Re: Net Mgmt Tools and supporting OS

["vitto malitani" <vmalitani () gmail com>]

Thanks to all who replied.  Due to ease of deployment I will probably go
with the Cent)S based server and tools and modify things as I need it
afterwards.

Best of luck,

Vitto,

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Claudia de Luna <cldeluna () yahoo com> wrote:

> Vito,
>
> I"m currently consulting to the state of California corrections department
> on their wan and this question continually comes up.
>
> My recommendation is to get started with CactiEZ as you SNMP management
> tool.  CactiEZ is a CentOS based Cacti server that essentially loads
> everything you need to get up and running.  If you already have an
> authoratative and complete list of all your network infrastructure equipment
> it is then a simple matter of adding the devices to the server.
> Out of the box you get your syslog server (essential) with some basic
> search capabilities, your monitoring for bandwidth utilization, errors,
> latency (ping based) and router CPU.
>
> You can grow from there with notification (it's pretty basic but better
> than nothing), availability reports, and even a weather map.
>
> As someone else already said, use the OS you are most comfortable with.
> Running monitoring on a network is a full time job in and of itself so don't
> complicate things!
>
> Tools like OpenNMS and Nagios are a little more complex.  The CactiEZ CD is
> pretty much turnkey and gives you most, if not all, the tools to get you up
> and running. From there you can see what needs it does not meet and grow
> from there.
>
> Claudia
>
>
> This link lists the "plug ins" available out of the box but there are
> others as Cacti has a very good plug in architecture.
> http://cactiusers.org/wiki/Homepage
>
> Example WeatherMap
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* vitto malitani <vmalitani () gmail com>
> *To:* nanog () nanog org
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 9, 2008 9:17:40 AM
> *Subject:* Net Mgmt Tools and supporting OS
>
> I am fairly new user of nanog mail list so I am not sure if the question
> below is appropriate for this list.  If not, please excuse it.
> - I am building a new low-budget customer WAN/LAN network and need some
> ideas for network management tools.  I've seen couple of email threads
> regarding all sort of "net goodies".  However, since I haven't used them
> all, I am not sure which OS would be the most appropriate for these aps?
> Can anyone share their ideas in regards  of apps and supporting platforms?
> I would be most comfortable with free distribution of linux, but I am not
> sure which distro supports most of the tools?  Is the paid OS required for
> all these tools, like RedHat Server or SuSe or Windows platforms?
>
> Thanks much,
>
> Vitto