The advancement of mobile phones, Wi-Fi, remote deposit capture, virtual infrastructures, shared storage and the growing demand from customers to have 24/7 access to their financial lives has changed the business of banking. These changes have shifted the objectives of running a community financial institution away from simply needing to manage money and provide loans to include managing data and the IT networks that carry this information. From the teller line and the loan origination system, to the phone and alarm systems, most modern institutions are highly interconnected and must have a strong IT network infrastructure to offer a variety of services to their customers and keep operations running smoothly.

To ensure all systems are continuously functioning, it is important to monitor hardware and software for failures, viruses and malware, and stay up to date on required maintenance functions. Many IT professionals utilize network management systems to help streamline this process and more efficiently perform their day-to-day functions. A network management system is a set of hardware or software tools that allow an IT professional to supervise and manage the individual components of a network within a larger network management framework. These systems help to provide a deeper understanding of the network and all important applications to help improve performance and ensure security. Having a centralized solution in place that automatically reviews the network, sends alerts, issues tickets, and provides support and reporting for servers, workstations, network routers, switches, software and other devices is an integral and critical function in financial institutions today.