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What Is Network Monitoring?

How Network Administrators Monitor the Health of
Their Networks
by Bradley Mitchell

Updated August 25, 2017

Network monitoring is a frequently used IT term. Network monitoring refers to the

practice of overseeing the operation of a computer network using specialized
management software tools. Network monitoring systems are used to ensure availability
and overall performance of computers (hosts) and network services. They let admins
monitor access, routers, slow or failing components, firewalls, core switches, client
systems and server performance among other network data.

Network monitoring systems are typically employed on large scale corporate and
university IT networks.

Key Features in Network Monitoring

A network monitoring system is capable of detecting and reporting failures of devices or

connections. It normally measures the CPU utilization of hosts, the network
bandwidth utilization of links, and other aspects of the operation. It often sends
messages—sometimes called watchdog messages—over the network to each host to
verify it is responsive to requests. When failures, unacceptably slow response or other
unexpected behavior is detected, these systems send additional messages called alerts
to designated locations such as a management server, an email address or a phone
number to notify system administrators.

Network Monitoring Software Tools

The ping program is one example of a basic network monitoring program. Ping is a
software tool available on most computers that send Internet Protocol (IP) test
messages between two hosts.

Anyone on the network can run basic ping tests to verify the connection between two
computers is working and also to measure the current connection performance.

While ping is useful in some situations, some networks require more sophisticated
monitoring systems in the form of software programs that are designed for use by
professional administrators of large computer networks.
Examples of these software packages are HP BTO and LANDesk.

One specific type of network monitoring system is designed to monitor the availability of
web servers. For large enterprises that use a pool of web servers that are distributed
worldwide, these systems help to quickly detect problems at any location. Website
monitoring services available on the Internet include Monitis.

Simple Network Management Protocol

Simple Network Management Protocol is a popular management protocol that includes

network monitoring software. SNMP is the most widely used network monitoring and
management protocol. It includes:

 The devices in the network that is being monitored

 Agent software on the monitored devices
 A network management system (NMS), which is a toolset on a server that monitors each
device on a network and communicates information about those devices to an IT
administrator.

Administrators can use SNMP monitor and manage aspects of their networks by:

 Gathering information on how much bandwidth is being used on the network

 Active polling the network devices to ask for a status at specified intervals
 Notifying the admin by text message of a device failure
 Collecting error reports, which can be used for troubleshooting

 Emailing an alert when the server reaches a specified low disk space level
https://www.computerworlduk.com/galleries/open-source/best-open-source-network-
management-tools-3644057/

Best open source network monitoring tools |

How to manage your professional network
Christina Mercer & Hannah WilliamsJanuary 9, 2018

Initially released in 2001, Cacti is an open source web-based network monitoring and
graphing tool designed for data-logging. It can be used to show network data over time,
such as CPU load or bandwidth utilisation.

Cacti is a front end application to RRDtool, an open source database tool for storing
data that changes over time, using SNMP as its default collection method, but if you
prefer local Perl of PHP scripts, you can used those as well.

Its latest version 0.8.8h was released in May 2016 with key features including unlimited
graph item, auto-padding support for graphs, graph data manipulation, custom data-
gathering scripts, built-in SNMP support, graph templates, data source templates, host
templates and user-based management.
https://techtalk.gfi.com/the-top-20-free-network-monitoring-and-analysis-tools-for-sys-admins/

Andrew Tabona on May 15, 2015

The top 20 free Network Monitoring and Analysis

Tools for sysadmins

Nagios
Nagios is a powerful network monitoring tool that helps you to ensure that your critical
systems, applications and services are always up and running. It provides features
such as alerting, event handling and reporting. The Nagios Core is the heart of the
application that contains the core monitoring engine and a basic web UI. On top of
the Nagios Core, you are able to implement plugins that will allow you to monitor
services, applications, and metrics, a chosen frontend as well as add-ons for data
visualisation, graphs, load distribution, and MySQL database support, amongst
others.

Tip: If you want to try out Nagios without needing to install and configure it from
scratch, download Nagios XI and enable the free version. Nagios XI is the pre-
configured enterprise class version built upon Nagios Core and is backed by a
commercial company that offers support and additional features such as more plugins
and advanced reporting.

