List of Top 5 Best CRM Tools for Small Businesses

What is a CRM?

CRM is an abbreviation for Customer Relationship Management. It is a cohesive unit that collaborates with technology, tools, strategies to develop and improve the acquisition and retainment of customers. It is a software solution that can store prospects and customers, make calls, send emails, create reports, schedule meetings and add notes. 

CRM is the store-house of data for your sales team. The software ensures that every stage of interaction between the company and a customer sails smoothly. It nurtures and guides potential leads through your company's sales process. It converges information about your customer from several platforms and stores detailed information about them. From your customer's interest in their purchase history, personal information and behavioral patterns while making a purchase.

CRM software also ensures your company of maintaining relationships with your customers and encourages more business. It is a well know fact that repeat customers are much easier to sell to compared to a new customer, so recording information through this software can help you provide excellent service to your customers and deliver pleasurable experiences.

How does it work?

CRM systems are designed to keep track of customer information. The software records customer's interactions online and gathers intel when he/she contacts the company through the website, telephone, mail or social media.  

CRM allows your company to store all contact information and relationships with customers in one central location. CRM software is now gradually moving into the cloud. You can buy CRM software online on a subscription basis and customize it to your company's requirements. They are mainly web-based for desktops and laptops. There is new technology that optimizes the use of this software on mobile phones as an app on Android and IOS.

Exposure, increase in sales, larger customer base and more employees are the main focus for small businesses. There is a need for efficient organization skills and streamlined processes to accelerate growth. CRM software is an important tool for small businesses to flourish. It is mandatory that these small businesses select the best CRM software for their company and goals.

Also Read: Best Productivity Apps to Accelerate Your Work

Here are the top five CRM software for small businesses, in the market today:

1. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM software is one that is on-demand. It features a multichannel to communicate with customers via e-mail, live chat, phone and social media.

Zoho is a CRM that offers new age features that include conversational AI and mobile CRM management. It provides its users with a website tracker, scoring leads, notification of successful sales and more. The Zoho CRM lets you access its software and obtain up to 10 users with no extra cost.

Zoho can be purchased at different price levels depending on your requirement. However, there is a free version where you can use Zoho's CRM mobile app anytime and anywhere.

2. Salesforce CRM

It is a cloud-based solution built with all that a CRM software possesses. Salesforce is a tool that helps small businesses grow. It has a platform of products and tools that small businesses can find affordable and useful. It is one of the most widely used CRM in the market. 

It offers a version called Lightning Essentials for small businesses. This edition provides an advanced contact manager with email integration and schedule-reminders as well as tools for integration and customizing.

The Salesforce platform is user-friendly and includes key features like lead generation, sales forecasting, workflow-automation and a lot more.

3. Insightly CRM

Insightly CRM is a solid customer relationship and lead tracking tool, that is aimed specifically at small businesses. It works directly with the company's email inbox and connects it to other apps and services like Xero, QuickBooks and MailChimp to provide you with a specialized look into your customer's communication and sales process. 

Insightly is a Lead Management software as it's interface is easy to use and it allows for customization and integration. It has all the required tools that small businesses need in a CRM and it is highly scalable as your company grows. it is one of the most affordable CRM solutions available in the market. There is a free version available to get you started off and paid plans are not too expensive.

4. Hubspot CRM

Hubspot's software contains all the tools that a startup/small business needs in a CRM. It offers a free version of its CRM software, which is popular among small businesses. 

It provides a variety of tools for companies to get a direct overview of their sales pipeline and features such as email notifications, in-app calling, assigning and tracking deals, managing data, etc that keep the sales process organized. Hubspot offers a pile of software products for users to pick and organize according to their company's objectives and needs.

5. Nimble.

It is a popular CRM software that is an insightful and simple customer relationship manager.  It associates contact management, social media, sales intelligence and marketing automation into an excellent CRM platform. 

This unique CRM provides insights into every platform. The interface is user-friendly and easy to use. Nimble CRM has a smart and quick way to monitor customers as well as engage and nurture them along the sales process.

