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maryam82
100 pts.
 Monitoring the Network
Networking, Network management software, Network security, Firewalls, Intrusion management, Incident response, Forensics, Wireless, Security, Network monitoring, Network testing, Performance management, Remote management, Protocol analysis, Cisco, Network applications management, Data analysis, Bandwidth, VPN, Availability, Benchmarking, 3Com, Foundry, Fault isolation
Hi,
I have multiple remote sites. I would like to monitor the network and analyze the traffic and its performance in general. For example, how the bandwidth is consumed, if certain activities are unnecessary and how to improve the networks performance by blocking through the firewall like peer-to-peer applications, etc.
I am using check point as a firewall and Cisco as a router.
I came across an application called Websense that I can trial for free for a month. And I am searching how I can deploy my existing devices to help me with what I want, cause buying any addition is a challenge. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thank You
ASKED: Sep 11, 2006  0:51 AM GMT
UPDATED: October 24, 2008  2:52:07 AM GMT
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Treousa
30 pts.
Answer Wiki:
This sounds like a job for SevOne, which has turned out to be the premiere networking monitoring software that is currently available. SevOne will give you very accurate utilization information, including Cisco Netflow analysis tools. Their appliance model is very appealing, it scales from 10,000 to over 1 Million monitoring elements without effort. Everything is Web based, the entire interface runs in a browser, no need to install cumbersome software packages. They employ state of the art custom hardware to acheive amazing performance. Basically, you can run reports at a monents notice and they are created from scratch, not from canned reports. They also don't roll up data, which is great if you want to analyze historic information. In essence, you can go back today to a year ago and look at what happened in your network as if it would happen right now.
They are also reasonably priced, and they offer a hot standby failover solution, so if anything were to happen to your primary appliance, the failover would take over and it has all the data of the primary, which is just plain amazing.

I strongly suggest you check them out, www.sevone.com, they'd be happy to schedule a remote presentation with you and will ship you a demonstration unit if you are interested in that.
Last Wiki Answer Submitted:  Oct 24, 2008  2:52 AM (GMT)  by  Treousa   30 pts.
Latest Answer Wiki Contributors:  stuberman   0 pts.
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There’s a product called PRTG that comes as either a low-cost version or as a freeware version that monitors your WAN traffic.

I also like a product called OmniQuad Instant Remote Control. It can get me to remote systems without anything pre-installed on them. It’s low-cost but also has a free thirty-day trial. I’ve used it during the trial period to configure Windows XP remote desktop or install a VNC, that will subsequently enable me to manage those remote systems, after the OmniQuad product trial period has expired.

Good luck with your project.

RayG
 0 pts.
 

If you do linux you should try out ntop. It should give you the information you need. It comes free with most distributions.
rt

astronomer
 0 pts.
 

If you do linux you should try out ntop. It should give you the information you need. It comes free with most distributions.
rt

astronomer
 0 pts.
 

JFFNMS is a Network Management and Monitoring System

I use this terrific tool and runs on both linux /windows platforms its a freeware under GPL licence.

Jere

miah4life
 0 pts.
 

For basic information I use nagios and MRTG. Both are open source and only the initial configuration takes up any time. Nagios can give you up/down, service check, and a multitude of other types of checks. MRTG is a traffic monitoring application. Anything that can be found through snmp can be graphed using MRTG. Seeing as Cisco is basically the standard for snmp MIBs, you should be able to use MIB walker and find which MIB to querry. I have also install an add-on to MRTG called routers2. It give a nice gui that you would have to yourself with MRTG.

And if you don’t mind spending money, look at Groundwork. They have implemented all of Nagios and much more into one package.

larrythethird
 0 pts.