Best Network Monitoring Tools

Network monitoring tools are those constantly monitor components and notify the network administrator in case of slow or failing or outages. Network monitoring tools perform task such as data flow analysis, network auditing and vulnerability. Any organizations cannot be called professional, if it lacks network monitoring tool. Network Monitoring tools are capable of tracking physical health of devices such as switches, servers, networked printers, routers and other devices that are attached to networks. Network Monitoring tools might include dashboard view of several devices mentioned above based on the design and feature of the tool used. Even with these tools a simple vulnerability can cost millions.  Following are few Network Monitoring tools which are considered as one of the best in the industry.

Cacti:

Cacti is one of the web based monitoring tool. Cacti is an open source tool with graphing tool as front end application. Cacti mainly use data logging RDD tool. Cacti was developed by Cacti

group and was released in 2001. Cacti is one of the tools in industry with very good user management interface, advanced graphs and fast polls. Cacti mainly uses LANs with hundreds of devices. Cacti is released under GNU General Public License. Cacti is a free ware without any strings attached to it.

To download and know more about Cacti follow the link http://www.cacti.net/                           

Munin:

Munin is a monitoring tool that can help analyze resources. Munin is designed to be very plug and play. Munin presents all the information through a web interface. Munin uses RRD tool and its framework is written in perl. Munin has master node architectures via which master can connect all the nodes at regular intervals. Munin is also designed to monitor resource breakouts within a network.

Nagios:

                Nagios is another open source computer system monitoring, infrastructure and network monitoring application. Nagios alerts users when things goes wrong and alerts them again after the problem has been solved. With Nagios users can monitor entire IT infrastructure, know immediately when problem arises, is capable of detecting security breaches, reduces downtime and business losses, share availability data with stakeholders and capable of spotting problems before they occur.

Zabbix:

                Zabbix is an enterprise class open source monitoring solution. Zabbix offers alerting, visualization and advanced monitoring features which are missing in other monitoring tools. Some of the features of Zabbix are:

•  Low level discovery
• Server software for Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD, OS X and FreeBSD
• Flexible user permission
• Web based interface
• Flexible e-mail notification for predefined events
• Agent less monitoring
• Secure user Authentication

Ganglia:

Is a system monitoring tool for a computer system such as grids and clusters. Ganglia allows users to remotely view historical or live statistics such as average CPU load, Network utilization and many more. Ganglia uses XML for data representation. Ganglia is for compact, RRDtool and portable data transfer tool. Ganglia is a BSD licensed tool.  Following are some of the features or responsibilities of Ganglia:

• Monitor changes in host state
• Listen to other ganglia nodes via multi or uni cast channel
• Announce relevant changes
• Output file is in XML format

These are one of the best  free network monitoring tool, in addition to

these you might find other tools which might catch your attention.

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