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Modern enterprises rely heavily on uninterrupted connectivity across cloud, hybrid, and remote environments. As digital infrastructure becomes more complex, maintaining visibility in network performance has become essential. This is where network monitoring plays a critical role. It enables IT teams to track performance, detect faults, and ensure secure data flow across distributed systems.
Businesses often face a dilemma to choose between DIY network monitoring, which involves internal teams managing tools and processes, and managed network monitoring, where a specialised provider like Orixcom oversees performance, security, and optimisation. Each approach has distinct implications for cost, scalability, and operational efficiency.
To help businesses make informed decisions, this blog takes a deep dive into both approaches using ThousandEyes as the benchmark for ROI analysis. Tools like ThousandEyes provide granular insights into network behavior, enabling organisations to measure performance, uncover visibility gaps, and quantify the true value of their investments. This comparison is particularly critical for enterprises managing hybrid workforces, accelerating cloud adoption, and operating across global environments.
In this blog, we’ll break down the most critical considerations that influence this choice such as:
- Managed vs. DIY Network Monitoring: What’s the Real Difference?
- The Hidden Costs of DIY: What You Might Be Overlooking
- Top Benefits of Choosing Managed Network Monitoring
- Cost Comparison: Is Managed Monitoring Really More Expensive?
- Understanding TCO: What Drives the Total Cost of Ownership?
- Scalability Showdown: Which Model Grows Better with Your Business?
- Security Matters: Why Managed Solutions Outperform DIY
Difference in Network Monitoring Approach: DIY vs. Managed
Network monitoring encompasses several distinct categories, each serving a specific operational need. The core difference between managed and DIY network monitoring lies in ownership, scalability, and operational efficiency. Let’s dive deeper into the key differences between DIY and managed network monitoring.
DIY Network Monitoring vs. Managed Network Monitoring at a glance
1. Ownership and Responsibility
- DIY Monitoring: The organisation’s internal IT team is responsible for deploying, managing, and maintaining monitoring tools.
- Managed Monitoring: A third-party provider like Orixcom handles all aspects of monitoring, from setup to incident resolution, under a service-level agreement (SLA).
2. Visibility Across Network Layers
- DIY Monitoring: Visibility is often limited to internal infrastructure. Monitoring cloud services, remote endpoints, and third-party networks can be fragmented or unavailable.
- Managed Monitoring: Offers end-to-end visibility across hybrid, cloud, and remote environments using tools like ThousandEyes, ensuring no blind spots.
3. Scalability and Flexibility
- DIY Monitoring: Scaling requires additional tools, infrastructure, and skilled personnel, which can be costly and time-consuming.
- Managed Monitoring: Easily scalable to match business growth, with flexible deployment across geographies and platforms.
4. Cost and Resource Allocation
- DIY Monitoring: Involves hidden costs like licensing, training, tool integration, and ongoing maintenance.
- Managed Monitoring: Subscription-based pricing with predictable costs, reducing the need for internal resource allocation.
5. Incident Response and Resolution Time
- DIY Monitoring: Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) are often longer due to manual processes and limited visibility.
- Managed Monitoring: ThousandEyes enables faster detection and resolution, improving uptime and reducing business disruption.
6. Expertise and Support
- DIY Monitoring: Relies on in-house expertise, which may be limited or stretched across other responsibilities.
- Managed Monitoring: Backed by dedicated experts and 24/7 support, ensuring rapid response and continuous optimisation.
7. Integration and Automation
- DIY Monitoring: Tool integration can be complex and inconsistent, often requiring manual configuration.
- Managed Monitoring: Seamless integration with existing infrastructure and automated diagnostics streamlines operations.
8. Compliance and Security
- DIY Monitoring: Ensuring compliance across distributed networks can be challenging without unified oversight.
- Managed Monitoring: Providers ensure monitoring aligns with industry standards and regulatory requirements, reducing risk.