Final Words

CRM software is clearly a powerful tool for small businesses. Getting to know your customers and understand their needs as well as the products they will find valuable or how you should communicate with them etc. are the ways in which a small business CRM system can help you.

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6 of the Best Online Team Management Tools

In the current era of information, everything is going digital. With tremendous advancements in the tech industry, now we can work through the internet without going to the office. Remote work is the latest and hottest trend in many industries. It brings a lot of benefits to the table, but there are a few downsides of it as well. But, you can neutralize those downsides with the help of right and effective tools.

One of the most challenging parts here is managing your work with your team members. If you’re already handling a team, you must be well aware of how complicated it gets while team management. You can make this job easier by using one of the best team management tools. To help you with this, we’re listing down 6 of such tools, so keep reading.

Top 6 Team Management Tools

There are tons of management tools out there, but only a few offer the best set of features. So, here’s a list of six best team management tools available in the market:

Slack:

One of the pioneers in the industry, Slack offers a wide range of features that fit perfectly to the needs of almost any team. This tool helps you improve the efficiency and productivity of your team. Some of the main features of this app are team chat, reminders, and advanced search filters. 

Apart from these features, you can also integrate several cloud solution such as Dropbox and Google Drive. You can also use tags to send messages either to individuals or the entire team. Furthermore, you can also use slackbots to automate several things.

Podio:

If you are looking for something that helps you communicate with your team and assign tasks to them, Podio is the way to go. You can automate many aspects of your workflow with this tool. It also offers you file sharing through encrypted gateways. 

Several important modules such as project budget tracking, sales pipelines, and many others can be automated with this app. It’s a perfect team collaboration tool for the teams who work on complicated processes.

ProWorkFlow: 

For someone who’s looking for a team management tool that helps them check the progress through various platforms, ProWorkFlow could be the best bet. You can assign tasks to your team members with ease by using this tool. You can also easily access and check the progress of workload across your teams. 

This tool also makes it much easier for you in sharing files with your team members. Managing contacts is also very simple and easy with this tool. Finally, you can also manage invoices through this tool.

Zoho Workplace: 

This team collaboration tool has a very clean interface, making it a user-friendly app. It offers a wide variety of features that help you manage your team in a much better way. Zoho Workplace lets you save all your work at one place. You can also upload your work through email and desktop as well. 

Furthermore, this tool offers you the ability to integrate many additional elements such as Finance, Recruit, CRM, and many others through Zoho bundles.

BITRIX24: 

If you’ve got a team that requires constant communication and workload sharing, BITRIX24 could offer a great set of features for you. This app provides you social intranet that is a better way for internal communication. 

Employee workload management will be much easier with this tool. Telephone integration and customer relationship management are some of the special features you get with this app.

Scoro: 

For someone who’s looking for a team collaboration tool that offers all the necessary features, Scoro is a great option. This tool lets you schedule work and meetings seamlessly. Project and task management can be done effortlessly. 

You can also share large files through this app. Billing and time tracking can be done effortlessly. Furthermore, you can also deal invoices with this app.

Final Verdict

Each and every one of the above-mentioned best team management tools had been thoroughly tested by us before getting featured here. If you’re leading a team, you should never neglect the team management aspect, as it directly affects the productivity of your team. 

Use any of these tools to enhance the efficiency of your team within no time. Further, if you are worried about the performance of your PC then we suggest you should use best PC cleaner software for instant & effective results. 

Also Read: Best Employee Time Tracking Software Tools

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Branded USB Flash Drives as a Powerful Marketing Tool

In any business, without skillful positioning of the company, its services and the brand itself is indispensable. It is important that the employees were not just united but also felt a real corporate spirit. To achieve this, you can use USB flash drive design. Yeah, you can just print logo of your company on flash drive. This small accessory with the slogan turns into a powerful marketing move. It demonstrates the high status of your business and other important points.

What you can achieve with branded USB flash drive?

It would seem that a USB flash drive is a small storage device that everyone uses. How can this device become a part of the company's marketing policy? This accessory is going to be used by employees, partners, investors, customers. They hold it in their hands and use it, at least, several times a week.

