The topics covered in this chapter prepare the Netadmin for deploying network-monitoring systems to examine individual network devices and overall network availability. The Netadmins should be able to perform the following network-monitoring tasks:
Deploy a Linux-based unified network-monitoring system to monitor network nodes, including Cisco devices, network servers, and related services such as HTTP, FTP, and SMTP
Deploy a Windows-based unified network-monitoring system to monitor network nodes, including Cisco devices, network servers, and related services such as HTTP, FTP, and SMTP
Use the notification feature of the network-monitoring systems to alert on-call technicians about network issues
Use the reporting feature of network-monitoring systems to maintain SLAs Table 5-3 provides a summary of the network-monitoring tools that this chapter covers.
Table 5-3. List of Network-Monitoring Tools
Tool
Function
Supported OS
Documentation Sources/Notes
Big Brother
Network monitoring through ICMP and TCP messages
Windows and Linux
Home page: http://www.bb4.org
Help files in html file included with the installation (http://BigBrother_ip/bb/skins/eng/help/bbhelp.html)
README and INSTALL files included with the tar file
Additional plug-ins and documentation at http://www.deadcat.net
BigSister
Network monitoring through ICMP and TCP messages (Big Brother clone)