• Automatically collect both Syslog and Windows event logs across your network?
• Store your log files for as long as you need (e.g. HIPAA mandates log data retention for 6 years)?
• Prevent tampering with your archived log files?
• Receive real-time alerts for key events (e.g. access and permission changes to files, folders, and objects containing employee or financial records, patient information and any other critical information).
• Generate and automatically distribute compliance or security-centric reports to key stakeholders such as auditors, security personnel or upper management?

Get the Syslog Server today for free (or, if you answered yes to any of the above questions, consider checking out WhatsUp Event Log Management Suite)

IT Automation

Each year sees an increase in the amount of IT tasks and operations that can be automated. 2011 will be no different, according to Ennio Carboni:

As the number of networked devices inside and outside the enterprise continue to explode – both in infrastructure (e.g. routers, switches and systems infrastructure supporting video, and wireless app delivery) and end point devices (especially mobile handhelds, tablets, and netbooks) – higher automation is necessary to maintain control of management costs. Equipment vendors, software publishers and end user IT organizations are embracing automation in many ways – building and deploying more intelligent network devices, using virtualization-led dynamic provisioning and configuration to meet variable demand profiles and attempting to build closed loop management systems that can react to infrastructure changes. We’ve seen this coming: technology replacing humans in the workplace – case-in-point, HP laying off 9000 workers from their datacenter services unit.

Configuration Management and IT Security

However, the rapid growth in the number and complexity of network devices does have its drawbacks. As networks grow, so do the vulnerabilities associated with their configuration and security. Analysts estimate that more than 60% of network outages are caused by manual configuration errors at an annual average rate of 30+ errors per device. This has tremendous impact on maintaining IT security and compliance with internal and external regulatory policies. As a consequence, analysts predict that configuration management and IT security tools will continue to see robust growth in 2011 (Check out slide 4.)

If your network is undergoing the growth now found across the board and you don’t already have a configuration management tool in place, 2011 is the year to change that. A good configuration management tool allows you to automate the process and reduce your chances of an outage, while also notifying you when and where an outage occurs so it can be rectified quickly with little downtime.

You may have thought you had taken all the right steps in planning the bandwidth requirements for your business. You even went the extra mile and set up Quality of Service (QoS) for high-priority traffic. Still you are faced with complaints that claim site access and critical order uploads are too slow. What is going on with the network utilization?

What you are missing is a way to gain visibility into the flow of traffic coming in and out of your network. A network flow is technically defined as a “unidirectional sequence of packets” all sharing the following values:

• Source IP address
• Destination IP address
• Source port
• Destination port
• IP
• Ingress interface
• IP type of service

By utilizing automated classification of network traffic flows by type and protocol, you can begin to build a picture of bandwidth utilization without painstakingly reviewing individual network packets. Broad support for vendor network flow records such as NetFlow, JFlow, and SFlow records from Cisco, Juniper, and HP provide you with visibility into real-time usage as well as historical network trends.

Consider layering flow classification with identification of top talkers and top listeners to narrow in on who is over-subscribing the use of the network. Top talkers represent the outbound—devices sending the most data over the network. Top listeners inbound—source hosts that are receiving the most data. By analyzing top type reports, you can build detailed top conversation views of which endpoints are taking up the most network bandwidth.

Many times, top type reports will also provide a wealth of information into unauthorized applications, spyware, and non-business-related Internet usage. For example, in the Top Conversations report below, high bandwidth utilization is observed between the iTunes site and an accounting PC.

With this information in hand, you can begin to address the performance issues by updating your Web filtering tool or enabling additional blocked categories to minimize the use of bandwidth for non-business traffic.

Real-time flow visibility allows you to determine the mystery behind bandwidth utilization. Continued review of traffic flow data across your network at regular intervals in conjunction with well-planned threshold alerts will help you quickly detect traffic anomalies, which are often a sign of computer virus outbreaks or malicious software.

Although we are all familiar with budget cuts, this might ring close to home for the UK public sector, where on October 20 the government announced an intense review of public sector spending. However, given the less than ideal state of the international economy, working effectively within budget constraints is no less prevalent worldwide. Our Channel Manager, Steve Demianyk, provides some tips for the IT department under fire.

Tip #1 Make the most of the infrastructure you already own

Document port-to-port connectivity, ideally, with an inexpensive layer 2/3 discovery, mapping, and inventory tool. With a complete inventory in place, troubleshooting, auditing, and repurposing unused resources becomes easier.

Tip #2 Need more hardware? Consider moving to an internal cloud!

Ipswitch hasn’t purchased a single piece of hardware in the three years since we’ve moved to the internal cloud. Your first step in virtualization is to decide which serves to move to the cloud. Usually, supplementary servers like DNS, domain controllers, DHCP, and file and print servers are good places to start because they don’t take full advantage of the hardware on which they exist. Web servers, mail servers and small databases are also good candidates.

