Network montior tool

sbertram

Hi i am looking for a Network montior tool that i can fire up any time and see what type of traffic is going to and from where and how much it is slowing down the network. I am fine with buying some thing. Please advice on what you use.
Thanks

Trifidw

You'll be looking at Netflow if your hardware supports it. Have a look at this: Network and Systems Management Live Orion Platform Demo

EV42TMAN

If the hardware doesn't support it then you'll have to rely on port mirroring and wireshark. Or you can check to see if the firewall has any monitoring built in.

MAC_Addy

What device are you trying to monitor the traffic on? Just wondering if it supports it or not.

sbertram

Hi MAC_Addy I just want to fireup software and see any thing coming from where and going to who and see how much this or that program is eating network traffic.

MAC_Addy

There are programs out there that will run on a small desktop computer (dedicated, usually). The best, and free, software is MRTG. It's very basic, but it'll get the job done.

The reason why I asked what device you're using is because not all devices support netflow. If you have a Cisco device, then you're golden.

docrice

NetFlow exports aren't supported on all Cisco equipment. It's usually at least more recent routers, higher-end switches, etc.. You also have to be careful which version of NetFlow involved and which collector you're using. For example, 4948Es export NetFlow-lite, which might require a different probe depending on your environment.

RouteMyPacket

You said "network" monitoring tool so here are some solid ones and they are better yet, free

Zenoss - My preference
Nagios

docrice

There are NMS (network monitoring systems) like Nagios, Cacti, Zenoss, Zabbix, SolarWinds, etc. that you'll hear a lot about. There are also flow-based solutions which helps you drill down into individual connections (rather than interface utilizations) that help you track down top-talkers from a bits-per-second, packets-per-second, flows-per-second reporting perspective. Some of the first names I mentioned also have this functionality (like SolarWinds has a NetFlow Analyzer product which integrates with their Orion product line).

For free, open source stuff on the flow monitoring, I like Nfdump and Nfsen. I've been planning to post a CentOS 6.x build guide for it on my website for a year now, but just haven't had the time.

sbertram

Hi Nagios, does Zenoss work on windows 7 64 bit I can not find any thing about it.
thanks
steve

RouteMyPacket

sbertram wrote: »

Hi Nagios, does Zenoss work on windows 7 64 bit I can not find any thing about it.
thanks
steve

Zenoss sits on top of a Linux Distro. I prefer CentOS

the_Grinch

We use Netflow at work and it is awesome. Should fit the bill nicely for what you are looking to do. Full trial version for 30 days to see if it will work for you.

phoeneous

the_Grinch wrote: »

We use Netflow at work and it is awesome. Should fit the bill nicely for what you are looking to do. Full trial version for 30 days to see if it will work for you.

Huh? Netflow is free.

the_Grinch

Sorry (should have been specific), ManageEngine's Netflow Analyzer costs money.

gorebrush

WhatsUp Gold we use, but I'd love to see if we can do better. It's creaking a bit as it's on an old server.

How many nodes can you reliably monitor with Zenoss? Must get it in my lab and try it.

sbertram

Hi how much does WhatsUp Gold cost

googol

I am looking at networking monitoring, performance, internet health, overall quality of network, etc tools. We currently have SolarWinds NPM, which we could buy the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and have to setup netflow on all the interfaces I wish to monitor.. and probably the VoIP & Network Quality Manager, but we do not use Cisco Call Manager, we have Avaya. We have both dedicated circuits for WAN as well as Internet links.

Basically want to have it automated and know proactively when there are issues, potential issues arising, etc before helpdesk is getting the calls. We may stay with SolarWinds, but also looking to see if there is a better solution out there before proceeding.

I have reached out to Zenoss due to the mention above. I liked that we could do it "as a Service", removing the requirement of having a beefy physical server and provides DR/failover capabilities. Also do not need to maintain, keep on updating, etc. Other notables I have looked at is WhatsUpGold, Praessler, ScienceLogic and probably some others.

Would need to monitor network devices from firewalls, IPS, routers, switches, wan and internet links, bandwidth, performance, "health", along with servers, physical and VMware virtualized.
If we have to have more than one product as one does things better than the other, that is OK.

phoeneous

googol wrote: »

and provides DR/failover capabilities.

I don't think any snmp or nms box is capable of doing that, but I could be wrong.

Have you check out Zabbix for monitoring and alerting? I swear by it. I used to have it on an old p4 with 2gb of ram and a single 7200 sata disk. Was monitoring over 100 hosts across the nation with over 2000 items queried and never broke a sweat. It really is a great option if you need open source. There are also several open source netflow options that you could use, nfsen being my first suggestion.

sbertram

Hi does Zabbix run on windows 7 64 bit, as I do not want to setup a server for this I like to run it off my windows 7 64 bit laptop.
thanks

networker050184

Take a look and see for yourself.

Homepage of Zabbix :: An Enterprise-Class Open Source Distributed Monitoring Solution

phoeneous

sbertram wrote: »

Hi does Zabbix run on windows 7 64 bit, as I do not want to setup a server for this I like to run it off my windows 7 64 bit laptop.
thanks

No, it does not run on Windows. You can use Zabbix to monitor Windows devices but the Zabbix server itself needs to be Unix or Linux.

sbertram

ok thanks I found the product I like so we can end this forums thanks for all your help
Steve

Master Of Puppets

phoeneous wrote: »

I don't think any snmp or nms box is capable of doing that, but I could be wrong.

Have you check out Zabbix for monitoring and alerting? I swear by it. I used to have it on an old p4 with 2gb of ram and a single 7200 sata disk. Was monitoring over 100 hosts across the nation with over 2000 items queried and never broke a sweat. It really is a great option if you need open source. There are also several open source netflow options that you could use, nfsen being my first suggestion.

Another vote for Zabbix. I prefer Zabbix to Nagios. We had Nagios in place but moved to Zabbix.

googol

SolarWinds does it with their "Failover Engine" all for like $6000 ish.. Paessler has failover cluster config.. ManageEngine Opsmanager has failover and failback, WhatsUpGold has Failover Manager that I have seen..probably some others.

phoeneous wrote: »

I don't think any snmp or nms box is capable of doing that, but I could be wrong.

Have you check out Zabbix for monitoring and alerting? I swear by it. I used to have it on an old p4 with 2gb of ram and a single 7200 sata disk. Was monitoring over 100 hosts across the nation with over 2000 items queried and never broke a sweat. It really is a great option if you need open source. There are also several open source netflow options that you could use, nfsen being my first suggestion.

SecurityThroughObscurity

very good free netflow collector
nfdump-1.6.11 + nfsen-1.3.6p1

joeshestak

I am using "MindArray IPM" from last six month. We replaced Solarwind with MindArray IPM. I love it!! I really like how easy it is to see all the Monitoring of VMs and hosts quickly and efficiently. Actually I created a dashboard that helps to monitors all my branch office circuits and displayed it on a tv screen in my Cabin. I have caught and resolved issues before employees knew there was even a problem.