If you’ve ever thought networking is bewildering as a newcomer, you’re not alone. In episode 3 of Network AF, meet Janine Malcolm, the director of network engineering at Salesforce. She joins podcast host Avi Freedman to chat about some of the experiences she’s had throughout her career and how to make network engineering a more accessible profession. At Salesforce, Janine is currently focused on uniting groups of people as one overall network engineering team.

For organizations that rely on their network to support their daily operations, how well the network operates can make or break their business. As a network admin, your core objective is to ensure that day-to-day business operations are carried out successfully. This involves optimizing the network for maximum performance and minimizing service disruptions.

It’s interesting to observe how encryption and network performance monitoring (NPM) have evolved over time. When I first entered the networking industry right out of college, many applications sent passwords over the network in clear text, unencrypted. Since just about everyone’s PC was wired back to a repeater (i.e., not a switch), we could observe each other’s traffic with free packet analyzers and laugh.

With the increase in the number of organizations that have a sizable network infrastructure, the need for a network monitor also increases substantially. With properly established network monitoring protocols in place, organizations can work more efficiently, have more visibility over their network devices, and avoid unexpected downtimes and network issues.

This blog post is part of our data centre networking series.