistent delays or odd spikes in delay time indicate a major network performance issue.
  • Network Availability: Network availability is one of the key metrics you must determine to track your network's uptime over a specific time interval. Uptime is the amount of time during which your network is completely operational. Network availability is important to ensure the services you provide to end users are available consistently.
  • Connectivity: It’s important to check the connection between devices and nodes on your network. If there’s a malfunctioning device or improper connection on a network, various services can face downtime or performance issues. Connectivity issues commonly occur due to malware targeting specific nodes to affect the performance of a specific area of a network.
  • Jitter: Jitter can be defined as the time delay or time difference between sending of each data packet over the network. It’s a disruption in the normal sequencing of the data packets and can occur due to network congestion or route changes.