More complex servers can be virtualized, but this must be planned out carefully. Before virtualizing any server you should run a trending analysis and performance monitoring. You will want to measure processor use, memory use, storage, network traffic volume and disk I/O. An overloaded server should not be moved to the cloud in any case.

Tip #3 Look for ways to troubleshoot and resolve issues faster

Industries studies show that 80% of IT time and resources are spent on finding the problem, and only 20% is for fixing the issues. If you are running more than one network management solution you will have to manually examine multiple reports and interfaces to correlate information across various types of metrics. This can substantially lengthen mean time to resolution (MTTR), making the job much more difficult and time consuming. Look for an infrastructure management solution that will let you discover, map, monitor and manage the network devices, servers, applications, virtual resources, port-to-port connectivity, configuration settings and network traffic from a single console.

Tip #4 Ensure 24×7 health, availability and optimal performance of infrastructure and applications

Performance monitoring should be a routine task. This seemingly unimportant activity can minimize risks and increase the likelihood that network issues and bottlenecks are found early on. A network management solution with an all-inclusive console will make this job easier and more efficient.

Tip #5 Look for cost-effective solutions

They do exist. If you currently use one of the big four solutions you might want to reconsider your solution for the upcoming year. You can still have a solid IT management solution for a reasonable price, but you may have to sacrifice the bells and whistles. One might naturally look towards open source solutions, but configuration can be a nightmare and the risks are high: vulnerability, scalability, liability, lack of tech support.

As the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy puts it, “Don’t panic” (in the face of budget cuts). Just weigh your options and find ways to do more with less.

[blackbirdpie id="1719513137545216"]

Thanks to Chris Hampton of Realtime Publishers we have a few tips to make your life as a network admin easier.

Through automation and other efficient methods of network management you can make yourself the ultimate resource for network status and configuration knowledge, while at the same time alleviating your stress points.

One way to help yourself is to utilize tools that save time. Why waste time with manual network topology documentation when ARP Cache Discovery and Link Layer Discovery Protocols can do that for you? They query your devices’ Management Information Database files and collect extensive info to assist in building a network outline that is up-to-date in near real-time.

Another important ability is staying in control. Know your network: what devices are on your network and where they are located. You should know device interdependencies and how they are affected by changes to the network. In order to do this it is a good idea to track all changes. Collecting up-to-date status information with powerful scheduled discovery checks will allow you to do this. A network management solution that offers device configuration management from a central location would be a great asset to you in this situation.

With such a tool you can also enhance your ability to keep the network available by pinpointing issues quickly and reducing downtime. Pinpointing becomes easier when you have a network management solution that automatically generates network maps and map views and can export these maps to documentation tools like Microsoft Visio. Easily-retrievable maps provide you with insight into a network’s overall design.

Once you have these abilities at your fingertips, daily network administration tasks are a cakewalk. Plus, you’ve succeeded in making yourself the ultimate resource.

When your business is growing so is your network. Even when business isn’t booming (thanks economy) your business’ infrastructure can be evolving too. What you need is a tool that can manage these changes for you.

Little known fact: 75% of network outages and performance issues are the result of misconfiguration error. No one wants that.

We don’t want that for you either — so we’ve developed a list of best practices to assist you with network configuration and change management.

Best Practice #1: Create standard configurations for each device classification, such as router, LAN switch, WAN switch, or ATM switch.

Best Practice #: Maintain the current running configurations for all devices and a set number of previously running versions – at least 3 to 5 previous working versions – it will really help with troubleshooting tasks.

Best Practice #3: Keep track of when configuration changes were made for auditing purposes – you might even think about setting up real-time alerts and notifications in this area.

Best Practice #4: Automate the execution of the scheduled tasks relating to current network configuration backups, startup configuration file backups and password change management for an individual device or across groups of devices to reduce errors and save time.

Best Practice #5: Document your network and configuration changes periodically.

Sounds like a lot to take care of? WhatsConfigured can automate these processes for you. With full integration into WhatsUp Gold, it can simplify your life and eliminate human errors. Tedious manual configuration tasks and solving misconfiguration issues in the dark can now be a think of the past with WhatsConfigured. Nightly configuration backups, bulk configuration changes, complete audit trails, and real-time alerts triggered by changes to configuration are just a few of the featured we’ve designed with you in mind.

Ever wonder how other IT professionals use WhatsUp Gold?

Marston’s, Britain’s largest brewer of cask beer, has a cool use-case story. The brewers were interested in growing their business to become known for more than great beer and pubs. They wanted their evolving clientele to know them for also providing a fun public WiFi hotspot and the place to play the latest internet-connect gaming products.

