RBAC: Practical Access Control as Teams Scale
Role-based access control (RBAC) was one of the first topics we covered because it solves the problems that appear as your team grows.
With RBAC in Domotz you can:
- Give technicians access only to the sites and features they need
- Create focused views for leadership and service managers
- Prevent accidental changes on critical infrastructure
- Reduce noise so teams can act faster when something breaks
The takeaway: a clean RBAC model helps standardize how your team works across every client site, while keeping security and accountability in place.
Device Profiles: Standardization That Saves Hours
A big theme from the community was finding ways to avoid repeating the same configuration work with every new client or site. Device Profiles are one of the most effective ways to standardize how you monitor and manage networks.
Using Device Profiles in Domotz you can:
- Standardize SNMP and SSH credentials across similar devices
- Apply consistent device types and classification
- Reuse filters across dashboards, profiles, and alerts
- Onboard new sites in minutes instead of hours
- Reduce mistakes caused by inconsistent setup
Once profiles are in place, your techs can roll out best practices quickly and focus on troubleshooting instead of configuration.
Monitoring Multiple Internet Connections and WAN Links
Many MSPs manage clients with more than one ISP, backup connections, or SD-WAN. During Office Hours we talked through best practices for monitoring all of those paths.
Recommended approaches include:
- Deploying multiple collectors when you need independent monitoring from different locations
- Watching WAN interfaces through SNMP on firewalls and edge devices
- Using vendor-specific metrics from platforms like Fortinet to understand failover behavior and performance
- Deciding whether you are primarily tracking uptime, routing failover, congestion, or user experience
The more clarity you have on what “good” looks like for each connection, the easier it is to design the right monitoring strategy.
Custom Dashboards and Role-Based Views
We walked through how to create custom dashboards so each role in your business can see exactly what they need—without digging.
With Domotz dashboards you can:
- Build dynamic filters based on device type, site, or customer
- Create dashboards that focus on switches, servers, wireless networks, or other key assets
- Assign dashboards to specific RBAC roles so technicians, NOC teams, and leaders each have a tailored view
- Add helpful fields such as serial numbers or asset tags for faster triage
When an alert fires, a well-structured dashboard gives your team a clear place to start troubleshooting.
SNMP vs WinRM: Which Should You Use?
One of the most popular questions was whether SNMP or WinRM is the “better” choice. The short answer: use whichever gives you the data you need.
Key points from the discussion:
- SNMP is still widely supported, lightweight, and reliable for network infrastructure
- WinRM can provide deeper insights for Windows servers and endpoints
- In some environments, a combination of both protocols gives the best coverage
- The right option depends on the metrics and troubleshooting workflows you care about
Rather than picking a winner, think about protocols as tools in your monitoring toolbox.
Alerts That Actually Matter
Alert fatigue is real, and the community spent time talking about how to get alerts under control so teams can respond to the signals that really matter.
Best practices we covered:
- Every alert should be actionable—if nothing changes when it fires, remove it
- Every alert should map to an SLA, escalation path, or workflow
- Avoid creating noise with overlapping or redundant thresholds
- Use Device Profiles to apply consistent alert behavior across similar devices
- Use configuration change detection to validate that fixes and updates were applied
The goal is simple: fewer, better alerts that drive faster response times and happier clients.
Speed Tests, Accuracy, and the New Domotz Box
Speed tests were another hot topic. Collectors will almost always show different raw results because they sit behind different firewalls, policies, and routing paths. What really matters is consistency over time and your ability to see trends, latency, and overall user experience.
We also discussed how the new Domotz Box improves performance, especially for speed tests and SNMP-heavy environments:
- More RAM for handling larger networks and more frequent checks
- A stronger processor for faster data collection and analysis
- Better handling of speed tests and SNMP polling
- Currently in production with expected availability around the beginning of the year
If you rely heavily on synthetic testing, the new hardware should make your monitoring more responsive and reliable.
What You Asked For Next
One of the best parts of Office Hours is hearing directly from the Domotz community about what would make your day easier. Some of the most-requested enhancements included:
- NetFlow and deeper flow analysis
- More device categories and customization options
- Clearer bandwidth utilization metrics
- Cleaner integration between shared alerts and RBAC
- A more interactive Office Hours format with voice or video participation
These ideas help shape our roadmap and ensure we are solving the problems that matter most to MSPs and IT teams.
Join the Next Domotz Office Hours
This first Office Hours session highlighted just how strong and generous the Domotz community is. You shared thoughtful questions, creative solutions, and real-world experiences that help everyone get better at network monitoring.
We will continue hosting Office Hours on an ongoing basis. Watch for announcements on social media, via email, and inside the Domotz app. We are also exploring new platforms that make it easier to participate with live voice, video, and shared troubleshooting.
Thank you to everyone who joined us—and a special thank you to Rory Anderson for co-hosting. We look forward to seeing you at the next Domotz Office Hours.
