Managing IP addresses is essential in the operation and security of modern computer networks. However, the original IP addressing system based on address classes A, B, and C was extremely inefficient in allocating addresses. Many addresses were wasted, rapidly depleting the available IPv4 space. To address this pressing issue, Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) was introduced in 1993. So, if you’re wondering what is CIDR, read on to learn everything you need to know.

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a standard routing protocol that’s been used the world over for many years. Supported by practically every routing vendor, as well as the open source community, OSPF is one of the few protocols in the IT industry you can count on being available just about anywhere you might need it. Enterprise networks that outgrow a single site will often use OSPF to interconnect their campuses and wide area networks (WANs).

Bro, I ain’t got flow isn’t only heard at your local hip hop mic night. It’s a gripe from many network administrators who have inherited small environments, networks with lower-end gear, or who are in the trenches dealing with a time-sensitive issue and need to dig deep—now. NetFlow is a Layer 3 protocol that, over time, allows administrators to see how much traffic is being generated, by whom, and where that traffic is going.

Despite everyone’s best efforts, network failures happen. And when downtime means lost productivity, fast troubleshooting becomes an integral part of IT operations. So with the addition of SNMP poller history, Auvik providing users an archive for troubleshooting, analysis, and planning. When it comes to managing network issues, diagnosing the root cause is the first step. And often, there’s a gap between when an incident occurs, and when it’s reported. And herein lies a big problem.

When something goes wrong, you need to look through your log messages and figure out important things like which device saw the problem first. This automatically tells you where to start looking for the root cause. If your clocks aren’t synchronized, it becomes much more difficult to correlate log messages between devices. More generally, you want to know if the similar log messages you’re seeing are related to the same incident or if maybe some of them happened much earlier or later.

It’s the middle of the workday and suddenly your IT team starts receiving calls: systems are slow, applications are unresponsive, and productivity grinds to a halt. Before you know it, you’re scrambling to pinpoint the issue and juggling complaints, all while the clock is ticking and downtime costs are piling up. The problem?

When you put Auvik on a network for the first time, the software automatically starts monitoring that network for more than 40 potential issues. When Auvik finds an issue, it triggers an alert. Network alerts range in severity from emergency at the top all the way down to informational. As you work with Auvik, you may see a lot of alerts coming your way. It’s obvious you need to deal with the emergency and critical network alerts. But what about the simple warnings and informational alerts?

When a critical system goes down, every second counts. That’s why IT and network professionals need to get comfortable with tracking incident response metrics like MTTR. MTTR (which you’ll soon come to find has several meanings) is a set of key metrics that measure how fast your team can repair and recover from incidents, directly impacting your system uptime and service quality.

Network access control (NAC) is a critical component of any organization’s cybersecurity strategy. As companies adopt increasingly flexible work environments and emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), their networks have expanded rapidly. More users, devices, and access points mean more potential vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit. Implementing NAC solutions lets organizations stay securely connected despite relying on a complex, dynamic infrastructure.

In separate incidents this past month, I’ve helped clients troubleshoot network problems that turned out to be due to misconfigured switches. In all cases, the errors turned out to be things that I don’t think should ever have been changed from their default settings. So I thought it might be useful to have a brief discussion about how switches work and what features should or should not be used in normal office environments.