IT administrators are spoilt for decision when looking for network monitoring solutions. We've got lots of vendors flaunting function sets, pricing sheets, supported vendor list, comparison sheets and so forth. on their websites and collaterals. When all they are good developments for the seasoned IT administrators, the overkill on technical specifications and marketing ballyhoo can leave the not-so-experienced people in utter confusion. Get additional details about network monitor
Say that you are entrusted with locating a network monitoring remedy to replace the many free tools you have been using to manage your modest network. How do you go about deciding on a solution? A superb commence is always to know what the must-haves are and to ensure you may have it all covered it doesn't matter what you ultimately end up picking.
Automatic discovery
To begin monitoring and managing your network, you might need to import in to the monitoring remedy the facts of your network devices and servers to be monitored. The network may perhaps look small now nevertheless it will grow and continue to consist of new devices from numerous vendors, so make sure the network monitoring tool features a vendor-agnostic multi-protocol discovery course of action, can auto-discover devices as well as has provisions to perform a 'forced' discovery of a new device/ imported list of devices.
Smart classification & mapping
Different types of network elements - servers, routers, switches, firewalls etc., will have different parameters that need to be monitored for health and performance. The ability of a network monitoring remedy to smartly categorize the devices according to their type and vendor will save one a lot of time during set-up. Another important requirement is being able to make custom maps by logically grouping devices to represent clustered environments or geographically distributed resources.
In-depth performance monitoring
One could easily get lost deciding on what to monitor to ensure 100% availability and top performance of the network. If you have been using several free tools, an excellent commence is ensuring the network monitoring option covers all that your free tools provided. Availability and basic performance parameters can be monitored using SNMP for most of IT infrastructure, of majority vendors. If your infrastructure consists of a mixture of Windows and Linux-based servers, WMI/ CLI (Telnet/ SSH connections) based monitoring capabilities provide an easy means of in-depth performance monitoring for these devices. Ability to monitor traffic flows is also an essential that brings you insights into how your network bandwidth is being consumed, a should for troubleshooting network slowness.
Security management
Even though security for the company's network and systems is a critical requirement and deserves the care and attention of another full-fledged team, it is important that as an IT admin, one at least knows when fraudulent access attempts are made. By monitoring system log messages that involve Windows Event Logs, Syslogs on Unix-based devices, Firewall logs and so on., you get to easily know of failed log-ins, failed attempts to secure files, account lock-outs etc.. An added advantage is if the network monitoring option can extend its security monitoring capabilities by way of plug-ins or third party utilities.
Intelligent alerting
Whilst investigating on alerting features, a must-have is triggering of emails attached with relevant info that can help you quickly correct network glitches. Other value features consist of triggering and running remediation scripts or programs, provisions for escalation of alarms and setting of device dependencies to prevent those avalanches of alerts. If your company appreciates workforce mobility then you will also want to check out if the network monitoring tool can alert via SMS and be accessed via smartphones. Latest along these lines is OpManager, a network monitoring software that even allows managing of alarms via Twitter Direct Messages.
Scalability & Reliability
Today you could have 50 servers and the very next day you could be managing 100 servers on the company adding a brand new branch. For the buck spent, it is wise to ensure you get a option that can handle 5x the load it should presently take care of. Other questions if your company is very serious on having round-the-clock monitoring: Can the monitoring remedy alert if the server on which it is hosted fails? Can a redundant failover server take up monitoring tasks and revert when the main server is back up?