9. Business Continuity and Resilience
- DIY Monitoring: Reactive approach may lead to longer outages and reduced service reliability.
- Managed Monitoring: Proactive monitoring ensures continuity, minimises downtime, and supports resilient operations.
DIY Network Monitoring: Capabilities and Limitations
DIY network monitoring typically involves internal IT teams deploying and managing a suite of tools to oversee network performance. These may include open-source platforms, commercial software, or custom-built solutions. While this approach offers control and flexibility, it demands significant investment in skilled personnel, ongoing training, and tool licensing.
One of the primary limitations is the lack of end-to-end visibility, especially across cloud-hosted applications and remote endpoints. DIY setups often struggle to monitor traffic beyond the corporate perimeter, leaving blind spots in hybrid and distributed environments. This can lead to delayed incident detection and slower resolution times, impacting user experience and operational continuity.
Scalability is another challenge. As networks grow in complexity, maintaining consistent monitoring across geographies and platforms becomes resource intensive. DIY teams may also face integration issues when combining multiple tools, resulting in fragmented insights.
Moreover, the cost of maintaining a DIY monitoring stack including software updates, infrastructure, and compliance can quickly outweigh the perceived savings. Without unified visibility and automation, DIY approaches often fall short in delivering the agility and responsiveness modern enterprises require.
Managed Network Monitoring: Benefits and Business Impact
Managed network monitoring refers to the outsourcing of network performance oversight to a specialised provider. Rather than relying on internal teams and fragmented tools, businesses gain access to a unified, SLA-backed service that continuously monitors network health, performance, and security across all endpoints—including cloud, on-premises, and remote environments.
One of the key advantages is the ability to implement remote network monitoring, which ensures visibility across distributed infrastructure.
This enables proactive issue detection, faster incident resolution, and reduced downtime. With 24/7 support and automated diagnostics, IT teams can focus on strategic initiatives rather than reactive troubleshooting.
Orixcom’s managed network monitoring services, powered by ThousandEyes, offer deep path analysis, real-time performance metrics, and end-to-end visibility across hybrid networks. ThousandEyes’ monitoring agents provide granular insights into user experience, application performance, and network bottlenecks critical for businesses operating across multiple geographies and platforms.
Understanding TCO: What Drives the Total Cost of Ownership?
When evaluating network monitoring solutions, TCO isn’t just about the subscription fee or initial setup cost. It includes multiple factors that impact long-term financial and operational efficiency. Here are the key drivers:
1. Licensing and Subscription Costs
This is the most visible component of TCO. DIY solutions often require purchasing multiple licenses for monitoring tools, add-ons, and integrations. Managed services typically offer a consolidated pricing model, reducing complexity, and making budgeting predictable.
2. Infrastructure and Hardware Requirements
DIY monitoring may demand additional servers, storage, and networking hardware to support monitoring tools. These costs can escalate as your network grows. Managed providers usually leverage their own infrastructure, eliminating the need for extra hardware investment.
3. Skilled Personnel and Training
DIY approaches require in-house teams with specialised skills to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot monitoring tools. Hiring and retaining such talent adds significant cost. Managed services reduce this burden by providing expert teams as part of the package.
4. Maintenance and Upgrades
Keeping monitoring tools updated and secure is an ongoing responsibility in DIY setups. This includes patching, version upgrades, and compatibility checks. Managed solutions handle these tasks seamlessly, minimising downtime and operational risk.
5. Integration and Customisation
DIY monitoring often involves integrating multiple tools for visibility across hybrid environments, which can be time-consuming and costly. Managed providers deliver pre-integrated solutions optimised for performance, saving both time and money.
6. Downtime and Incident Response
Hidden costs emerge when network issues lead to downtime. DIY teams may take longer to diagnose and resolve problems, impacting productivity. Managed services offer proactive monitoring and faster response times, reducing the financial impact of outages.
