A lot of people are having a hard time with the following question: Why should some one who runs a small serve

Question

Why should some one who runs a small server monitor network traffic, or should they at all, and why?

I know that many large companies with resources do it, but is it that important or practicle for a small business to do it. The only reply I have been able to receive was a some guy got off the Internet.

Hopefully someone with security or system admin.experience or education can give me a solid opinion.

Thanks!

Answer 1

good question: system administrator for either small medium or latrge business should monitor incoming and outgoing traffic. Because when data transmitts, packets sometimes get lost or corrupted . Another reason is $$$$, sometimes people can have malisiouc goal, that's why some1 with experience should monitor incoming and outgoing traffic through servers and network. if you interested i'd recomment some books about it

Answer 2

Depends on what you mean by a small server. Is it an internet server? If so, you do need to have some monitoring software in place or you will find your system being used by some cracker to spam the world (and you are responsible). There are several open source packages to let you monitor without having to watch the system at all hours. Just read the reports once a day.

If this is a file server not connected to the internet then why waste the resources to monitor it? You need to get some professional assistance to get it setup so you dont have to worry about your system and its safety. A little expense on the front end will save you alot of expense later!

It all depends on what you are doing and why. A couple of hours of consulting advice and you will feel much safter.

Answer 3

It's not the size of the server...but the employee behind it. Also, with the advent of high-speed connections (both wireless and wired), it would allow you to respond quicker if your system was attacked. Let's say you have a firewall, that's great but what happens when they get through? They could download everything from your company's server. Would that be acceptable to you?

Answer 4

By monitoring your network (large or small) you can spot differences in the normal activity. whether that be caused by a bad port on a switch, viral causes or even just staff downloading private stuff in work time.

The faster you can keep your network running the better you'll work and the smaller your network the more important it is to know you are running at your ultimum.

Answer 5

You would monitor traffic to see where employees are wasting time.

Finding out who the dangerous users are on your network would become apparent when you have to fix their workstations. In that case, you could either deny the user internet access or limit the sites they visit using group policy.

Answer 6

Well, it helps prevent against silly little kids hogging up important network bandwidth with their worthless myspace profiles. Block the myspace server, and any proxy servers that you learn about.