The need to monitor the IT network occurs in any situation where critical business processes exist, regardless of the size of the network. Taking into account the specifics of the network (size, type of operating systems), type of business (monitoring requirements, legislative restrictions, budget, …) and other aspects (ease of installation and configuration, technical team skills) a monitoring tool (program) can be chose. Some of the most commonly used monitoring programs are:
1. Nagios
2. Hyperic HQ
3. ZABBIX
4. ICINGA
5. SolarWinds
6. WhatsUp Gold
7. ManageEngine OpManager
8. GFI Network Server Monitor
9. OpenNMS
10. PRTG Network Monitor
Nagios has a free edition (Nagios Core) and a commercial one (Nagios XI). It is considered the traditional tool most used to monitor IT networks, being able to monitor both physical and virtual infrastructures, due to the large number of plug-ins available in the Nagios community.
Benefits:
1. Nagios offers a huge set of plug-ins that allows the user to collect performance and availability data for many operating systems. Other plug-ins can be found within the Nagios user community resources.
2. It can monitor very large networks.
3. The product operation is very stable.
4. It is considered as being standard in the industry and it has a large user base.
Disadvantages:
1. The WEB interface does not have advanced features.
2. In order to be able to edit configuration files and set up monitored services, a learning period is required.
3. Native configuration is very difficult, it involves editing text files. To overcome this disadvantage another open source program – Centreon – is often used together with Nagios.
Since Nagios is the most common monitoring tool, but still considered a standard in the IT industry, we will refer to it as a monitoring tool for VMware platforms.
Benefits:
– It integrates VMware monitoring with existing monitoring tool (if Nagios is already in use).
– It does not add complexity to existing processes (team, tools, procedures).
– Once a few sensors have been implemented, subsequent configurations become a simple process.
Disadvantages:
– It is difficult to install. VMware monitoring plug-ins aren’t native to Nagios. They also require specific installation procedures.
– It is difficult to configure. Nagios Plug-ins for VMware, even if documented, are more complex to use than vCenter alerts. They also require command line testing.
Monitoring Windows and Linux systems is easy to implement in Nagios, as there are many plug-ins, native and developed by the Nagios community, to monitor generic parameters. The need for monitoring is constantly increasing, as the importance of virtual machines is also increasing as the rate of virtualization increases.
There is no notion of perfect monitoring program. Choosing a monitoring program is a strategic decision that has to be based on various factors, such as:
– Size, complexity and network structure;
– Budget;
– Business progress;
– Human Resources (size of technical team, qualification, work schedule);
– Monitoring programs already in use;
– Need to have access to graphs and isotrical data for different parameters.
Typically, the monitoring solution will be based on as few tools as possible and on a variety of plug-ins, as needed.