Network maintenance is one of the IT pro's core responsibilities. You probably spend a lot of your time monitoring network activity, from polling network devices to generating real-time views of your network topology. You're looking for changes in traffic, watching for failures and warning signs. The best network-management tools automate these basic chores, sending you alerts so that you can react quickly to problems (e.g., when certain thresholds are exceeded) or even providing automatic network maintenance such as event logging, system shutdown, and system repair. Network load balancing, analyzing, and designing are three essential chores.