Maintaining an IT infrastructure void of vulnerabilities depends on how companies manage their environments effectively, particularly in the increasingly critical realms of networking and SaaS applications. With the connection between IT and business operations and results reaching unprecedented heights, IT teams face never-before-seen demands in providing the highest levels of service.

Why is this? It isn't news that IT supports the mission-critical operations of enterprises.

However, trends in digital transformation have led to never-before-seen opportunities to push businesses forward through technology. At the same time, these trends have changed the way customers and employees interact with the business. All of this has led to a broader ecosystem of devices and applications that are expected to work seamlessly at all times - on top of more devastating consequences if they don't. 

IT teams carry the responsibility of managing these physical and virtual resources, ensuring they serve their purpose so other teams can perform their roles. However, IT teams aren't always growing in lock-step with the proliferation of new technologies. Turnover in the industry means that highly specialized skill sets can be hard to find. Thus, it becomes clear then that IT teams will rely on software-based management tools to streamline their growing task lists and improve operational efficiency.

It is also necessary to mention the increasing and evergreen concerns over security threats. Compared to other types of hardware and software failures, and other IT risks, security breaches carry particularly devastating consequences if not caught and rectified early. Part of mitigating this risk is using an IT management platform that empowers them to monitor and govern IT environments.  Auvik is a cloud-based IT management platform that lessens the friction for IT teams to navigate multiple IT environments with less friction through seamless deployment, effortless automation, and an intuitive interface. 

Auvik centralizes all information across diverse networks and SaaS applications, which IT teams administer, monitor, and maintain. It provides a holistic view of IT environments so they are empowered to stay proactive against potential issues and address them before they escalate. 

IT teams are burdened to support hybrid work environments and manage SaaS sprawl so that end users can work with minimal friction. Leveraging Auvik gives them the visibility and agility to visualize network topology and SaaS applications, analyze network traffic, monitor shadow IT, and other tasks related to managing IT assets.

How Auvik Works: TechTimes' Guide

Once its software collector is installed, Auvik locates and identifies networks, resulting in an overall view of networked devices and how they are all connected. When they are discovered, Auvik asks whether to scan them or not.  It starts querying the devices based on default credentials or the ones manually placed then starts building out a real-time network map. There's an option to add, delete, and approve networks for scanning from the Manage Networks tab.

All information gets sent to Auvik servers once the agent or collector has been deployed. If network devices aren't appearing on the topology map, it's possible a firewall or a router is blocking Auvik from discovering them. Thus, network administrators or first-time users may have to tailor configurations to allow traffic to pass through and facilitate the discovery. 

Why Choose Auvik Over Other IT Management Platforms?

Compared to other IT management platforms, Auvik is faster to deploy, use, and recover, and it has multiple out-of-the-box deployment options. As a cloud-native monitoring solution, Auvik features a user-friendly interface to navigate IT environments that is easy to learn for new users. This is accentuated by its centralized dashboard, where all logs are visible, and its automated inventory, which also eliminates the need for tedious manual documentation.

Auvik recognizes that across all areas of IT, organizations rely on best-of-breed ecosystems to achieve business goals. To this end, Auvik not only supports a broad swath of network devices (to date, Auvik has identified over 15,000 distinct devices from over 700 network infrastructure vendors), but also integrates with many popular IT tools, so IT teams can achieve true visibility and seamless workflows across hardware, software, and networks. Auvik can even identify many discontinued and legacy devices that others cannot, although with reduced visibility in some cases.  

The more information is placed onto Auvik, the easier it is for IT teams to troubleshoot issues and visualize network performance. For example, adding read-only credentials allows the platform to grab configurations from devices and provide a complete picture of the network. Take note this may result in a crowded or busy interface to the point that might result in too much data for some users.

Another downside of using Auvik is that it is not a customizable platform like Solarwinds, LogicMonitor, and PRTG by Paessler. Users can only customize the pre-configured alerts. It can take some time to configure them to minimize their presence. It is also not mobile friendly, even if the solution is cloud-based.

While a secure solution, Auvik may also not fit every organization's security posture. It has no option to be deployed on-premises, so there's no control and ownership of data, including the ability to directly manage its performance.

The aforementioned platforms may have similar features like real-time monitoring, integrations, automation, and scalability but choosing one still boils down to the outcomes an organization seeks to achieve and the problems one is trying to solve. In spite of its limitations, Auvik is the strongest in ease of use, real-time visualization of data, and speed of deployment.

Features of Auvik

Auvik empowers IT teams to monitor and govern IT systems from one platform. They can also manage more than traditional networks by taking control of their SaaS and WiFi ecosystems. It also possesses Saas and WiFi management capabilities to help them achieve total network transparency. Read further to learn more about its features.

Network Management

Auvik supports automated network discovery and monitoring across 15000+ devices from 700+ vendors.  It begins monitoring the network with pre-configured alerts as soon as it's deployed. These alerts, which are surfaced on the network map, help IT teams get to the root cause of network issues faster through the centralized dashboard where all logs are visible. This combination of alerting and visibility goes a long way in reducing the MTTR (mean time to repair) of common network issues.

