Today’s hybrid network environments have a balance of both distributed networks and implementations of modern technology. But they are not short of one core component: servers. Maintaining server availability and health has always been a necessity when it comes to network management. Preserving network uptime comes down to monitoring and managing the factors contributing to network downtime. One such factor that has a high potential to cause performance anomalies is hardware. Monitoring the network hardware with a hardware performance monitor has become a critical need.
A hardware monitor is an application used to monitor the health and availability of hardware components through the data collected from built-in sensors. With hardware performance monitoring, you can keep the critical hardware performance metrics in check, including the fan speed, CPU temperature, voltage, battery, memory, and disk space.
Why is hardware performance monitoring important?
More than half of network outages are caused by hardware failures, which makes hardware performance monitoring an integral part of any network management strategy. Server performance is often inhibited by issues like fan failure, increased CPU temperature, and voltage fluctuations. This means you need to monitor the server hardware to keep the performance of hardware components in check, quickly identify and troubleshoot hardware issues, and prevent hardware failures.
With the surge in multi-vendor environments and distributed networks, the holistic option to keep up with network management is to proactively monitor hardware networks with a comprehensive hardware performance monitor.
Critical hardware components that need to be monitored
CPU temperature
Tracking CPU temperature is critical for any network as a sudden rise in the server CPU temperature can reduce the CPU clock rate, affect device availability, harm computing ability, and, in some cases, damage the motherboard and chips. This affects network availability and health, for the sake of which the CPU temperature needs to be constantly monitored.
Fan speed
Monitoring fan health and speed is important because proper ventilation is required for optimal server hardware performance. You always need to make sure that your racks, chassis, routers, and other critical components are well-ventilated with proper airflow distribution.
Processor speed
Proper processor functioning determines how quickly a device processes information and how much information an end user receives in a given period of time. Keeping the processor speed in check is thus essential to improving the user experience and preventing I/O latency issues. Learn more about process monitoring here.
Battery
A battery monitor scrutinizes the battery health, indicates the remaining battery charge, and alerts you when a power outage arises. Such proactive monitoring helps you ensure 100% server uptime and prevent or reduce abnormal shutdowns that result in data loss or unplanned network outages.
Power supply
Every data center needs an uninterrupted, reliable power supply to maintain server availability. Power monitoring tracks and alerts you about power fluctuations, power overloads, cable damage, and other factors leading to short circuits or power failures.
Storage
Storage is an important aspect of data transmission since adequate resources are essential for optimal server performance. Monitoring how much disk data is used and how much is left helps you plan storage capacity effectively, prevent disk space issues, and stay on top of storage management.
OpManager as a potent hardware monitor
OpManager is highly resourceful, potent network monitoring software that can be deployed to perform real-time monitoring of hardware, such as servers, routers, firewalls, switches, and their components. The critical hardware components’ availability and performance metrics, such as the CPU temperature, fan speed, battery health, power supply, and storage, are presented in the forms of intuitive dials, graphs, alerts, and reports. OpManager’s hardware performance monitor software not only performs proactive hardware monitoring but also lets you manage hardware resources, anticipate hardware issues, and automate L1 troubleshooting.
The following are some key features of OpManager that show how it is a comprehensive hardware performance monitor.
Scheduled discovery
When you upgrade or replace hardware, OpManager’s hardware performance monitoring solution updates the changes in the hardware specifications of the network devices by running a scheduled discovery process. This saves network admins from having to perform repetitive tasks.
Monitoring of hardware resources
Hardware resources are critical for server health and performance. OpManager’s hardware performance monitoring manages resource utilization by scrutinizing over 25 different CPU, memory, and disk metrics, such as I/O reads and writes, utilization, speed, free space, idle time, and processor queue. This helps you gain the visibility you need to maintain critical workloads while achieving peak performance.
Instant alerting about hardware issues
In cases of hardware failures or issues, notifying the on-field team instantly is crucial to prevent costly network downtime and business losses. OpManager, potent hardware performance monitoring software, alerts you promptly via notification methods such as email, SMS, Slack messages, and web alarms so that you never leave a network fault unnoticed or unattended.
Troubleshooting of hardware errors
For a hardware fault that doesn’t necessarily require manual intervention, OpManager’s hardware performance monitor helps you automate actions such as restarting or shutting down a device, refreshing data stores, or terminating certain processes. You can schedule routine maintenance or automate preliminary troubleshooting tasks to help network admins focus on more critical tasks.
Multi-vendor hardware support
OpManager’s hardware monitor extends its support to numerous vendors, such as Dell, HP, Juniper, Cisco, and Check Point. Also, OpManager’s custom device templates can help you add devices from any vendor and customize the monitoring options down to the last detail.
It doesn’t end there. OpManager has a lot more to offer as a hardware monitoring solution that wards off hardware issues. Learn about all the features here.
Want to look beyond hardware performance monitoring? Download our free, 30-day trial or sign up for a personalized demo to explore OpManager.