In order to do this they needed to not only enhance both front of house and back-office infrastructure but also improve communications and reliability of connection between the individual pubs and head office so they could start offering these new services to clients.

To achieve this, Marston’s took on the ambitious and innovative step of moving into the telecoms industry in its own right, allowing it to package and deploy its own customized services to various parts of the business.

But creating its own broadband network and taking responsibility for the infrastructure of its 500+ managed pubs meant that Marston’s needed to invest in a scalable networking monitoring solution to provide visibility across the new telecoms network and to help identify problems with hardware and connectivity.

Luckily, their partner, Level 8 Solutions, stepped in and recommended Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold.

This wasn’t Marston’s first experience with WhatsUp Gold. They’d been using within their head office for several years. They then deployed a separate WhatsUp Gold installation to monitor routers and WiFi hotspots installed at its managed pubs, as well as to support home workers also served by Marston’s Telecom.

“Using Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold, we are able to monitor the remote infrastructure installed at our estate of managed pubs across the country, ensuring that equipment is functioning correctly and that the connectivity we are providing through Marston’s Telecom is also performing as expected,” McMinn explained.

Plus sides to using WhatsUp Gold over other products like HP Insight were WhatsUp Gold’s clear and easy to follow feedback on the state of the network and the devices connected to it; its single point of view over the health of the network being monitored; and the clear visual guidance when a device encounters a problem.

As in . . . Green is Good, Red is Bad.

If you’re interested in reading the full Case Study click here.

So what about you? Do you use WhatsUp Gold to monitor something even more interesting that beer? If you do, let us know about it in the comments!

As President of Ipswitch Inc.’s Network Management division I have had the opportunity to speak with many of our customers about their experience using WhatsUp Gold.

Now, because WhatsUp Gold can be deployed and utilized in a variety of ways, each new story I hear varies from the last. But I have noticed a few common themes over the years. One such theme sounds like this:

“The phones stopped ringing as soon as it was deployed on the network.”

In fact, a few weeks ago I had a new customer call up our sales team and rave about the silence he and his team have enjoyed since they implemented WhatsUp Gold on their network. No more phone calls about the network being slow, that this server is down, that the Internet isn’t connecting, etc.

Because of the powerful systems and performance monitoring WhatsUp Gold delivers, these guys are finally the first to know when something is wrong on their network. They can now fix an issue before it affects their users.

This latest customer interaction reminded me of our history with job-search-giant, CareerBuilder. As a longtime user of WhatsUp Gold solutions, our product has literally grown along with CareerBuilder’s company.

In its early stages in 2003, at a point when the job search site was just one-fifth the size of the market leader, they brought in WhatsGold to solve their basic monitoring needs. As they’ve grown and matured, becoming the nation’s largest online job site, WhatsUp Gold has stayed a step ahead to continue to provide them the tool-set and functionality they need to manage a network that now includes close to 1300 devices.

Despite the evolution of technology and the increasing complexity of networks and managing solutions, we know that with most of our customers it is still the little things that make such a big difference. Mark Fouraker, Technologist at CareerBuilder, touches on just that in a favorite quote of mine from this customer story:

“My favorite story about WhatsUp Gold is when I was in an important meeting and was getting silent alerts on my pager about an impending issue on our network. I was sneaking out at breaks to troubleshoot and address the matter, eventually resolving it. The bottom line is that no one outside of a few people in operations had any idea there was even an issue at all. It’s just a beautiful product.”

A story like this is really powerful, in my opinion, because it shows how technology can evolve and customer needs can change, forcing us to continually adapt and innovate our product to meet those changing needs. It also shows that business relationships can certainly last as long as it remains mutually beneficial, with a bit of give and take from both sides.

Have you ever needed to see all of the groups a device belongs to in WhatsUp Gold? That hasn’t been easy information to find. At least it wasn’t until we released WhatsUp Gold v12.4, which includes the new Device Status Workspace Report.

Want to use this workspace report? Then upgrade to WhatsUp Gold v12.4!

Hi, WhatsUp community! I’m Will Sansbury, an information architect on the WhatsUp Gold development team here at Ipswitch. I’m responsible for working with our research and development group to improve the usability of our existing product and to make sure that new stuff we build is easy to use.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting short videos showing you some tricks to help you use WhatsUp Gold more efficiently.

This first video shows you how to use the Bulk Field Change feature in the WhatsUp Gold Web interface to streamline management of custom performance monitors on multiple devices. This feature is new to WhatsUp Gold v12.4. Current customers can upgrade to the latest version through their myIpswitch account; if you are new to WhatsUp Gold, you can download a free network monitoring trial today.

We really mean what I said at the end of the video: we’re always interested in learning how we can improve WhatsUp Gold. If you have suggestions or ideas on how we can improve our product or on topics for future videos, get in touch with me (email, Twitter, or our user community) or leave a comment on this post.