Auvik provides full details for every device on the network through its automated inventory for network visibility and documentation. It leverages a wide array of network protocols (SNMP, Ping, SSH, and Telnet, among others) to detect and capture details, including make and model, serial number, IP address, and physical switch port a device is connected to so users can easily locate any device attached to the network. 

With real-time access to data on topology, configuration history, and device performance, IT teams can paint a clearer picture of each network device, allowing them to maintain its optimum performance. Auvik's alerts are based on industry best practices, and range from informational to emergency. Users have the ability to tweak these alerts and add custom ones.

Auvik can also show which applications or protocols that consume the most bandwidth like Dropbox, Facebook, YouTube, or Zoom. It analyzes the traffic flows across the network, even when it's encrypted.

IT teams can immediately see who's behind the bandwidth hogging through the visualizations of the network management platform as it displays the top source addresses, destination addresses, conversations, and ports. Auvik helps them investigate if it is a legitimate hog i.e. a business application is being used or an external attack is consuming most of the traffic.

If the traffic is being received from or delivered to an unauthorized address, it becomes easier to verify if the traffic is malicious and take action against it to protect the network. Auvik can also show the flow records, which is a list of communication channels between computers as they exchange information, to get more insights into the traffic traversing a network device. 

SaaS Management

Auvik can solve the pressing problems organizations face when managing SaaS applications, such as lack of visibility and vendor security incidents. Organizations offload the complexity of SaaS management to third-party services. However, new challenges and complexities emerge as SaaS adoption has exploded beyond what IT teams can handle with manual tracking and spreadsheets.

SaaS management platforms like Auvik can help restore governance and control by organizing all SaaS apps in one place. IT teams can track application usage, identify redundant or abandoned subscriptions, and detect risky behavior and shadow IT with a detailed SaaS inventory. Organizations can have a stronger security posture with increased visibility and control, especially with alerts for security incidents.

Auvik automates the process of documenting and updating the application inventory, ensuring any changes and additions are accurately reflected. This eliminates the need for manual tracking as the SaaS management platform continuously monitors the application landscape. IT teams can easily access and manage information for all SaaS applications from one location.

From usage to performance and security, it consolidates information from multiple sources. The SaaS management platform provides a unified dashboard where key metrics, usage patterns, and trends are displayed. 

Moreover, Auvik provides insights and recommendations for improvement through a SaaS Health Score. IT teams can understand employee adoption and access to each SaaS application so that they can address changes in the application inventory based on company goals and priorities.

Auvik can also display relevant information on SaaS vendor security incidents and supply chain risks. IT teams can assess the security posture of their SaaS ecosystem properly to minimize potential disruptions caused by vulnerabilities.

Alerts are sent in real time to notify them of changes across SaaS applications. This extends to risky user behaviors that pose a threat to the network. IT teams can mitigate potential security risks like data breaches and demonstrate compliance with data privacy standards and industry regulations like ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR.

WiFi Management

Auvik has partnered with Metageek for its Chanalyzer, a fast and smart tool for WiFi management. Technicians and WiFi consultants use it for on-site troubleshooting and spectrum analysis, helping them efficiently deploy and maintain wireless networks.

There are numerous reasons behind poor WiFi connections. Sorting through the potential causes requires technical knowledge and time to comb through packet traffic. Chanalyzer saves IT teams time by identifying WiFi connection issues and plotting them on a unified time graph. 

IT teams can track drops, retries, and airtime congestion in real time and even perform post-deployment WLAN optimizations. Users can easily create benchmark documentation of post-deployment wireless traffic and as-expected roaming behavior after deploying a new network or making large-scale configuration changes.

Chanalyzer tracks and maps WiFi events automatically so IT teams can easily track down interferences that impact the WiFi network and improve the WiFi experience for all users connected to the network. It is a real-time packet analyzer that provides a complete picture of the WiFi environment with features like WiFi client finder, multi-channel WiFi capture, and stacked time graph analysis.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Fast to deploy

• Ease of use

• Automated network map in real-time

• Integrates with many platforms & workflows 

Cons

• Lack of customization

• Lack of mobile support

• No on-premise deployment

• Configuration issues

• The topology map could be improved

Conclusion

Managing hundreds to thousands of IT assets and devices requires having the best tool IT teams can use to support end users and maintain a robust IT infrastructure. As organizations become more reliant on technology to drive operations and improve efficiency, they must embrace technologies that give them the competitive edge to thrive in the digital age. 

Auvik supports hundreds of network vendors to reduce tool sprawl and license costs. It provides true network visibility and control to monitor, administer, and maintain a network system of computers. It excels in giving us a lot of information to monitor issues surrounding environments that may be difficult to report on without custom configuration. It allowed us to monitor all managed locations through a single dashboard. However, it also requires tuning to make the tool manageable. 

Get real-time access to network metrics, SaaS applications, and wireless networks by using an IT management platform built to accelerate the efficiency of IT teams in navigating the changes in IT environments. Achieve network transparency with Auvik.