Why is Enterprise IT Monitoring Important for Your Hybrid Workplace?

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, most organizations realized they had to facilitate remote working and do so overnight. In response, numerous infrastructure changes and new solutions were rolled out, many of which had not been tried and tested to the levels most organizations would like. 

But while these changes enabled business users to work remotely, their impact on the performance of the overall IT infrastructure and the experience they would afford employees was not clear. The assumption at the time was that remote working was likely a temporary arrangement and things would be back to normal again soon.

The Hybrid Workplace Is Here To Stay

Fast forward two years and we found ourselves in a very interesting position. Not only did the effects of the pandemic last longer than many people believed, but it’s also clear that hybrid working is here to stay.

A 2021 Upwork survey of 1,500 hiring managers found that 61.9% of companies are planning for more employees working remotely now and in the following years to come.

It’s a setup that benefits both employees and organizations. The former enjoy greater flexibility and can have a better work-life balance, while the latter realizes greater productivity and is better prepared should another pandemic or significant event occur.

However, for IT teams, the hybrid workplace setup serves to further fragment what are already complicated estates. But in the eyes of business users, just because they are working remotely shouldn’t matter; they still expect the same levels of service and performance they’ve become accustomed to. 

The bottom line is your people need a reliable and consistently high-quality experience regardless of where they’re working. That’s why it’s never been more important to ensure your IT estate is performing at its best all of the time. And that’s where Enterprise IT Monitoring comes into its own.

What Is Enterprise IT Monitoring?

Enterprise IT monitoring is the process of tracking and managing an organization’s IT infrastructure. This includes everything from servers and networks, to applications and devices. 

IT monitoring tools gather operational information across the enterprise’s entire IT estate. This can be as basic as checking whether a piece of hardware or software is online, to reporting in greater detail on the health of individual devices. For example, a device’s availability and utilization, error rates and alarms, as well as system and network performance data.

The goal of enterprise IT monitoring is to ensure that an organization’s IT infrastructure is always available and performing at its best to afford business users the best possible experience.

Why Is An Enterprise Monitoring Strategy Important?

Enterprise IT monitoring is important for a number of reasons, including:

• To ensure data security: With so much data being shared and stored online, it is essential to have a robust security infrastructure in place. Enterprise IT monitoring can help identify and address any potential security threats, mitigating risk and boosting compliance.
• To optimize network performance: A stable, high-performing network is a must if your business users are to have the best possible experience – regardless of where they are working. Enterprise IT monitoring can help identify any bottlenecks that could lead to service levels being degraded, allowing your IT admins to proactively investigate the root cause before it impacts network performance.
• To improve application usability: Poorly performing applications can impact employee productivity and cause frustration among your business users. Enterprise IT monitoring can help identify application issues as they occur to minimize their impact on your business users.
• To future proof your infrastructure: With Enterprise IT Monitoring, your IT admins can intuitively see how your network and applications perform under periods of heavy use. For organizations that experience usage peaks and troughs at certain times of the year, such insights are invaluable. As a result, your IT teams can more accurately predict when extra resources and capacity will be needed and make them available beforehand.
• To simplify your monitoring activities: Traditional monitoring has often taken a siloed approach, with different systems and teams responsible for certain pieces of infrastructure. Because Enterprise IT Monitoring takes a more holistic approach, your IT teams can work together for the overall benefit of your organization.

Final Thoughts

While your business users will have already started returning to the office, there is no question that hybrid working is here to stay. Ensuring that your IT infrastructure is consistently performing at optimum levels will be paramount in affording your business users the best experience possible.

With Enterprise Monitoring, your IT admins can quickly and easily identify potential issues as they arise and investigate them before they cause a service interruption. This kind of proactive action is invaluable for your organization and its business users.

Discover how our Enterprise IT Monitoring tools and range of other managed IT monitoring services can benefit your organization. Contact Us and talk to one of our managed monitoring service professionals to find out more.