Network Monitoring Systems

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this, I'm new here and still learning my way around. :D

Could someone recommend a reliable/accurate NMS? I've looked into Sniffer Pro, and registered with them, requesting info but no one has contacted me.

I'm looking for something that will give me detailed reporting, capable of crossing multiple subnets and domains, as well as a wide variety of protocols, including some that may be considered slightly archaic. Bandwidth utilization is a must, as well as collision/error reports.

Windows platform would be preferred (NT/2000/XP Pro), but *nix is an option.

Thanks for any assitance.

As I'm not very familiar with NMS tools ... here's just a link I picked up recently:

http://www.solarwinds.net/

It may be of use to you or it may not.

Cheers,

BrainStop

Actually, something like this is -exactly- what I'm looking for! :D

Thanks for the link!!

Unfortunately, a sniffer is not what you are looking for i don't think. The main reason being that a sniffer itself will only capture traffic on a single network segment, and you need it to span multiple subnets.

it also depends on how much $$ you are willing to spend, and what type of devices you are going to monitor. If you have lots of money, look at something like HP Openview or CA Unicenter. If it is just network devices (routers and switches) that you are trying to monitor, you might want to look into MRTG:

http://mrtg.hdl.com/mrtg.html

A sniffer will give you the protocol breakdown that you are looking for though. You may also want to try EtherPeek:

http://www.wildpackets.com

or the infamous and FREE Ethereal:

http://mrtg.hdl.com/mrtg.html

I have a feeling however that what you are looking for might be a collection of tools instead of a single application that will do all. I believe you can get demos for most if not all of these products, so try them out and see which one best suits your needs..

I was also going to recomend www.solarwinds.net b/c of what I have read and herd. Please let us know if this solves your problem or if you have to implement more programs on diffrent segments etc. etc.

Hmmm... customer needs one tool to take the place of many....

Well, I've spent the good part of the morning playing with the eval of SolarWinds application suite, and essentially it has given me the information I need, though some of the functions -are- disabled. No printing the many charts it generates for example. Though screen captures by-pass that easily enough.

So far, it appears to be a fairly solid product. I'm going to keep it running in the background and see what it'll tell me. I'm still open for other suggestions at this point though. With the size of the network I'm dealing with, this is definately a tool that will come in handy. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to specify and/or filter unused protocols in SolarWinds, but I'm still working on it.

A simple sniffer isn't what I need, you're correct. I should have been a bit more specific, because what I actually need is a suite of applications that work together. "One app to do the job of many" sums it up nicely. :D

-Thanks again,

Aryoche

You can also try eitherpeek found on www.download.com

How about VitalSuite from Lucent Netcare? have you looked into that?
www.lucent. com