Continous Monitoring – DevopsCurry

Network Monitoring Tools to look in 2024

Shiwani Sharma — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 07:11:25 +0000

What is Network Monitoring?

Network monitoring is the process of constantly notice and examine the execution of computer network. It observes and corrects the performance issues that estimate the network regularly. All the information that a network supervisor wants to check whether the network is working or not in a given period is a network monitoring work to provide the information. As the name suggest from network monitoring, that means tracking several networks parameters as likes packet loss, bandwidth utilization and device status to make sure security and optimal operation.

Definition as per Wikipedia: Network monitoring is the use of a system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, SMS or other alarms) in case of outages or other trouble. Network monitoring is part of network management.

Network monitoring play an important role in maintaining the security, reliability and stability of computer networks.

Why is Network Monitoring so important?

To know the importance of Network Monitoring go through to the several points:

Network monitoring is important because it helps you to solve the exact problem on the network.
It focuses on the network traffic, server and whatever as well whenever things go wrong it will inform the network administrators.
It collects the data from the different sources (network) and it supports or handles and regulates the network.
It is also used in different factors like email, application, server etc.
It saves your time as well as your pocket.

8 Best Network Monitoring Tools in 2021

1. Datadog

Datadog was established in 2010 to aid Gin, Django, Spring; these are the famous web frameworks. You can use it for free but it has a paid version also which charges $5 per host per month. This appeal provides you with the concept of network traffic and the search with tags. It detects errors by using machine learning and monitoring cloud instances, hybrid architectures, Monitor containers and on-premises.

In a similar position, users can get overall perception into traces, log, network traffic by combining metric-based (Network Device Monitoring) with flow-based Network Performance Monitoring. It is good for all organizations whether it is small, medium or large.

2. ntopng

ntopng is an open-source tool that is easy and quick and with the network, it’s building an HTML mess and edict as a web server. It controls the traffic on the network for a certain point. This tool is free, a small scale industry can utilize this tool. This is one of the strongest tool that provide insight visibility into the behavior and traffic of network. It also support monitoring protocols as likes IPFIX, NetFlow and sFlow etc that also allow you to collect traffic data from switches, routers and other network devices.

3. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor

It handles the characteristics of NetPath which solves the problem on the network. It can easily observe and then solve the trouble in the performance of the network. It also regulates the uptime of routers, switches, feedback time etc. It has a paid version but you can use it for free on a trial period of 30 days.

4. Logic Monitor

This is one of the best monitoring tools for window servers as well as SaaS-based monitoring solutions. This tool has the paid version and it is easy to regulate . It provide a strong and user-friendly platform for handing and monitoring IT infrastructure, that support the organization to optimize the performance and also verify the availability and improve operational efficiency. Logic Monitor tool constructed in a way to support numerous devices and monitoring metrics across hybrid, on-premises and cloud environment for your organizations.

5. PRTG Network Monitor

It is beneficial for the customer and it is easy to use for a developer for the improvement of the network. This is the best for all organizations whether it is small, big or large. You can use it for free as well. It has a paid version at $130. One of the main features of PRTG is to collect the data, and handle the IP address.

Key Features of PRTG

Some of the features of PRTG are as follow:

Collect the data
Handling the IP address
Having Internet User
Dashboard
Services Level Agreement (SLA)
Analysis of Network
Easy to use and easy to handle
It is acceptable for all organization either it is small, big large.

6. Observium

It supports several devices and networks such are Dell, HP, Cisco etc. It can handily solve the problem simply in the way of network performance as well it’s easy to put any tools on Observium. You can set up this tool effortlessly, it is easy to use and can infer quickly. It has a paid version but you can use it on a free trial.

7. Monitorix

It provides information related to the network and has limitations because it’s a free tool. It does not have more features of network monitoring.

8. LibreNMS

You can use this tool on your Mobile, it’s an Mobile friendly tool as it aids Cisco, Foundry, Linux and Juniper there are the operating system. One of the best features of this tool is you don’t have a big team of people for regulating.

Conclusion: As we conclude this journey, it’s clear that the right network monitoring tool is not just a necessity but a strategic asset. From real-time performance metrics to in-depth analysis of network traffic, these tools provide a lens into the heartbeat of your infrastructure.

The diversity of available tools caters to the needs of organizations large and small, across various industries. Whether you’re safeguarding against downtime, optimizing resource utilization, or ensuring compliance, network monitoring tools offer a comprehensive suite of features to meet your objectives.

The post Network Monitoring Tools to look in 2024 appeared first on DevopsCurry.

What is Continuous Monitoring in DevOps

Namrata Joshi — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 12:56:24 +0000

Companies are nowdays adopting DevOps to get faster and better response to constantly changing customer needs. DevOps works on Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment model. However Continuous Monitoring is also a very important pillar of our DevOps lifecycle (often neglected), which keeps a check on our Continuous Delivery and Deployment systems within any organisation.

