Need a simple network monitoring software/tool

C

Ctek

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 26, 2011
Messages
115
Hi,

I currently use Hostmonitor to monitor servers, processes and uptime of various devices. I truly love this little software and has proven to be very reliable, cheap and effective.

However, even if it does monitor also SNMP devices, there is no graphical reports, or efficient logs to be useful.

My main goal is to monitor and log switch port traffic to see the bandwidth of several switch ports in my network. I also want to monitor most switches SNMP traps and value. All of this needs to be graphically accessible in real-time (Like Cacti does, etc).

There is 2 ways to go ahead with this:

-Keep Hostmonitor for my infrastructure monitoring and using another software/tool to monitor my network needs
-Migrate all my infrastructure monitoring to a new software/tool that does everything all-in-one.

So far, I tried installing Cacti since it seems to be exactly what I need.and it was a major PITA for me since my Linux skills goes back to college and I don't have time to deal with learning moderate/advanced linux. I also tried using Zabbix but it turns out to be also a PITA to setup. Centreon looks nice but it seems to be limited in some aspects and/or need scripting (not 100% GUI configureable)

I am looking for something that has a complete GUI frontend which makes it easy to use and configure. Also, it needs to be free or very cheap. If it's on linux, it has to be very easy to setup.

Thanks in advance, I really need some insight with this.
 
Will have a look into PRTG, seems expensive though.

On a side note, does anyone have a good and simple step-by-step tutorial for using cacti?
 
I use PRTG! Netflow is a bit lacking compared to others, and it still does not play nicely with XenServer pools. However it works very well otherwise for monitoring tons of sensors and providing alerts.



I add new sensors every week. I started with a 100 sensor license and quickly decided to skip the others, including the 1k sensor license and just go for unlimited. However when you upgrade your sensor count, you don't lose what you previously paid. You only pay the difference, and you also get a bit of a discount through a reseller like CDW, Insight, etc.
 
I'm spoiled at work and have Netqos, so yea everything is lacking when it comes to netflow.
 
I'll give PRTG a try when I get a chance. Thanks for the input.
 
Use MRTG. I tried cacti and it's just way too complex. MRTG just add what you want to monitor in a straightforward config file.
 
I'm trying PRTG and so far it's damn impressive and intuitive. No need to mess with MIB's and OID for my switches.... It took me 10 minutes to do the initial setup and it takes like 2 minuites per device to add.

It's too early to decide but so far it's very impressive and EASY to use.
 
I'm surprised Zenoss hasn't been mentioned on here yet. Really easy to setup, GUI interface (web based of course). Works great for a free product.
 
2 year old bump, but same subject.

PRTG is incredibly nice, but the licensing is way out of our current budget.

I have tried NAGIOS with centreon (FAN) and I somewhat have mixed feeling about it. Since it's in a 95% Windows environment, I was not able to monitor our servers agentless through WMI, unless there is a simpler way.

Any other 2014 suggestions? Zenoss still in the game?
 
If you want to monitor bandwidth use and your switch supports it use Cacti
 
I'm a fan of Observium: http://observium.org/
We tried Nagios, but after I spent all the time setting it up and getting all our devices added, I came to the realization that no one would ever want to go through the process to add newly installed devices.
 
I use the dude, windows based, easy to use... I have a Cactai/Nagios setup and I don't think I am going to redo it when we redo our infrastructure, a nightmare to setup/configure

although Observium looks nice, might look into that
 
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