If there is an inscription or logo on the surface, then it will be very noticeable. It is not just the image that you are going to remember.

This device is also a very effective advertisement that can help you to have great clients and amazing contracts. But printing on flash drives does not require a huge cost itself. You can order printed flash drives at Logo USB.

That what happens in the minds of people when they use branded USB flash drive:

1. Customers memorize the image of the company logo and name.
2. Clients and customers are going to have pleasant associations with your business. When you are looking at a flash drive, emotions, as a rule, are only positive or at least neutral. If you see the other logos in an advertising brochure, on a building or in any other place, your emotions can be negative, because you have associations with a forced advertisement. It is not the case with branded USB flash drives, as this accessory was gifted and not purchased and it is actually useful for you.
3. The credibility of the company, whose logo is engraved on the surface. If you want to win the appreciation of the potential customers or partners, you should use a significant amount of different resources. Sometimes, it can require years. But with a small accessory, you can achieve your business goals much faster. It demonstrates the capabilities of a company that did not stint buying flash drives as gifts. In the minds of users forms the idea that the company is successful, profitable, as it can afford such additional costs.
4. The brand becomes recognizable.
5. Employees who received such a gift feel recognized as part of the team. The corporate spirit grows stronger, and the team itself becomes more bonded.
6. Potential investors and partners are going to have a pleasant impression of the company.

Flash drives with logos, and other images are a modern method of promoting the brand, services and products of the company.

You can gain the trust and appreciation of several groups of people at once:

• Potential customers.
• Current or potential partners.
• Investors.

Also, researchers have proven that visual advertising is the most effective.

Types of flash drives

1. Plastic flash drives in different colors. They are very light and you can find it in different designs. This option of a branded USB is a budget and inexpensive for many companies. Also, many companies buy such products at once in bulks. The more accessories you can gift to your clients, the wider circle of people are going to discover your brand.
2. Option in the metal case. Metal USB flash drive is a stylish flash drive with a metallic sheen, which is suitable as a presentable gift not only for employees and customers but also for investors and partners. The external case of the product is quite durable because metal itself is a very sturdy material.
3. Leather flash drive. This device is perfectly suited for business. Leather case on flash drive creates perfect harmony with other leather accessories that many businessmen have in their day-to-day life. This accessory in general looks status and presentable.
   
4. Flash drive with a glass case. This is a translucent drive, which seems weightless and very refined. Glass can have different colors, and the cost of products allows you to buy large batches.
5. Flash drive business card. The drive built into the business card is a dream of many. It can be not only a notebook with all your contacts but also all electronic information you need is at hand. In this case, the drive itself is hidden, and on the business card, there are images of the logo, slogan and other information about your company. You can put more data because the business card has a large surface area.
6. USB flash drive in a wooden case. The tendency to use natural materials in everything slowly moved into the world of technology. Now you can buy a flash drive with a wooden case. The accessory looks ultramodern and fresh.
7. Flash drive key. If you lose your flash drive constantly, you should attach it to a keychain. In this case, the product itself also can have the form of a key. Many customers, employees and partners are going to like this original product.

Main purpose of a branded flash drive

You can see here that a standard storage device can be a useful tool for promoting a company on the market, creating an excellent image for your business and the most important - you can reach a big audience without spending your many on some pricey ads and other promotional tools.

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How to Protect your WordPress Website From Getting Hacked?

Are you a blogger? Are you using a WordPress for your blog? If yes, then this article is for you. Here, in this article, we have written about 'How to Protect your WordPress site from getting hacked?’

Do you know? According to one study, more than 70% of WordPress installations are vulnerable to hacker attacks. Out of this 70%, one website can be yours as well. So, it is very important to protect your WordPress site from getting hacked, especially when a small innocent mistake can put your site at risk.

Below, we have the shared the top 5 ways to protect your WordPress from getting hacked. If you follow these tips then the chances of your blog getting hacked will get reduced heavily.

