Network monitoring · Canada
Service group: Managed ITNetwork monitoring that tells us about the outage before your staff do
Continuous checks on your internet circuits, firewalls, switches, access points and key servers, with alerts our team acts on during covered hours and the ISP escalation handled for you.
At a glance
- Service
- Recurring monitoring of business network devices and internet connections, with alert triage and provider escalation by Podium Catchers
- Best suited to
- Canadian organizations of roughly 5 to 200 employees that depend on cloud applications, VoIP or multiple sites and need early warning of network problems
- What is watched
- Device reachability, internet circuit availability, latency and packet loss, interface errors, bandwidth use, and selected services such as DNS and VPN tunnels (as scoped)
- Response model
- Alerts are reviewed and acted on during covered hours defined in your scope; after-hours response is only provided when written into the proposal
- Not included by default
- Configuration changes and remediation beyond first-response steps, which fall under network management or are quoted separately
- Pricing basis
- Per site and per monitored device per month, confirmed in a written quotation; published figures are proposals pending approval
- How to start
- Review the Network Monitoring product, or book a consultation to confirm which devices and circuits should be watched
What network monitoring does
Most small businesses learn about a network problem when someone shouts that Teams has frozen or the card terminal won’t connect. By then the issue has already cost time, and the first ten minutes go to working out whether it is the computer, the Wi-Fi, the firewall or the internet provider.
Network monitoring replaces that guesswork with data. A lightweight collector at each site continuously checks your internet circuits, firewalls, switches, access points and selected servers. It records availability, latency, packet loss, interface errors and bandwidth, and raises an alert when a device goes offline or a threshold is crossed. Our team reviews those alerts during covered hours, determines the likely cause and starts the right response.
When the cause is your internet provider, we open the ticket, supply the evidence from our monitoring history and follow it through, so you are not spending the morning on hold. Monitoring is visibility and first response; deeper configuration work is delivered through network management.
What happens without monitoring
Outages discovered by staff
Problems surface only when someone complains, so the clock starts late and nobody knows when the issue actually began.
Intermittent slowness with no evidence
Calls break up every afternoon, but without latency and packet loss history the provider says the line tests fine.
Silent failures
A backup internet link, a branch VPN tunnel or a second power supply fails quietly and is only noticed when the primary fails too.
Hours lost on hold with the ISP
Someone in the office calls the internet provider, without account numbers, circuit IDs or the technical detail needed to escalate.
Key capabilities
Uptime visibility
A record of when each device and circuit was available, so outages can be measured, compared and discussed with vendors using facts.
Threshold alerting
Alerts for device down, high latency, packet loss, interface errors, bandwidth saturation and failed VPN tunnels, tuned to avoid noise.
Alert triage during covered hours
Our technicians review each alert, correlate it with other signals, and decide whether it needs action, escalation or simply observation.
ISP outage escalation
We open and pursue tickets with your internet and telecom providers, supplying circuit IDs, timestamps and monitoring data.
Failover verification
Backup circuits, secondary VPN tunnels and redundant power supplies are watched so you know redundancy is ready before you need it.
Monthly availability reporting
A summary of incidents, circuit performance and recurring issues, reviewed with you to guide upgrades and provider decisions.
What is monitored, and what is separate
Monitored devices, thresholds and covered hours are listed in your proposal.
Typically included
- Collector deployment and configuration at each listed site
- Availability and performance checks for listed devices and circuits
- Alert routing and triage during covered hours
- ISP and telecom ticket escalation with supporting evidence
- Basic first-response steps such as remote reboots of managed devices
- Monthly availability and incident summary
Requires separate scope or quotation
- Continuous 24/7 alert response unless written into the plan
- Configuration changes, redesigns and hardware replacement
- Security event monitoring and threat hunting, which fall under security services
- Monitoring of devices not listed in the scope
- Provider circuit repairs, which remain the provider’s responsibility
What we monitor and how
- SNMP, ICMP and vendor cloud APIs for firewalls, switches and access points
- Cloud-managed dashboards from Cisco Meraki, Ubiquiti UniFi and Fortinet
- Business fibre, cable, DSL, fixed wireless and LTE/5G backup circuits
- Site-to-site IPsec and SD-WAN tunnels
- DNS resolution and reachability of key cloud services such as Microsoft 365
- Uninterruptible power supplies with network management cards
- Windows and Linux servers through the same monitoring platform where scoped
Who benefits
Cloud-dependent offices
Teams whose work stops when the internet drops, because email, files, phones and line-of-business apps all live online.
Multi-site businesses
Organizations with branches, clinics, yards or stores where nobody on site can diagnose the network.
Businesses arguing with their ISP
Companies with recurring slowness or drops who need evidence to hold their provider to account or choose a different one.
What you gain
- Earlier awareness of outages and degradation
- Evidence for conversations with internet providers
- Confidence that backup links and tunnels are actually working
- Less staff time spent diagnosing and calling vendors
- Data to justify, or avoid, bandwidth and hardware upgrades
- A monthly picture of network health you can share with leadership
How monitoring is set up
Scope the watch list
We agree which sites, devices, circuits and services matter, and what counts as an alert for each.
Deploy collectors
A small collector or cloud integration is installed at each site and devices are enrolled.
Baseline and tune
We observe normal behaviour for a few weeks and adjust thresholds to cut false alarms.
Document escalation paths
Circuit IDs, provider contacts and your internal contacts are recorded so escalations move quickly.
Operate and report
Alerts are handled during covered hours and a monthly summary is shared and reviewed.
Ways to buy
All options are confirmed by a written quotation.
Network Monitoring subscription
A per-site and per-device monitoring plan with alert triage and ISP escalation, available on its own.
Monitoring plus network management
Combined with network and firewall management so that alerts lead directly to remediation by the same team.
Within a Managed IT package
Network monitoring included in the Essential, Business or Advanced packages alongside help desk and Microsoft 365 administration.
Frequently asked questions
Will you fix the problem, or just tell us about it?
Monitoring includes triage, basic first-response steps and ISP escalation. Configuration changes and repairs are handled under network management or quoted separately, so the proposal shows exactly what happens after an alert.
Are alerts handled overnight and on weekends?
Alerts are acted on during the covered hours in your scope. Monitoring continues collecting data at all times, but after-hours response is only provided when it is written into your plan.
Can you prove our internet provider is the problem?
Monitoring history shows when latency, packet loss or outages occurred and whether internal devices were healthy at the time. That evidence makes ISP escalations faster and more productive.
Do we need new hardware for monitoring?
Usually only a small collector at each site, or none if your equipment is cloud-managed. Very old or unmanaged devices may offer limited data, which we explain during scoping.
Related services
Products and packages
Industries we support
Service areas
Further reading
Know about network problems before they stop work
Review the Network Monitoring plan or book a consultation to agree which devices and circuits we should watch.