As offices grow and load increases on your network’s resources and bandwidth, it may be time to look at some simple network management software.  Assuming you’re running a file server in your environment, you can quickly add a number of free, downloadable apps to monitor different aspects of your network’s traffic.

Most network management apps monitor the following:

1. Bandwidth usage

2. Network permissions

3. IP mapping

4. SNMP logging

5. Uptime

I’ve always found Spiceworks to be a good option, it’s free and monitors all of these data points as well as including a help desk module to help you keep a handle on office IT assistance requests.

If you’re on a home or small office LAN, you might want to consider Cisco’s Network Magic software, which can help identify devices on the LAN as well as assist in properly locking down your network to prevent intrusion and malware.

If you’re in a larger enterprise environment (say above 50 users) I recommend taking a look at Solarwinds.com, they have a number of free downloadable tools that can monitor and manage a number of different areas of the network and traffic flow.

If you’re not sure what to choose, or want reviews etc, take a look at a few third party sites like Network Management Software for some independent analysis.