Enterprise network monitoring tools for Cisco (and non-Cisco) devices

Hey ladies & gents,

I would be very curious to find out what's your take on network device monitoring software.

I've recently been tasked with looking deeper into commercial solutions to monitor large estates of IP telephony and supporting data switches & / or routers.

Device stats (SNMP) along with QoS (IP SLA) measurements and traffic analysis (NetFlow) is a big deal so I'm wondering is there any single piece of software out there that can do these things?

I've heard good things about PRTG. Then again I've also been told about & came across several others like WhatsUP Gold, SolarWinds, HP OpenView etc. Anybody know which would the better deal?

I can't say I've done too much monitoring etc. (have some experience with some proprietary solutions that aren't necesarily SNMP bound) so I appreciate any input.

Thank you for taking the time to read into this

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Jobene

All you need is Nagios ( Icinga ), Cacti ( for good visual) and NFSEN ( for netflow ).Telephony is a kind of tricky , if the callmanager( or so ) doesnt support SNMP

negru_tudor

Jobene wrote: »

All you need is Nagios ( Icinga ), Cacti ( for good visual) and NFSEN ( for netflow ).Telephony is a kind of tricky , if the callmanager( or so ) doesnt support SNMP

Thank you for the input. I've used Nagios and RANCID a while ago for a paper on Network Config & Change management. They're very good for a small to midsize business but I'm also trying to find a balance between the admin / setup overhead and functionality. Don't get me wrong, they're good & with a good amount of knowledge in Linux systems these can be scaled up nicely but I have a feeling I'm going to have a hard time pitching these to higher ups etc.

However, I'll add them to the list - you never know!

Thanks again!

bodokid

Maybe i'm wrong, but i know about https://www.logicmonitor.com/network-monitoring/ (santa barbara based company) they have some network stuff like IP SLA/OSPF tracking, but are more focus on data center and why not zabbix!

negru_tudor

bodokid wrote: »

Maybe i'm wrong, but i know about https://www.logicmonitor.com/network-monitoring/ (santa barbara based company) they have some network stuff like IP SLA/OSPF tracking, but are more focus on data center and why not zabbix!

Thank You! Will definitely have a look to see what's the deal with it.

teuchter

I've not used any of the other tools but can vouch for Solarwinds, their product is simple and modular to allow you to get what you need out of it.

I work for a global company with around 1200 + network devices, we manage our backups, monitoring, netflow and performance monitoring through it. There is also some good modules for servers but you can opt to not get them to reduce costs.

Support at solarwinds are great and there is a community forum setup for users as well.

The only downside is that the Cisco WLC do have some issues with exporting netflow to Solarwinds.

negru_tudor

teuchter wrote: »

I've not used any of the other tools but can vouch for Solarwinds, their product is simple and modular to allow you to get what you need out of it.

I work for a global company with around 1200 + network devices, we manage our backups, monitoring, netflow and performance monitoring through it. There is also some good modules for servers but you can opt to not get them to reduce costs.

Support at solarwinds are great and there is a community forum setup for users as well.

The only downside is that the Cisco WLC do have some issues with exporting netflow to Solarwinds.

Excellent.

Thank you for your input. Well, WLC's shouldn't be a problem as the main purpose is to monitor VoIP elements and traffic & QoS.

ImYourOnlyDJ

teuchter wrote: »

I've not used any of the other tools but can vouch for Solarwinds, their product is simple and modular to allow you to get what you need out of it.

I work for a global company with around 1200 + network devices, we manage our backups, monitoring, netflow and performance monitoring through it. There is also some good modules for servers but you can opt to not get them to reduce costs.

Support at solarwinds are great and there is a community forum setup for users as well.

The only downside is that the Cisco WLC do have some issues with exporting netflow to Solarwinds.

X2 We are actually in the process of moving completely to Solarwinds after using multiple open source tools for years.