Looking for recommendations on Network Monitoring Tool? What is your favorite?
Hello EE,
We have alerts and ping loss notifications, but I'm looking for a network monitoring tool that can get more granular on
-congestion
-qos
-latency
-who, what, where is causing
What is your favorite?
We have alerts and ping loss notifications, but I'm looking for a network monitoring tool that can get more granular on
-congestion
-qos
-latency
-who, what, where is causing
What is your favorite?
Who is Participating?
Wireshark,intermapper, microsoft system center, these will help to troubleshoot and prevent all of the above you mention
TCP handles all of that automatically, there is no need to monitor to detect and panic on no-problems.
I would vote for prtg too.
I would vote for prtg too.
While at it, evaluate NetCrunch network monitor as well. It pretty much does everything you specified above on a very granular level (including automatically generating Layer-2 maps with live usage data).
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SolarWinds is another one I've used a lot. It's a beast, but can do just about anything.
You did write "network monitoring" and not "protocol analyzing". They are different. Wireshark is the king of free protocol analyzers, and I love it. But it's really meant for real-time analytics of your packets and protocols. The capture files grow huge, pretty fast - so you typically use these only for a few moments and then analyze the results. Whereas "network monitoring" as you specified is continuous, 24/7. It monitors for packet loss, latency, "top talkers", "top connections" HTTP query/replies, SMTP responses, Windows services, and anything else you could possibly want.
On the free side, Nagios has been around for a few decades and has a HUGE following, which means a HUGE knowledge base. The downside is that it's a BEAST to setup. Once it's setup though it's pretty easy to manage... and did I mention FREE? I like its small footprint. You can install it on a tiny PC running a tiny OS with no graphics and almost zero attack surface area. Plus, even though it's primarily a Linux product, it's Windows-friendly and can use plugins to monitor almost anything Windows related. It has enormous how-to's on monitoring network equipment, routers, switches, etc. Highly customizable; you can create complex notification schedules, targets, dependencies, etc.
Cheers,