Use Strong and Rare Password

This is the first and the most important way to protect your website or blog from getting hacked. Remember, never use your name and default password for your blog. This will reduce the risk of getting hacked by more than 50%.

Next, it is important to note down the meaning of Strong and Rare Password. If someone asks you to use a strong password, then it does not mean a password with one upper and special character in it. This kind of password gets easily hacked by the brute force method.

Hence, the password you choose should be over 15 characters long and must include more than 2 special characters and a mix of Upper and Lowercase characters in it.

Install Security Plugin

This is another important way to protect your WordPress site from getting hacked. All you need to do is install a security plugin from the WordPress dashboard.

Just install the Security Plugin and sit back and relax. The installed plugin will take care of everything. It includes options like rewrite login URL, disables right click, Spam Protection etc.

Next, do not get afraid, if you don’t know how to install and set these kinds of plugins. If you are the beginner then the default setting of the plugin is enough for you.

Change Default Setting

On the WordPress site, never use the default setting. No matter, whether it is login URL or username, please change the default setting of your WordPress site.

This is because Hackers use your default setting while hacking your WordPress site. Further, it is also not advisable to use default username and password for your site. According to one study, more than 60% websites use username and password as Admin and 123456789 respectively.

At last, you should even change the default login URL of your WordPress site. Ensure it should end with Wp.login.php.

Disable Registration on your Site

WordPress Registration is the favorite place of the hackers. If registration is enabled on your site then daily you will lot of spam registration on your site. Hence, it is always advisable to disable the registration on your WordPress site.

You can disable this option from your WordPress dashboard. All you need to do is log in to your site and disable registration from General Setting page.

Login ReCaptcha

The last but the most important way to protect your site from getting hacked is to install Login Recaptcha on your site. reCAPTCHA is a free security service that protects your websites from spam and abuse. It will appear something like this as shown in below image.

This recaptcha make it difficult for a hacker to break your password and login to your WordPress site. Hence, install recaptcha on your Wordpress site and protect it from getting hacked.

Over to You

What do you think about this article? Do not forget to share your view with us. Next, if you face any problem in protecting your WordPress website then please feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help you.

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4 Best Ways To Drive Traffic on Your New Blog for Beginners

Do you know? More than 80% of blogs get closed within the first year of their establishment. This is because they do not receive enough traffic on their newly started blog. If you are facing the same problem then this article will help. Here, in this article we have shared the best 4 ways to drive organic traffic to your new blog.

Search Engine is the only way to drive organic traffic in the long term. There is no doubt in this statement. If you want to create a successful blog then SEO is the only way to it. But for a beginner, SEO is time consuming and tedious process. In this competitive industry, it is not possible for them to make a long-term investment. To survive, they need a short-term way to drive traffic to their site.

These short terms traffic will help them to keep the blog alive. Hence, below we are sharing four best way to attract short-term organic traffic on your blog.

Invest in Social Media

This is the easiest method to drive short-term and immediately traffic to your site. No Social Media strategy is required to drive short-term traffic to your site. Like your personal account, you just need to share your content on various social media networks. That's it. Rest your social media will take care of it.

Here, I will also suggest using Quora for promoting your website or blog. Quora is the best place to drive traffic. Check out below image. The new blog is getting more than 10% of traffic from Quora.

Next, if your blogging niche is fashion then you must share your content on Instagram and Pinterest. Hence, you should select social media based on your blogging niche, or else, use auto post feature of IFTTT to post your blog post automatically online.

Subscribe to Specific Niche Community

Never start your blogging site at the broad level. Start it with a specific niche and slowly move on to board level. 

For example, if you want to start a blog on Technology Niche then do not start it directly. Instead first start writing on a particular topic like Wordpress and then slowly start writing on other topics.

Confused? How this will help you to drive more traffic to your blog? Let me explain you.

Continuing the same example, suppose you write a few blogs on Wordpress. Next, subscribe to some good Wordpress community and share your content there. Since your blog is related to a specific niche called Wordpress, every Wordpress lover will subscribe to it.

