Question

SNMP Monitoring - Software and recommendations

Asked by: silsuba

Experts,

Any recommendations on SNMP software?  I am looking to monitor server and application uptime, network performance as well as occasional PC uptime and connectivity.

Is SNMP a good solution for this?  If not, any other suggestions?  We are a Microsoft Shop.  Routers between sites are cisco devices however are managed by our ISP.

I realize this is light on details, so I welcome questions.

Thank you!

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Asked On
2009-11-03 at 07:20:39ID24867328
Tags

SNMP

Topics

Windows Networking

,

Network Analysis Software

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: MikeHolcombPosted on 2009-11-03 at 07:28:02ID: 25729834

Even as a person that supports pure Microsoft shops, in every environment I've worked in, I've installed a single Linux box to run Nagios (www.nagios.org) to monitor my systems - CPU performance, drive space, memory usage, running services, website performance, etc.  Everything down to the temperature in my server rooms.  Nagios is a great tool for monitoring system and application availability.

Additionally, for your routers and other network devices, you might want to additionally consider a tool such as Cacti that does use SNMP to report on availability and bandwidth utilization (www.cacti.net).  For additional information on how your bandwidth is used, you could look at configuring Netflow on your Cisco devices and export this data to a Netflow collector to determine what processes and users are consuming your bandwidth - http://www.networkuptime.com/tools/netflow/.

Hope these help...

Mike

 

by: xxdcmastPosted on 2009-11-03 at 07:41:22ID: 25729999

Also you might want to take a look into solarwinds. We recently depoloyed their network monitoring software and it gives you a HUGE amount of detail into what is going on in your environment. Uptime, disk usage, memory usage, cpu utilization, pretty much anything you can think of. Very customizable and also has a good dashboard webpage so you can keep an eye on all of your systems in one place.

http://www.solarwinds.com/

 

by: that1guy15Posted on 2009-11-03 at 08:33:51ID: 25730698

Since you are a Windows shop I would recommend SolarWinds. Orion might be a little overkill for you and it is a little expensive but it is a great tool.

http://www.solarwinds.com/products/orion/

You might also take a look at spiceworks. I am starting to hear a good buzz about them again. Great tool and very simple to manage.

http://www.spiceworks.com/

If you dont mind working on a linux server then my number one recommendation will be Zenoss. Great tool with a solid user and support following. 95% of the config is done via a web GUI. Zenoss has a small learning curve but it can be a very powerful NMS.

http://www.zenoss.com/

 

by: silsubaPosted on 2009-11-04 at 07:28:15ID: 25740256

Experts;

All great suggestions.  I very much appreciate the input and advice.  I will be taking a look at each of the products that you have recommended.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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