Note: The free version of Nagios XI is ideal for smaller environments and will monitor
up to seven nodes.

Once you’ve installed and configured Nagios, launch the Web UI and begin to
configure host groups and service groups. Once Nagios has had some time to
monitor the status of the specified hosts and services, it can start to paint a picture of
what the health of your systems look like.

Splunk
Splunk is a data collection and analysis platform that allows you to monitor, gather
and analyze data from different sources on your network (e.g. event logs, devices,
services, TCP/UDP traffic, etc). You can set up alerts to notify you when something is
wrong or use Splunk’s extensive search, reporting and dashboard features to make
the most of the collected data. Splunk also allows you to install ‘Apps’ to extend
system functionality.
Note: When you first download and install Splunk, it automatically installs the
Enterprise version for you to trial for 60 days before switching to the Free version. To
switch to the Free version straight away, go to Manager > Licensing.

When you login to the Splunk web UI for the first time, add a data source and
configure your indexes to get started. Once you do this you can then create reports,
build dashboards, and search and analyze data.
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2825879/networ
k-management/7-free-open-source-network-
monitoring-tools.html

7 free tools every network needs

By Paul Venezia
Senior Contributing Editor, InfoWorld | AUG 15, 2017 12:52 PM PT

Ntop
The Ntop project -- now known as Ntopng, for "next generation" -- has come a long way
over the past decade. Call it Ntop or Ntopng, what you get is a top-notch network traffic
monitor married to a fast and simple Web GUI. It's written in C and completely self-
contained. You run a single process configured to watch a specific network interface,
and that's about all there is to it.

Ntop provides easily digestible graphs and tables showing current and past network
traffic, including protocol, source, destination, and history of specific transactions, as
well as the hosts on either end. You'll also find an impressive array of network utilization
graphs, live maps, and trends, along with a plug-in framework for an array of add-ons
such as NetFlow and sFlow monitors. There’s even the Nbox, a hardware monitor that
embeds Ntop.

Ntop even incorporates a lightweight Lua API framework that can be used to support
extensions via scripting languages. Ntop can also store host data in RRD files for
persistent data collection.

Ntop is a packet sniffing tool with a slick Web UI that displays live data on network
traffic. Host data flow and host communication pair information is also available in real
time.

One of the handiest uses of Ntopng is on-the-spot traffic checkups. When one of my
Cacti-driven PHP Weathermaps suddenly shows a collection of network links running in
the red, I know that those links exceed 85 percent utilization, but I don't know why. By
switching to an Ntopng process watching that network segment, I can pull a minute-by-
minute report of the top talkers and immediately know which hosts are responsible and
what traffic they're pushing.

That kind of visibility is invaluable, and it's very easy to come by. Essentially, you can
run Ntopng on any interface that's been configured at the switch level to monitor another
port or VLAN. That's it.
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2825879/networ
k-management/7-free-open-source-network-
monitoring-tools.html
Paul Venezia
Senior Contributing Editor, InfoWorld | AUG 15, 2017 12:52 PM PT

7 free tools every network needs

Zabbix
Zabbix is a full-scale network- and system-monitoring tool that combines several
functions into a single Web-based console. It can be configured to monitor and collect
data from a wide variety of servers and network gear, offering service and performance
monitoring of each object.

Zabbix works with agents running on monitored systems, though it can also run
agentless using SNMP or other monitoring methods such as remote checks on open
services like SMTP and HTTP. It explicitly supports VMware and other virtualization
hypervisors, producing in-depth data on hypervisor performance and activity. Special
attention is also paid to monitoring Java application servers, Web services, and
databases.

Hosts can be added manually or through an autodiscovery process. An extensive set of

default templates apply to the most common use cases such as Linux, FreeBSD, and
Windows servers; well-known services such as SMTP and HTTP, and ICMP and IPMI
devices for in-depth hardware monitoring. In addition, custom checks written in
Perl, Python, or nearly any language can be integrated into Zabbix.

Zabbix monitors servers and networks with an extensive array of tools, including tools
for monitoring virtualization hypervisors and Web application stacks.