Let us understand this with one more example. During my college times, I have subscribed to more than 100 Facebook group pertaining to MBA degree. Why? Because I was doing MBA and those communities were on MBA only.

Hence, specific niche website always attracts more unique and loyal customers. Next, once you start getting some good traffic, start writing on other remaining topic and expand your base.

Word of Mouth Promotion

This is the oldest and still prevailing method to get short-term traffic on your new blog. Use word of mouth to promote your new blog among your friends and relatives and ask them to visit your blog.

You can even ask your some experts to visit your website and share their opinion on your blog. In this way, you will get dual benefits. You will start getting traffic and even get a full report on your site by the expert.

Take Opposition Stand On Any Controversial Topic

This is the riskiest but the best method to drive lots of traffic to your blog. Every day, lots of things happen around you. Next, to drive everyone attention, take an opposite side on the controversial or hot topic. 

For Example, If during India-Pakistan cricket match, if everyone is taking side of Indian Cricket Team then in this case, you should take opposite stand. When 99 percent of people will go one side and you go on another side then will of course try to explore more about you. Hence, they will visit your blog to know more about you.

But here it is very important to note that, taking opposite side on any controversial topic is risky as well require lots of confidence and courage. In this method there are high chances of you being trolled on Internet.

So use this method at your risk and never take opposite stand on religion and feminism related controversial topic.

Over to You

What do you think about these techniques? I know these techniques are not full proof for the long terms but for a beginner to keep the blog alive, these techniques are enough.

If you think we missed out anything or wrongly mentioned anything in this article then please feel free to share your opinion with us. Next, feel free to contact us if you want any help with driving traffic on your new blog. We will be happier to help you.

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Lessons Learned From Working With A Virtual Receptionist

Image Source: Storyblocks

If you are not aware of virtual reception services, it might surprise you to learn that you can have all of your incoming business calls handled by a remotely located receptionist, and at a very attractive price. The service provider has many clients and can therefore offer their services at very competitive prices. Here are just a few of the benefits you can expect to enjoy by forming an alliance with an established virtual receptionist provider.

Professional Call Answering - Imagine never having to worry if the phone is being answered? You, the customer, set the time the service starts and finishes, which could be round-the-clock, in the event you have a 24-hour customer support number. Hiring a virtual receptionist by Reception HQ is advisable, as you will be provided with a range of essential services that include telephone answering.

Message Taking Service - Most businesses rely heavily on messages being sent to relevant people and with a qualified receptionist who is remotely located, all messages will be instantly relayed to the respective people. This ensures that customer enquiries are dealt with in a timely manner and all important information reaches those who need to know. If you offer your customer round-the-clock support, this can be outsourced to the virtual receptionist, who will ensure that the relevant support teams are instantly notified in the event an emergency callout is required.

Call Forwarding – A busy entrepreneur such as yourself cannot sit in the office all day, waiting for an important call, yet by having all incoming calls instantly forwarded to your mobile number so that you, the owner, can keep abreast of what’s happening. The virtual receptionist can work according to specific instructions and can do anything that a directly employed person can, the only difference is that the virtual receptionist is located at the call centre, rather than in your office.

Seasonal Surges - If you are, for example, an online retailer of gifts, Christmas and New Year are your busy times, along with Halloween, Easter and other festive occasions, which requires extra staff to handle the influx of calls. The most cost-effective solution is to enlist the services of a call handling company and you can tailor the service to what suits you. You might only need help for a few days and with a flexible virtual receptionist partner, you can start or stop the service any time. Furthermore, there are no binding contracts with such a provider, who requires minimal notice should you ever wish to terminate the service for any reason.

Affordability - You might think that having a qualified receptionist handling all your incoming calls would be expensive, yet, in reality, it is very reasonable. This is because the provider has many clients, big and small, and their running costs are spread out, making the service very affordable.

If you would like to know more about the services a virtual receptionist can provide, an online search will lead you to websites explaining virtual reception. Once you’ve availed the services of a virtual receptionist, your business will run more efficiently.

