Summary

The topics covered in this chapter prepare the Netadmin for deploying an SNMP-based advanced network-monitoring system (NMS). The NMS provides trending for network parameters including, but not limited to, interface traffic, CPU and memory utilization, and VPN and firewall connections. Netadmins should be able to perform the following performance-monitoring tasks:

• Deploy a Linux-based network-monitoring system to monitor interface traffic through Cisco devices, including routers, switches, VPN concentrators, and PIX Firewalls

• Deploy a Windows-based network-monitoring system to monitor interface traffic through Cisco devices, including routers, switches, VPN concentrators, and PIX Firewalls

• Use the trending feature of a network-monitoring system for long-term network analysis and capacity planning

Table 6-8 provides details of the tools discussed in this chapter.

Table 6-8. Performance-Monitoring Tools Discussed in This Chapter

Tool	Function	Supported OS	Installable Files Source	Additional Documentation Sources/Notes
MRTG	Trending of network traffic and other parameters through SNMP	Windows and Linux	http://www.mrtg.org	Documentation in HTML format included with the installation (../doc/mrtg/html/) README and other text files located in ../doc/mrtg Collection of mrtg.cfg templates at http://www.somix.com/
RRDTool	Back-end database and graphing tool	Windows and Linux	http://www.rrdtool.org	Documentation in HTML format included with the installation (../doc/rrdtool/ html/) README and other text files located in ../doc/rrdtool
Cricket	Improved version of MRTG	Windows and Linux	http://cricket.sourceforge.net	http://cricket.sourceforge.net
Cacti	RRDTool-based trending tool	Linux	http://www.cacti.net/	http://www.cacti.net/
Percival	High-performance version of Cricket	Linux	http://percival.sourceforge.net	http://percival.sourceforge.net
Snmpwalk	Command-line tool for querying SNMP-enabled devices	Windows and Linux	http://www.net-snmp.org
Cisco MIB Locator	Web-based tool for browsing MIBs and OIDs for Cisco devices			http://www.cisco.com/go/mibs