Network Administration/Monitoring

[UncleE1]

Hi all. I was just put "In Charge" of all the servers at my workplace. This includes ~20 Win2k3 boxes at the corporate site and 6 w2k3 boxes at 6 remote sites around the US.

I need to keep up w/ the basics: HD usage (Trending over-time), CPU Load and various other things that Perf Monitor shows...but I don't want to depend on Perf Monitor. I'd like detailed reports/charts for the various items of concern.

I've thought about HP Open view or MS SMS, but I'm not familiar with either one and have no experience w/ setting up SNMP traps.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to a good software solutions to my problem?

Thanks!!

[bigH2O]

There are numerous solutions out there, you need to taylor your solution to your needs. For example, I use webalyzer to track hits to my website. It tells me where people came from, what click throughs they used to get there, a total history of their surfing experience, how much of a load they are putting on the server, etc. This is great for monitoring web usage on my site and for determining how to taylor advertising and eliminate bottlenecks, but may not be sufficient for the information your trying to accumulate.

What is your budget for this project? That's gonna have a lot to do with what you can run. Lot's of solutions are going to require a per seat license, and can make a dent in your wallet pretty quickly.

[UncleE1]

BigH20, yeah, Webmonitoring software won't do the trick. I'm needing something able to do more than parse log files. This may/probably will require agents to be installed onto the servers in question.

The budget hasn't really been discussed that much. At this point, I'm trying to put together a list of contenders and present their pros/cons to management.

[Zero Tolerance]

I use Orion's Network Performance Monitor. It will require SQL server though which can be pricy. But if you have THAT many servers...I dont think that your company will flinch at the cost to maintain their performance.

NPM and SQL will prolly run you around 10k.....but works great and can be accessed thru a web based app.

goodluck

[UncleE1]

We've got Sql2k running on a few boxes. I'm pretty sure we could add this w/o any issues. I'll check into Orion's Network Performance Monitor.

Thanks.

[Zero Tolerance]

here is a link to their site. As I stated....its NOT cheap.

http://www.solarwinds.net/Orion/Index.htm

[UncleE1]

Zero, I dl the Trial Version of NPM. It's a really cool app, but some things are missing. We are looking for the ability to receive Traps from managed Nodes (Servers, Routers etc.) NPM only does Get requests. I've read on their Fourm about people using Kiwi Sysloger to make this work, but I hate to split this network activity up more than it already is....to some extent. I talked to Sales today and they said SNMP Traps are something they are planning on doing in the future, but no idea when.


Do you have any suggestions on how to accomplish this part of the solution?

[Zero Tolerance]

Not familiar with this product....but it MIGHT do what you are wanting all in one package.

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Network_and_Internet/Network_Management_Tools/AdRem_SNMP_Manager.html