Monitoring

Customers frequently ask questions about the necessity of Syslog. "I have turned SNMP on and am collecting SNMP stats and alerts. Isn't that enough?" It depends.

In my current role I speak to a lot of network engineers trying to automatically map their network topology. Actually it’s more than that, they don’t just want to discover devices, the want a port level diagram of exactly how all their switches, routers, servers, workstations, phones, firewalls . . . you get the point. Some engineers I speak to practically ask:

In the words of Victor Kennedy, Director of Talladega County 9-1-1, “Networks don’t get more mission-critical than emergency communications.”

Other's have already done it for you?

Here is a useful list of tips that network administrators can leverage in their everyday travails.

Network Monitoring comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be as complex as a multi-site WAN distributed solution. Or, it could be as simple as reacting to end-users phone calls claiming that they can’t receive email.