A country's military isn't just a show of the nation's might but also a significant asset in protecting its own interests and territorial integrity while ensuring national security. Just as critical as armed forces are to a country's defense, so is their network. The network facilitates critical operations such as carrying out discreet communication between the forces and guiding offensive and defensive weapon systems. To cope with the increasing dynamic workload and enhance security, military networks are switching from conventional architecture to a more agile and resilient architecture that is tailor-made for their needs.
In a world where network security is of the utmost importance and the threat of cyberattacks is more imminent than ever, one can only fathom the dire consequences a network security vulnerability can introduce. So, while it's important to stay on pace with the ever-changing networking landscape and tackle the complexities involved, what's even more important is ensuring the authenticity and integrity of the network along with the data in it by preventing potential security breaches.
This can be addressed by deploying a network monitoring solution, such as OpManager, that takes into account the dynamic constraints associated with the network and holistically monitors them while vigilantly keeping an eye out for potential intruders. It also helps you optimize your network for better performance, improve scalability, and bring down your capital expenditures and operating expenses.
The primary concern while monitoring a military network is ensuring its security. To make sure that the security of a network is airtight, military networks have typically relied on on-premises environments. However, this hampers scalability. With recent technological advancements, military networks have enhanced their security even while moving towards cloud-based applications. The transition from legacy on-premises architecture to hybrid architecture gives rise to a lot of complexities.
This calls for modern deployable solutions that eliminate network blindspots by ensuring comprehensive visibility into the full stack while maintaining optimum network performance.
Military networks are the key to a nation's security since they carry out secure information relay between a country's forces and also manage weapon systems. With networks moving from on-premises architecture towards hybrid architecture, the management complexities and security threats are rising exponentially.
Furthermore, while it's important to provide high uptime, it's also important to ensure the network functions optimally. Issues such as high latency and improper resource allocation and utilization might crop up at times, which must also be taken care of. Vigilant compliance with security-related frameworks and other government norms must further be ensured. These make network monitoring all the more tedious.
It's important to monitor the availability of devices; if a device goes down, it could potentially cause network downtime. By polling a device at regular intervals, device availability can be tracked. Learn more
By keeping track of a device's key performance metrics, such as CPU utilization, memory utilization, and disk space, you can ensure its optimum performance. Learn more
The time interval taken for an operation to be carried out is known as latency. Higher latency denotes a decline in network speed that affects the end-user experience. Learn more
Adequate storage is necessary for any network to function effectively, since inadequate storage space prevents your network from performing its best. Learn more
By keeping close tabs on your network traffic, you can identify bandwidth-hogging applications and keep the resources focused on military-oriented utilization. Furthermore, any deviation from the routine network traffic usage or patterns could indicate a service outage or a cyberattack. Tracking this will help you identify potential security threats.
The hardware health of the devices in a network is of the utmost importance since it directly correlates with the performance of the applications and services running within your network. Learn more
A security breach in a military network could be catastrophic owing to the network's critical nature. That's why there are several security frameworks and government-mandated norms in place that must be adhered to to keep your network less vulnerable to external attacks.
While increasingly agile and intelligent, today's military networks also bring new sets of challenges to the table due to their rising complexities. The following are some of the major challenges that IT admins face while monitoring a military network.
Military networks must be easily deployable at any given time. Moreover, the network must put up with the terrain it's set up in. Network admins must constantly monitor the hardware health of the devices and be ready to scale their network when necessary. With the right network monitoring tool, network admins can gain actionable insights and make informed decisions to address scalability and deployability issues.
A military network might be distributed over a large geographical area with many devices and interfaces, and network admins have to deal with a staggering amount of data at any given time. Moreover, there are various SOPs in place that make operations all the more complicated.
The legacy architecture of military networks is now slowly being replaced with modern architecture comprising of cloud-based applications, making it important to monitor both the on-premises and cloud network environments.
Military networks are more prone to cyberattacks since they are incredibly crucial to a nation's defense. It's important to combat threats and neutralize them by staying compliant with all the government-mandated norms and frameworks.
The responsibilities of a network admin cannot be summarized in a to-do list. They must be proactive in monitoring their network, keeping it safe from potential outages and cyberattacks. ManageEngine OpManager, with its robust network monitoring capabilities, not only ensures network uptime but also the optimum functioning of the devices in a network. With modern technologies such as AIOps and ML, OpManager helps you build a resilient network architecture that is less prone to outages and cyberattacks.
OpManager has features that are crucial in your combat against network complexities. Here's why.
ManageEngine OpManager is a holistic network monitoring solution that keeps an eye out in your network for potential bottlenecks. Apart from its network monitoring capabilities, OpManager has powerful add-ons that are developed in-house while keeping scalability and security concerns in mind, helping you manage your IT operations and optimize them to the fullest.
Monitor your network's firewall logs and ensure their optimum performance using the ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer add-on. Enhance the security of your network by monitoring your logs, and neutralize security threats with the help of comprehensive forensic audits. Learn more
Monitor and optimize your network's bandwidth usage, and analyze traffic patterns using the ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer add-on. Keep an eye out for issues pertaining to latency, jitter, and packet loss, and overcome them effectively. Learn more
Monitor your network's configuration changes, and conduct scheduled configuration backups and firmware vulnerabilities with the ManageEngine Network Configuration Manager add-on. Put configuration change policies in place and ensure that you stay compliant with government-mandated norms and frameworks. Learn more
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