Re: Is there a method or tool(s) to prove network outages?

[George William Herbert <george.herbert () gmail com>]

On Dec 1, 2013, at 11:50 AM, Matt Palmer <mpalmer () hezmatt org> wrote:

> I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the root question to answer before you go
> off spending time setting up anything in particular: what *will* the ISP
> accept (or be forced to accept) as outage/instability proof?  Contracts are
> your first line of defence, but it's nigh-on universal that they don't cover
> these sorts of situations well enough.  So you probably need to have a
> discussion, as a follow-on from being told that your UTM's e-mails *aren't*
> sufficient, to determine what *is* sufficient.


This.

They may not cooperate, in which case,  you have to force proof down their throats.

I would go with the Zenoss (or Zabbix, or...) option - a free to use, professionally supported, professional grade 
commonly used monitoring package that would meet anyone's basic "credible tool" definition plus neat GUI to send a 
snapshot of the results.

Use it to perform various tests of the net - pings, http gets of some small target, starting pings with the next hop 
outside your premise and working outwards to the outside world.  Don't overwhelm your net with tests, but test as often 
as needed to demonstrate an issue.


-george william herbert
george.herbert () gmail com

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