It's not unusual for a network-management solution to cost a million bucks. Of course, spending that kind of dough is hard to justify unless a network or its applications are pulling in even bigger green. So what about the rest of us?
Even for many large networks that are complex enough to require serious management--multithousand-node networks with important applications running on them--a six-figure price tag isn't an option. Many enterprises employ homegrown scripts, and they do help, but script support is tough, especially once the author has moved on.
The answer is a network-management framework that's functional but affordable, comprising software that can manage 1,000 interfaces for no more than $10,000. FCAPS coverage by tools in this price range is limited to F and P (fault and performance); those are the lowest-hanging fruit for management vendors and, according to our readers, two of the top three areas of importance (see "Network Management on $1.19 a Day"). We didn't test the No. 1 pick, security, nor did we test configuration and accounting, which brought up the rear. Security and configuration are addressed by vendors with narrowly focused products that solve pieces of the puzzle but don't have enough breadth for the kind of one-shot purchase we're suggesting here. Plus, they generally cruise right past our $10,000 limit. (You can get a breakdown of the FCAPS model here.)
We invited BMC Software, Castle Rock Computing, Computer Associates International, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Ipswitch, Linmore, NuLink, RedPoint, SolarWinds.Net, Visualware and Wild Packets to participate in our tests. NuLink never responded; products from BMC, IBM, Linmore and RedPoint couldn't squeeze under the $10,000 ceiling; and Visualware's and Wild Packets' offerings were not ready in time for testing.
That left Castle Rock, CA, HP, Ipswitch and SolarWinds.Net. We gathered the software in our Syracuse University Real-World Labs®, took over the network and put these products to work.
Foundation for Growth
Our testing didn't require vendors to scale or support third-party databases or distributed processing, functions that would be de rigueur for high-end network management. However, most of the products offer some features that would let them grow with your network.
We limited discovery to a set of important nodes--primarily routers and switches--though we did include servers and a few clients as part of a test application (a multitiered Web app) we monitored. All the products easily kept tabs on these 1,000 interfaces--in some cases they began by discovering more than we wanted, sometimes even when we didn't ask them to. In addition, all the entries except Ipswitch's WhatsUp Gold have distributed-polling capabilities that let them poll a plethora of devices while going easy on WAN bandwidth.
HP and CA both support IP, IPX, DMI and Layer 2 discoveries. We didn't evaluate IPX discovery, though we didn't turn it off and did see IPX results. Both products support the combination of IP and IPX discoveries, with a preference for IP when both are available on a network.
We didn't take into consideration high-availability or scalability functions in the architecture of the products we tested, as our focus was on managing the 1,000 interfaces. Scalability, while important (and available with some of the products), isn't as important as getting an immediate network-management bang. Our $10,000 limit also put high availability on the back burner. Still, it's easy to see how having redundant servers, distributed pollers, support for external third-party databases and the ability to administer parts of the system without rebooting would be valuable as your network grows.
Orion's Lucky Star
SolarWinds.Net's Orion Network Performance Monitor is our Editor's Choice. The software quickly got down to managing our network with good out-of-the-box functionality. It had enough depth and flexibility to give us a good handle on how the network was performing, without being overly complicated. We aren't exactly jumping up and down about it, but given the modest dollars and time Orion required, the product is a pretty sure bet.
Our Best Value award goes to WhatsUp Gold from Ipswitch, which also has solid features and administration that will reap immediate rewards. Costing less than my kids' daily lunch money (a measly $1.19 per day over five years), it's not going to grow with you, but it won't let you down either. SNMPc from Castle Rock had the second best price and great SNMP MIB support without being overly difficult to administer. Though it did go a little nuts when discovering the network and had just average fault and performance management.
HP's OpenView Network Node Manager and Computer Associates' Unicenter Performance Management and Unicenter Advanced Network Operations were the priciest products we tested (OpenView NNM just made our limit at an even $10,000). Both had strong fault and performance features but also were the hardest to learn to use and took the most work to maintain. However, we were amazed at what each can do for the dollars. If yours is a small network now but you want something that's going to grow with your organization, both of these, along with Orion, are worth considering.
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