Usuário:TelecomIndustry

Active Vs Passive Monitoring: Which is Best for Your Network?

The best way to protect yourself from cyber attacks is by having a strong firewall and antivirus program installed on all devices connected to your home network. If someone manages to break through your defenses, it’s important to know what happened so you can take action to prevent future attacks. Monitoring your network is vital because it helps you identify potential issues before they occur.

Monitoring your network is crucial to ensure that it remains secure and stable. There are two main types of monitoring: Active and Passive Monitoring. Which one should you choose?

What is Network Monitoring?

Network monitoring is a process where network administrators monitor the performance of their networks. The goal of network monitoring is to detect any issues during regular operation. Network monitoring tools help IT professionals troubleshoot potential network issues and provide information about how well the network performs.

Types of Network Monitoring?

There are three types of network monitoring: Passive Network Monitoring, Active Network Monitoring, and Hybrid Network Monitoring.

• Passive network monitoring is when you monitor traffic passively, which means you don’t actively interact with the traffic.
• Active monitoring is when you actively interact with the traffic, such as changing DNS records, adding IP addresses, or modifying firewall rules.
• Hybrid monitoring is a combination of both passive and active monitoring.

What is Active Monitoring?

Active network monitoring(also known as synthetic monitoring) is a method of security where a system actively monitors for suspicious activity.

This method helps identify and monitor real-time data performance issues such as packet loss, jitter, HTTP response time, etc. This includes looking at network traffic, logs, and other data sources to identify malicious behavior. The goal is to detect attacks before they happen.

Active testing also helps determine the performance of new hardware. Most active monitors allow you to configure them so they focus on specific parts of the network. You can use tools to monitor network traffic and identify potential issues bottlenecks before they reach the end user.

An active performance monitor end-to-end simulates how actual users might act on a network rather than taking into account real users and data in quality of service(Qos).

The main advantage of active network monitoring is that it can help identify potential security threats and ability to maintain complete visibility into your network and the ability to immediately identify blind spots. However, the downside is that it requires more time and effort. This means that you have to be vigilant about keeping an eye out. This can be more convenient because the problem won’t worsen while you’re not looking at it.

However, passive monitoring doesn’t always catch everything going on in your network.

Pros and Cons of Active Monitoring

Pros

• Provides 24/7 protection
• It can help you identify potential security risks before a breach occurs.
• You’ll receive alerts whenever there’s something wrong with your network.

Cons

• It requires more time and effort.
• Requires constant maintenance
• It takes longer than passive monitoring.
• More expensive than passive monitoring

What is Passive Monitoring?

Passive monitoring is a method of monitoring your network usage trends where you do not actively interact with the depth traffic and analyse historical traffic passing through your network. Passive monitors is usually done using packet sniffers. Packet sniffers record packets that pass through your network, and they send these packets back to a central location where they can be analyzed.

The main benefit of passive network monitoring is that it doesn’t require much time or effort. You simply need to install software on your computer, connect it to your network, and then wait for the packets to arrive. Passive monitoring is ideal for smaller businesses or home users who want to keep track of what’s happening on their network without spending too much time doing so.

Pros and Cons of Passive Monitoring

Pros

• Easy to set up
• Less expensive than active monitoring
• Allows you to keep an eye on things without being seen

Cons

• May miss some potential threats
• Doesn’t give you complete control over your network
• Doesn’t work all the time