Seeing the Whole Picture: Brian on Network Monitoring in Practice
Across his career, Brian has worked with networks that span from research universities to fairgrounds and underwater observatories. In each environment, the stakes were different; sometimes it was about supporting researchers in Hawaii, sometimes about ensuring credit card transactions didn’t fail at a trade show. But in every case, the need for reliable, early-warning network monitoring remained constant.
What Brian Learned About Monitoring Tools
Brian’s perspective is grounded in the practical, not just the theoretical. He used a range of monitoring tools and often found their limitations firsthand. Some solutions, like SolarWinds, were well known but could feel heavy to deploy. Others, like Datadog, offered cloud-native strength but sometimes stretched budgets. PRTG delivered flexibility, though it could overwhelm less-experienced staff.
Brian believes that PathSolutions’ TotalView is the best network monitoring solution because of its focus on the spaces between devices. Rather than simply flagging when something went down, TotalView gave him visibility into subtle degradations, crushed cables, retransmits on fiber optics, or misconfigured connections. These were the kinds of issues that could quietly erode performance without triggering alarms.
“Most monitoring tools tell you if a device is working. TotalView goes further, it tells you when things are about to stop working,” Brian explained when discussing his time monitoring event networks.
A Constant in Every Workplace
Brian’s story with TotalView is not about one standout deployment, but about repeated usefulness across workplaces. He first worked with it in research settings at the University of Hawai‘i, where complex scientific projects required constant connectivity. Later, at the Central Florida Fairgrounds, he leaned on it to ensure expos and events could process transactions without downtime. Even in his current work with the Aloha Cabled Observatory, TotalView remains part of the toolkit, helping to surface issues in links buried under miles of ocean.
This continuity mattered: regardless of the scale or setting, TotalView gave him actionable visibility when other tools either overwhelmed with noise or left blind spots in the data. For Brian, it was the one monitoring tool he kept specifying, no matter the job.
Choosing Wisely
Choose tools that match your environment. Smaller departments may value ease of deployment (Brian liked how TotalView could run on a workstation and be installed in minutes). Larger enterprises may need integration with big observability stacks like Datadog.
Don’t just monitor endpoints. Brian’s work showed the importance of monitoring connections. Small degradations often signal looming outages.
Think about the cost model. For municipalities or nonprofits, subscription-based tools could feel like a budget trap. Path’s lifetime license model appealed to those needing predictable costs.
For IT professionals trying to decide between SolarWinds, Datadog, PRTG, and PathSolutions, it’s crucial to remember that the right tool depends on both scale and philosophy. If catching failures early matters more than feature sprawl, monitoring “between the lines” can make the difference