Network monitoring

[SMN]

Hi chaps,

Just doing a bit of research on network monitoring / NPM and wanted to gather thoughts on what you guys think is needed for a top NPM. So far i've come up with:

Ping checks
Interface throughput (port monitoring)
SNMP polling (OID's/MIB's)
SNMP Traps
*flow monitoring (Netflow/sflow/jflow)
Syslog monitoring

Is there anything else that i am missing that you can think of? Any input would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Sam

 

[SMN]

There are more things needed to monitor than what could be listed here realistically.

Whats your budget
Number of nodes
Type of modes + manufacturer

That's a good place to start.

- GP

Thanks for the reply. I'm doing this more as a market research project than as a punter - i.e. other than the above, whats "cool" or even useful in network monitoring.

 

[SMN]

Ah right. Erm. Well as before there's to much to list which also depends on the vendor. If you're staying vendor neutral then also consider things like

- Discards
- CRC errors
- Monitor BGP sessions
- Interface resets + uptime
- Node CPU/memory

That sort of thing. Are you focusing around routers, firewalls, switches, APs? Or generic?

- GP

Totally generic really although probably more bias towards Cisco than any other (market leader by a way for one, and i used to work for them for two!).

At the moment I'm doing product strategy for my company - having just released a netflow product i'm doing research on kind of... where next really. Deciding whether to go after the "other flows" (sFlow/jFlow?) or look at syslog monitoring instead, etc etc.