Monitoring your network is crucial to maintaining your network; but the two are obviously not the same. You can have all the data, have it presented in an easy to understand format, run report after report, and it won’t matter if, at the end of the day, the person whose job it is to interpret the data misinterprets it.
If you look for the wrong things – for example, if you’re still primarily concerned with availability rather than latency – you can miss the most important details and come to the wrong conclusions about your network.
It reminds me of this guy, who has analyzed the Mars Rover photos on the JPL Journal Web site, and believes that there is a vast conspiracy at NASA to trample tiny humans (about 5cm in height) under the wheels of the Mars Rover.
“Next three images shows [sic] typical areas on Mars where three sizes of humans and primates live a symbiotic lifestyle. Strangely, the primates appear to be sentient…”
“Next is the Tiny humans [sic] attempt to disable a Mars Rover. The reason; it is the machine that has cause numerous deaths among the smallest Humans who cannot detect or hear the Rover coming.”
“***Warning next 5 images show scenes of death by crushing.*** Americans have Constitutional rights to know this information I have discovered from public posted JPL images…. The second image is gruesome. It shows the Rover has driven through a thickly populated tiny human’s area, killing a great number of them…. We are not at war with them. Someone will answer for these deaths.”
The photos, obviously, contains blurry images of rock formations and dirt, the silhouettes of which may look vaguely human-like in a Rorschach-ian way. Personally, I don’t even think they look vaguely human.
I bring this up because it reminds me of the idea that network data can often be an ink blot test of sorts; if someone’s looking only for availability, they’re simply not going to see the problems that are caused by poorly performing (but still available) applications.
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