Free monitoring tools for office network

Small businesses and offices usually share a single internet connection. The bandwidth allowed in the business is often shared among employees so that everyone could have online connection. While the main purpose of allowing employees to connect online is for business reasons, some employees might be tempted to use the internet for personal reasons such as watching videos, downloading movies, music or even playing online games. These online activities will not only decrease productivity but will also eat up bandwidth which will prevent others from properly connecting online.

To prevent this from happening, a network monitoring tool should be installed in the network. This network monitoring tool will be able to actively monitor the entire network in order to have real time information on who is currently online. This will aid network administrators in troubleshooting the network.

Network monitoring tools can also control internet connection of users within the network. Instead of freely allowing everyone on how they can use the internet, network administrators can limit bandwidth connection per user to avoid abuse of internet connection. Network monitoring tools could even be used for wireless connectivity where it could allow or prevent certain users from connecting online. Some network monitoring tools could even block certain websites.

Businesses don’t even have to spend thousands of dollars for an efficient network monitoring tools. Some will require a one time license fee while others are even free. Most are also user friendly which means it doesn’t need an expert in computer networking before the network tool could be used.