[c-nsp] Network Monitor / Mgmnt App

[joshua sahala]

On (12/05/05 15:08), Paul Stewart wrote:
> Ciscoworks is a great package and works well.... if you don't mind
> spending serious $$$ on software...

 you must be using a better version than the ones I have used - the
 installations that I have had, have all sucked [tm].  cisco works is NOT
 a monitoring system, it is a barely passible management tool, provided 
 you aren't in a hurry and can pay to have someone learn how to use all 
 the 'features'.  it requires an old version of java and intarweb 
 exploder, and is always slow (yes i have reinstalled ie, tweaked the 
 settings, tweaked/reinstalled/etc jre, ad nauseum)</rant> - ymmv
 
> Joseph Jackson wrote:
> | I must have alerts on device failures based on ping time outs is good

 most (all?) nms applications can do this

> | but I am really wanting SNMP trap notifications if a interface on a 
> | router goes down.

 you can set up your own snmptrapd, but based upon what you said before,
 your management doesn't like opensource tools, so you will have to pay
 for a decent trap receiver/event correlator

 http://www.managementsoftware.hp.com/ (i've replaced b0rked installions
    twice now - i have never liked it, but ymmv)
 http://www.smarts.com (a coworker really likes it)
 http://www.micromuse.com/index.html (a former employer loves it, they
    used to have hpov)

> | Graphing of device usage i.e traffic / cpu / memory.

 unless you are looking to buy a grand unified nms [tm], then free tools
 can do this better/faster/much cheaper

http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/rrdtool/rrdworld/index.en.html
    list of rrd-based graphers - i've had pretty good luck with cacti and 
    cricket, a friend loves torrus (aka rrfw)
 http://rtg.sourceforge.net - much much faster, a bit more complex to set
    up, but well worth it if you need to monitor a lot targets (imho)
 
> | A log analyzer would be great since we have pix firewalls.

 see event correlation software above...otherwise the free tool SEC
 (http://kodu.neti.ee/~risto/sec/) or SWATCH 
 (http://swatch.sourceforge.net/)

[cut]
> | I have been pushing for CiscoWorks

 see above rant

/joshua
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