So you've finally made the jump to SD-WAN. Feels good, right? Your network architecture looks sleek and modern, WAN connections are spread across multiple data centers, and traffic routing happens dynamically without you lifting a finger. On paper, everything's perfect.

Okay, real talk. When's the last time you actually thought about IPv6? Like, really thought about it?

I'm guessing it's been sitting on your to-do list collecting dust. Maybe you glance at it occasionally, tell yourself dual-stack is working fine, that IPv4 will stick around for another few years at least. I mean, it's been working this long, right?

You know that sinking feeling when your production line suddenly stops? Or when critical sensor data just... disappears? If you're running IoT edge devices, you've probably experienced this at least once. Maybe a gateway that silently failed at 3 AM. Or an edge module that consumed all available memory without warning.

Scaling an MSP in 2026 looks different. It’s not enough to simply grow. MSP leaders are being squeezed to scale services without adding headcount, losing control of their operations, or sacrificing profitability. This article is for MSP owners and senior leaders who want to grow cleanly and predictably. You’ll learn how to do that by simplifying your operating model, cutting tool sprawl, and leveraging monitoring as a foundation for profitable scale.

You know that sinking feeling when a routine configuration change brings down half your network?

I'm talking about that specific Friday afternoon moment. You're planning to leave early for once. Then someone pushes what should've been a simple firewall update. Ten minutes later, your phone's blowing up, half the routers are unreachable, and you're explaining to very unhappy stakeholders why the entire east coast office just went dark.

Running a small business means juggling countless responsibilities, and IT often feels like one more thing competing for your limited time and budget. You're not alone in wondering whether you need professional IT support, what services actually matter, or how to protect your business without breaking the bank.

IT service management shouldn't feel like a game of whack-a-mole. Reactive firefighting is often the result of preventable problems. There's a difference between teams that are always in crisis mode and those who feel like they're on top of things. The difference comes down to best practices.

Whether you're just getting started with IT service management (ITSM) or you've been around for a while, there's always more to learn. For a quick refresher on the fundamentals of effective IT service delivery, check out this list of ITSM best practices.

We cover the most important ITSM best practices that every IT infrastructure and operations manager should know. Each ITSM best practice addresses a common problem IT organizations face and provides a practical way to solve it. If you want to improve your ITSM processes or ITSM tool implementation, read this list.

Rule #1: Always Assume Breach

An important principle in cybersecurity is to use the “assume breach” mentality, using the idea that an attacker has already infiltrated your system. This mindset helps minimize the blast radius of an attack, limit lateral movement around your network, and contain potential breaches before they escalate.

It is hard to imagine a modern company without a stable Internet connection or without services on its local network. Behind this stable infrastructure is an employee who helps keep all systems running smoothly: the network administrator. But who is a network administrator, and why is it such an important role for modern companies?

Here's a fun drinking game for you: take a shot every time you discover a VM in your environment named "test-server," "idk-what-this-does," or "IMPORTANT-DO-NOT-DELETE" that for some reason is running a production workload nobody wants to touch anymore. OK, actually don't do that - you'll need to be sober when the inevitable happens and one of those mystery VMs goes down, taking an entire half of the company's operations with it.

We've just released PRTG version 25.4.114 to the stable release channel.

This version brings you important fixes for the Windows Updates Status (PowerShell) sensor and the VMware Datastore (SOAP) sensor, as well as new capabilities in the PRTG API v2.

When you can't get online, it's more than just frustrating. It's a productivity killer.

Network connectivity problems are more than an inconvenience. They can take your entire business offline. Time wasted staring at a blinking modem waiting to get online.

When connectivity goes down, it's not just obvious how much time is wasted. You can't even easily research solutions. You find yourself jumping through troubleshooting loops trying to find out if the problem is your router, the ISP, or something else entirely.

In 2026, you face a perfect storm of multi-cloud complexity, IT/OT convergence, and tightening regulation. This article gives you a practical outlook on what will change in monitoring, how AI and security trends will shape your decisions, and where solutions like Paessler PRTG can help you turn visibility into advantage for sysadmins responsible for their company's IT infrastructure and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) alike.

How much does IT downtime really cost your organization?

Most executives think it's just an annoying blip on the radar. But if you've ever been on the receiving end of a 3 AM call because the production server went down, you know better. Studies put the number at over $5,000 per minute for large organizations. Per minute. That's the cost of your CEO unable to access email, sales teams locked out of CRM systems, and customers abandoning shopping carts.

[Update] Ironically, as soon as this blog went live, Cloudflare went down! So I will use this opportunity to say... I told you so! Keep reading to find out why.

Someone, at some point in time, (hopefully some kind of professional network engineer) designed your network. They drew a pretty picture with multicolored lines showing traffic flowing between a primary path and a secondary path. Oh, and this plan also had a budget and important management buy-in. Then they moved on to another company, country, or just a better job, and what you've been left with is a Frankenstein's monster of temporary-band-aid solutions to real problems that all became permanent circa 2015. Your so-called redundant paths? One goes down, and the other follows like some kind of tragic Romeo and Juliet situation - it's heartbreaking.

You can't fix what you can't see.

That's the fundamental problem every IT team is up against when trying to keep their network humming along. Right now, there's almost certainly a bandwidthbottleneck building up somewhere in your infrastructure. An unauthorized device plugging into the network. Encrypted traffic containing something it shouldn't. The question isn't whether these things are happening. They are. The question is whether you can actually see them when they do.

Network traffic monitoring is one of the most crucial tasks for any IT professional or sysadmin. Whether you’re troubleshooting performance issues, hunting for security vulnerabilities, or optimizing bandwidth usage, understanding how to effectively monitor network traffic can be the difference between a healthy network infrastructure and costly outages.

It's always DNS. Unless it's not. Then it's the network. Or perhaps the firewall? Or wait, actually, according to Chris in accounting, it's CERTAINLY malware because his nephew 'knows computers'. Welcome to every network performance troubleshooting discussion ever because everyone is an expert and all you get to do is smile politely.

We are excited to announce a major step forward in OT monitoring: PRTG multi-platform probe is now available on the Siemens Industrial Edge Marketplace. This partnership bridges the gap between IT and OT environments. It gives customers better visibility and more direct control over their industrial operations.