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What Are the 5 Most Prominent Restaurant Apps for Android and iOS

Today’s mobile devices are termed as smartphones because of its multi-functional abilities. These abilities are performed by using different types of applications. There are various categories of apps like games, sports, entertainment, travel and tourism, education, restaurant etc. Along with restaurants you can find quite a few apps which have been developed for availing drink and food services. These apps have increased the popularity of smartphones among the users to a great extent. With the advent of newer technologies these apps have become more interactive and have also made our lives convenient and smooth.

A mobile app development company mainly focuses on building apps that can meet the nature and scope of your business. App development services will help you reach your targeted audience along with retaining the existing ones.

This post will give you an insight about some popular restaurant apps and its utilities for the users. There are some parameters based on which the restaurant apps have been prioritized. It will help you to avail these apps on your smartphone devices amongst thousands of available options.

The vital elements are as follows:

Affordability: The most affordable apps will help you meet your needs effectively and with the desired purpose.

Ease of Use: This is a significant feature pertinent to the apps. It will help the users to use it and navigate easily so that they can arrive at their desired results without much hassles.

Detailed Listing: The restaurant apps have been developed in such a way so that it includes varieties and a large section of restaurants.

Given below is a list of some top restaurant apps which one must try:

Starbucks: This is a renowned restaurant app which will allow the users to make payments through phone. They can also get rewards with free drinks. Moreover, it also surprises loyal customers with attractive perks. The mobile app of Starbucks will enable you to make quick payment processing for your drinks and food. You can order in advance for picking up your drinks and food without having to wait in long queues by using Starbucks app from your smartphone devices.

Open Table: Open Table is one of those apps which you can opt for if you are looking for a perfect restaurant to have a great dinner. With this app, the user can reserve restaurant table for free in advance. Not only that, the user will also get a bonus along with dinner credits each time he/she visits the restaurant. This app comes free of cost and by using it you can manage, discover and reserve restaurant anytime and from anywhere.

UberEATS: This is a new addition in the list in the sense that it is not available everywhere. However, it is rapidly growing popular and hopefully will be able to influence the future market. This app is pretty effective and enables you book your food and drinks from your favorite food joints. You can make payments for availing this service from your Uber account and can get discount coupons on your first Uber ride.

Urbanspoon: This app is a renowned one in this domain. It has got huge acknowledgement from the media sector. For daily users it is considered as all in one dining app. By shaking the smartphone, one can get the desired suggestion. It is also equipped with built-in GPS which will help you to locate the nearby restaurants.

The above mentioned apps have been designed and developed using all latest technologies so that it can attract the prospective users. Not only that, the ease of use and navigation has been ensured to retain the users. These applications have been built for those who love to visit various restaurants or eateries with their friends and families to relish cuisines of different flavors.

Hope the above discussion will help you to have a concrete idea of some top restaurant apps that can meet your desired purpose. These apps are easy to use and hence can create a large user base. Ordering foods, drinks and reserving tables at your favorite restaurants have become a matter of simple click.

Author Bio: Mr. Arup Roy is the founder member of Red Apple Technologies, a prominent mobile app development company. He has a profound experience in this domain. His articles and blog posts on app development services are highly informative for the developers of today.

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3 Interesting Healthcare Gadgets You Can Use On the Go

Our everyday activities have caused a lot of damage to the environment. From driving to work to smoke breaks during lunch, these activities not only affect the environment but also our health. Thanks to technology, that once degraded our health are now working on improving it.

There has been a massive shift in the way we use gadgets now. A sense of personal health and lifestyle in people had lead to the development of healthcare gadgets that have been a helping hand in staying healthy without making many changes in our lifestyle. The purpose of these gadgets is to make us healthier versions of ourselves. And people all around the world now are understanding the value of fitness and have started taking better care of themselves with the help of these devices.

Air Monitor

Air pollution is on the rise but it can very easily be tackled with the help of air monitors. Air monitors are devices that help in determining the indoor air quality in a building. Indoor air quality refers to the level of air pollutants present in the air inside a room.

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Network Monitoring with Open Source Tools : How Open Source Helps?

