Nagios is great for up/down notifications. If you want pretty history graphs, skip MRTG and go with Cacti. (www.cacti.org)
If you snap mactrack into Cacti, the you can get the port mapping. Very nice. Easy on any of it? Not so much. Useful, and worth putting in the time (depending on your network size)? You bet. Again, what is it you really need? -----Original Message----- From: Louis, Joe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 11:41 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Network Management Tools I have Solarwinds (Engineer flavor). It's ok. Was really nice when I first got it because I didn't know what else was available. Orion is a ton of money. But the term "Network Monitoring" isn't saying much, which is probably why a few people asked what you (Lee) are looking for. Most of what Solarwinds collects runs of SNMP. The non-Orion flavors dump the data into MS Access-type data stores, which quickly become too unmanageable for the program (even with regular nightly maintenance). I found myself frequently "fixing" the DBs. Features like real-time bandwidth monitoring are nice (the gauges are pretty cool actually), but for historic tracking, you can get that feature in progs like PRTG/MRTG. Another feature in Solarwinds that I haven't seen anywhere else is the port mapping tool, that searches switches you specify and tells you the machines that are connected to each port. That helps for comparisons, or a quick search need. SWs Engineer also as a nice switch config comparison tool. Orion does the same thing Solarwinds Engineer does, but on a larger scale with remote reporting. -----Original Message----- From: Joe Heaton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 1:21 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Network Management Tools I was just looking at Orion earlier, when this discussion first started. Anyone have personal experience with this, and how is it different than the big toolkit that they also sell? I understand that a lot of the toolkit tools are manual, but it's advertised as monitoring tools, so what's the big difference between the two? I was just told that we have a little money to spend before end of fiscal year, and was asked what I'd like, and of course I said a network monitoring tool, as we don't have one now... Joe Heaton -----Original Message----- From: Eldridge, Dave [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 9:17 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Network Management Tools Ha Ha If your talking about Orion from Solarwinds its not any where near free. :) -----Original Message----- From: Joe Heaton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 10:14 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Network Management Tools I want it to monitor everything, with no effort from me, and for free! :) Joe Heaton -----Original Message----- From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 9:12 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Network Management Tools What does network management mean to you? What tasks are you looking to perform, with what outcomes, at what cost, and with what effort? On Feb 8, 2008 7:25 AM, lee jolley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi > > We are looking to deploy network management tools into a new environment. > Does anyone have any recommendations? We were looking at SolarWinds. > > > Thanks > > Lee > > > > > > > > > ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1266 - Release Date: 2/8/2008 10:06 AM ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the intended recipient(s). If you are not the named recipient you should not read, distribute or copy this e-mail. 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