The traditional understanding of network monitoring covers server and service availability, CPU and RAM utilization, the status of a particular network interface, or the number of transferred packets. It is a foundation for the work of any network administrator. However, there is more to the matter than just the red/green status. This paper describes the difference between traditional infrastructure monitoring and next-generation network monitoring (or NPMD – Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics), which helps to tackle the many diverse issues that arise in modern IT environments.