The use of a system that constantly monitors a complex network of computers is defined as network monitoring. Network monitoring is basically defined as a part of network management. It is meant to notify the network administrator via email, SMS or other alarms in case of outages or any other complication.

Network monitoring is a critical aspect of network management and thus, it is essential to make sure those computer applications and networks remain safe from all sorts of cyber attacks, the vulnerabilities that PCs and laptops are prone to. There are open source communities around to develop advanced tools, this article presents the rationale for network monitoring, along with a few select open source network monitoring tools.

Basic Goals of Network Monitoring

Network monitoring has the ultimate goal of reducing the IT's load and making the life of IT professionals a little easier. In this direction, open source development looks promising for both developers and consumers.

·         Stay ahead of Outages

Implementing network monitoring is one of the simplest ways to prevent outages such as human error and configuration issues.

·         Fix Issues Faster

Network monitoring makes problem-solving easier without having any person involved in it. Network monitoring helps in resolving configuration errors and abnormal traffic fluctuations. Through live network maps, you can reach the origin of problems. 

·         Gain Immediate ROI 

Often, IT teams faces heavy workload and complex projects without ideal time, staff, or budget. In that case, the right network monitoring tool can be the only solution to deliver immediate ROI. It even cuts down on tedious troubleshooting time. 

The Need for Network Monitoring

Network monitoring is a vital aspect to see your organisation growing. Without it, your empire can suffer from serious outages, extra time consumption and additional expenses with a lower work efficiency. Thus, the need of network monitoring lies here:

·         Manage Growing Networks

Today's IT environments are growing in size, all due to technological innovation and rise in connected devices. Network monitoring ensures easy dealing with IPv6 transitions and cloud migrations to avail smooth performance at work place.  

·         Identify Security Threats  

Any kind of suspicious activity may impose a threat to the 'normal' performance of your organisation. Network monitoring can help secure your business-critical data and protect your information against data breaches. A network monitoring tool offers the first level of security, thus, making it easy to spot any kind of activity that is out of the 'ordinary'. 

Different Network Monitoring Methods

·    Intrusion Detection: Intrusion detection is meant to monitor local area networks or Loans for unauthorized access by hackers. It is implemented by most IT professionals to detect viruses, malwares and other network vulnerabilities.

·      Firewall Monitoring: It monitors the incoming and outgoing traffic of the network. Not just that, it tracks the activities of a firewall in order to ensure the screening process.

·       Penetration Testing: Penetration testing is carried out by IT professionals with the purpose to take network security to another level by discovering networking vulnerabilities.

Different Open Source Tools used for Network Monitoring

The market for network monitoring systems often seems to be quite confusing. Internet offers a wide range of tools with almost similar and limited features. Thus, it is important to make sure that you understand the uses of the tools available and then opt for the one that better suits your needs. 

·        PaesslerPRTG

This tool offers centralised networking. It is available in a wide variety of languages, including that of French and Spanish. It offers an all-in-one network monitoring software, thereby, helping the users to locate and avoid network errors across various areas of network. 

·         LibreNMS 

It is a PHP-based open source network monitoring tool that uses the simple network management protocol (SNMP). It supports operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD. 

·         OpManager 

ManageEngine offers a free network monitoring tool called OpManager. Not just that, it provides network, server and virtualisation monitoring as well as allow the users to monitor a wide range of critical devices such as routers, firewalls, and switches. 

IBM Open Source Community for Developers

IBM helps you to bypass long development times, thus, minimizing costs at the same time. It uses SIEM technology to reduce upfront and operational costs, detects threats more quickly by using close gaps. Besides, it offers you continuous updates regarding any kind of evolving threats and regulatory compliance requirements. They have dynamic community for open source development and build many open source projects to help the communities around.

Open source tools offers verity of features and developers can easily customize it with the need of the environment. With the help of a right developer community, open source development can change the level of coders and increase the innovation. IBM provides open platform to developers around the world, they provide codes, docs, supporting materials and all the needful for developers to use. Developers can join the community and access the codes, together they can take these promising open source projects to the new level.

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