Say
you're entrusted with finding a network monitoring means to fix replace the
many free tools you've been using to handle your small network. How can you go
about choosing an answer? A good start would be to know what the must-haves are
and also to ensure you have it all covered regardless of what you finally end
upward choosing.
Automatic
discovery
To
start monitoring and managing your own network, you will have to import into
the monitoring solution the facts of the network devices and servers to become
monitored. The network may look small now however it will grow and still
include new devices through multiple vendors, so ensure the network monitoring
tool includes a vendor-agnostic multi-protocol discovery procedure, can
auto-discover devices as well as has provisions to execute a 'forced' discovery
of a brand new device/ imported list associated with devices.
Smart
classification & mapping
Various
kinds of network elements - machines, routers, switches, firewalls and so on.,
will have different parameters that have to be monitored for health as well as
performance. The ability of a network monitoring means to fix smartly
categorize the devices based on their type and merchant will save one
considerable time during set-up. Another important requirement is having the
ability to make custom maps through logically grouping devices in order to
represent clustered environments or even geographically distributed resources.
In-depth
overall performance monitoring
One
could easily get lost choosing what to monitor to make sure 100% availability
and top performance from the network. If you happen to be using many free
resources, a good start is actually ensuring the network monitoring solution
covers everything your free tools supplied. Availability and basic performance
parameters could be monitored using SNMP for many of IT infrastructure,
associated with majority vendors. If your infrastructure includes a mixture of
Windows as well as Linux-based servers, WMI/ CLI (Telnet/ SSH connections)
based monitoring capabilities offer an easy means of in-depth performance
monitoring for the unit. Ability to monitor traffic flows can also be an
essential that provides you insights into exactly how your network bandwidth
has been consumed, a must with regard to troubleshooting network slowness.
Protection
management
While
security for that company's network and systems is really a critical
requirement and warrants the care and interest of another full-fledged group,
it is important that being an IT admin, one a minimum of knows when fraudulent
access attempts are created. By monitoring system log messages including
Windows Event Logs, Syslogs upon Unix-based devices, Firewall firelogs etc.,
you get in order to easily know of unsuccessful log-ins, failed attempts in
order to secure files, account lock-outs and so on.. An added advantage is when
the network monitoring solution may extend its security monitoring capabilities
by means of plug-ins or third celebration utilities.
Intelligent
alerting
Whilst
investigating on alerting functions, a must-have is activating of emails
attached with relevant information that will help you quickly correct system
glitches. Other value functions include triggering and operating remediation
scripts or applications, provisions for escalation associated with alarms and
setting of device dependencies to avoid those avalanches of notifications. If
your company values workforce mobility then additionally, you will want to
check out when the network monitoring tool may alert via SMS and become
accessed via smartphones. Most recent along these lines is actually OpManager,
a network checking software that even enables managing of alarms by way of
Twitter Direct Messages.
Scalability
& Dependability
Today
you could have 50 servers and also the very next day you may be managing 100
servers about the company adding a brand new branch. For the dollar spent, it
is wise to enable you to get a solution that are designed for 5x the load it
should presently look after. Other questions if your organization is very
serious upon having round-the-clock monitoring: Can the monitoring solution
alert when the server on which it's hosted fails? Can a redundant failover
server occupy monitoring tasks and revert once the main server is support?