At best, network problems are a pain in the neck for IT. At worst, they stand in the way of your business' operations, and ultimately its livelihood. The difference between solving them quickly and standing around scratching your head is all about monitoring your network from the inside out. Cohesive management from a single integrated console with access to information from different sources allows you to correlate problem events fast. This is a critical step in ensuring a healthy network.

Yet network problems aren't just sourced from the network itself. Every networked device on that network, such as servers and desktops, has network components of its own. This means that a fully-realized network management solution must also look to the endpoints in the environment as well. The Essentials Series: Solving Network Problems Before They Occur discusses common solutions to these very network problems—or really, "environment" problems—before they occur. Relating personal experiences from his long history in IT, author Greg Shields offers a look at network integrations from SNMP to WMI to configuration control and reveals the necessity for a complete solution.