IT and system failures do not only hamper employee productivity and workflows, they have the potential to cause real economic damage. In fact, a survey by EMC found that data loss and downtime cost Australian organisations an estimated A$65.5 billion in 2014. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed had experienced data loss or downtime over the same period.

You don’t need those figures to know that solving or preventing outages is pretty important. For startups, too; as they increasingly look to leverage IT to innovate and fuel expansion, the ability to ensure maximum uptime becomes key.

However, what exactly is the best method to avoid systems outage and reduce downtime? The answer lies in continuous network monitoring, which keeps an eye on IT infrastructure, including hardware, virtualised components and applications. Yet, the key benefits of network monitoring go way beyond the ability to avoid IT outages – some of which many businesses may not even be aware of.

The four most undervalued benefits of network monitoring are:

1. Project management
Besides providing visibility into the entire network, monitoring can also keep track of the progress and health of existing virtualisation, storage and network projects. Executive dashboards can be particularly useful for measuring advancement.

2. Customer insight
Monitoring can also reveal product and service performance – and the quality of the overall user experience. Monitoring solutions have the ability to highlight how long it takes for databases to turn around information, or how long email replies take to be delivered. This can measure quality of service, as well as uncover inexpensive ways to improve service efficiency and effectiveness.

3. Machine maintenance
Monitoring tools can keep an eye on machines and process chains. Set up as a central control station, a monitoring solution can map both production and the IT, so that staff can identify and locate potential complications early. Monitoring solutions should be able to transmit precise error messages so that appropriate measures can be undertaken promptly and accurately, without lengthy troubleshooting and downtime.

4. Monitoring of Things
One of the biggest challenges brought about by the internet of things is the ability integrate a heterogeneous group of devices into an existing network structure. This is where the “Monitoring of Things” comes in – keeping track of connected devices to provide intelligent real-time information, so as to enable automation, analysis and product maintenance.

In principle, the monitoring possibilities are limitless. Large and small business alike can be enabled to monitor a vast scope of things with the help of flexible and customisable tools. For instance, monitoring solutions can be created to control and regulate the flow of visitors in museums, evaluate petrol prices and thus reduce fuel costs, or monitor water quality in fish farms, amongst others.

Ultimately, network monitoring provides deep insight into organizational infrastructure. It can diagnose weaknesses, areas for improvement, as well as areas of strong performance. This is information which can help startups make better and more informed decisions about everything from safety and operational procedures to customer experience and marketing.

ABOUT ANDREW TIMMS//

Andrew Timms is APAC director at Paessler AG.