7. Scalability and Future Growth
As businesses expand, DIY solutions require additional licenses, hardware, and manpower, increasing TCO exponentially. Managed services scale effortlessly with predictable costs, making them more suitable for growing enterprises.
ROI Comparison: Managed vs. DIY Monitoring with ThousandEyes
When evaluating network monitoring strategies, the return on investment (ROI) is shaped by cost structure, operational efficiency, and long-term scalability. DIY network monitoring often appears cost-effective at first glance, but the reality is more complex. Organisations must invest in monitoring tools, licensing, infrastructure, and skilled personnel. These costs are compounded by the need for ongoing training, manual troubleshooting, and integration efforts—especially in hybrid and cloud environments where visibility is fragmented.
Managed network monitoring, by contrast, offers a streamlined, subscription-based model with predictable costs and SLA-backed support. Providers like Orixcom deliver comprehensive visibility, proactive diagnostics, and round-the-clock monitoring, significantly reducing internal resource demands and accelerating issue resolution.
ThousandEyes plays a central role in quantifying ROI. Its platform tracks critical performance indicators such as Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR). According to Cisco, organisations using ThousandEyes have achieved up to 60% faster MTTD and 40% lower MTTR, leading to improved uptime and reduced business disruption.
Beyond performance metrics, ThousandEyes helps eliminate visibility gaps—areas where traditional tools fail to monitor cloud-hosted applications, remote endpoints, or third-party services. By bridging these gaps, managed services ensure consistent performance across all network layers, from user devices to SaaS platforms.
In essence, managed network monitoring not only simplifies operations but also delivers measurable business value, making it a strategic investment for enterprises seeking resilience, agility, and operational clarity.
Conclusion
Managed network monitoring offers clear advantages over DIY approaches—delivering greater visibility, faster issue resolution, and reduced operational overhead. With tools like ThousandEyes, businesses gain actionable insights into network performance across cloud, hybrid, and remote environments, enabling smarter decisions and measurable ROI.
Managed network monitoring via a trustworthy partner provides end-to-end network monitoring tailored to your business needs. Whether you're scaling globally or optimising hybrid infrastructure, expert support and advanced analytics ensure your network remains resilient and high performing.
Orixcom Managed ThousandEyes delivers the intelligence, expert support, and contextual insight required to turn every alert into actionable outcomes and every response into a timely resolution.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. How does managed monitoring reduce operational costs?
- Managed services eliminate the need for internal tool management and staffing. With automated diagnostics and expert support, businesses reduce downtime, improve efficiency, and avoid the hidden costs of DIY setups.
Q2. How do ThousandEyes metrics help evaluate ROI in network monitoring?
- ThousandEyes tracks MTTD, MTTR, and visibility gaps to quantify performance improvements. These metrics help businesses assess how quickly issues are detected and resolved, making ROI comparisons between DIY and managed models more transparent and data driven.
Q3. What are the benefits of remote network monitoring in managed services?
- Benefits of remote network monitoring include continuous visibility across distributed systems, faster issue resolution, reduced downtime, and improved user experience. Managed services like Orixcom’s ensure these benefits are delivered with expert support and advanced tools like ThousandEyes.
Q4. Why do DIY network monitoring solutions face scalability and visibility challenges?
- DIY solutions rely on internal resources and fragmented tools, which often lack the ability to monitor cloud, remote, and hybrid environments comprehensively. This limits visibility, delays incident response, and increases operational overhead.
Q5. When should a business switch from DIY to managed network monitoring?
- Businesses should consider switching when network complexity increases; visibility gaps affect performance, or internal resources are stretched. Managed monitoring offers scalability, reliability, and measurable ROI—ideal for growing or global operations.
Q6. How does SD-WAN enhance remote and hybrid network monitoring?
- SD-WAN simplifies connectivity across distributed environments by dynamically routing traffic over multiple links for optimal performance. When combined with managed monitoring, it provides real-time visibility into application performance, ensures secure data flow, and reduces latency for remote and hybrid workforces.
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