What is Continuous Monitoring in DevOps?

Continuous Monitoring is a process to monitor and identify compliance issues and security risks throughout each phase of DevOps and IT operations lifecycles. Continuous Monitoring and observability can be considered as a final step of the DevOps pipeline. This is one of the most crucial steps in a DevOps lifecycle and will help to achieve true efficiency and scalability.

Continuous monitoring aka ConMon, helps organisations to track, identify, understand key metrics and also resolve application or infrastructure issues in realtime.

The aim of DevOps is to remove silos between Development and Operations team. Once the application is deployed and is available for users, Continuous Monitoring will alert the teams if there are any application issues in that environment. This will provide necessary feedback to the team. And the team can understand the parts of the application that demand additional work.

Different Types of Monitoring

Infrastructure Monitoring: it is necessary to create and maintain an IT infrastructure if your organisation depends on Information Technology to deliver products and services. So what does an IT Infrastructure include? Well, it includes everything IT related – servers, networks, data-centers, computer hardware and software, storage, etc. Managing this infrastructure is called Infrastructure Monitoring in DevOps.The sole purpose behind Infrastructure Monitoring is to collect and analyze data from the IT infrastructure and leverage that data to improve the final results.
So what all does the Infrastructure Monitoring covers ? Well it covers the hardware monitoring, network monitoring,OS monitoring and application monitoring. Some of the popular Infrastructure Monitoring Tools include Nagios, Zabbix, ManageEngine OpManager, Solarwinds,Prometheus etc

Application Monitoring: application monitoring offers runtime metrics of system performance like application uptime, application-performance,application security-monitoring,log-monitoring etc. These metrics are monitored by application monitoring tools(APM) and available to SRE/Devops or Sys-Admins. What do these metrics include? This includes transaction time, transaction volume, API responses, system response, and overall health of back-end applications. It is delivered in the form of graphical figures and statistics. These figures will evaluate application performance and ultimately overall infrastructure of an application. Some of the popular APM tools are Appdynamics, Dynatrace, Datadog, Uptime Robot,Uptrends, Splunk etc

Network Monitoring: network monitoring will monitor and track everything about the network. It is a critical process in any DevOps environment. Network Monitoring will monitor networking components like routers, firewalls, servers, switches, and VMs. In general the Network Monitoring systems(NMS) share five critical data points:

Discover
Map
Monitor
Alerting
Reporting

A NMS will find faults, measure the performance of these components, and optimise their availability. It is very important for network monitoring to be proactive. A proactive network monitoring will prevent network downtimes and/or failures. Some of the popular NMS tools include Cacti, ntop,nmap, Spiceworks, Wireshark,Traceroute, bandwidth Monitor etc.

Popular DevOps Monitoring Tools in 2020

1. Nagios : Nagios is an open-source DevOps Monitoring Tool. It will help DevOps to find and correct problems with network & infrastructure. Features:
* Simplifies the process of searching log data.
* Provides complete monitoring of desktop and server operating systems.
* The log management tool is leading in the industry.
* Provides complete monitoring of Java Management Extensions.

2. Monit: Monit is an open-source DevOps Monitoring Tool. Monit is designed especially for monitoring UNIX OS.
Features
* Conducts automatic maintenance and repair.
* Executes meaningful actions in error situations.
* Helps to monitor files, directories, and files on localhost.
* Allows network connections to different servers.

3. Consul: Consul is another open-source monitoring Tool(owned by HashiCorp). Consul is used for discovering and configuring services in any infrastructure. Features:
* The perfect tool for modern infrastructure.
* It provides a robust API.
* Easy to find services each application needs using DNS or HTTP.
* Supports multiple data centers.

4. Datadog: Datadog is a paid monitoring service, providing monitoring of servers, ,applications,databases, tools, and services through a smart SaaS platform.
Features
* Easily customizable monitoring dashboards.
* 80+ turn-key integrations.
* Complete access to APIs.
* Get visibility in the health and performance of the DevOps tools.
* Visualize data from upstream and downstream systems with metrics, traces, and logs.

5. Prometheus: open-source monitoring solution, built primarily for gathering and analysing time-series data.It uses SNMP to collect performance data from devices across the network.
Features:
* Prometheus actively scrapes data, stores it, and supports queries, graphs, and alerts
* Lowers development environment setup time.
* Works seamlessly with Mac, Windows, and LINUX.
* Very popular for monitoring containerised environments (Docker, Kubernetes)
* Integrates with existing configuration tools like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Salt.
* Creates a single file for projects to describe which kind of machine and software users want to install.

6. PagerDuty: PagerDuty is a paid Alerting Tool. It helps businesses to enhance the reputation of their brand. PagerDuty allows the DevOps team to deliver high performing apps.
Features:
* Data Collection via a pull model over HTTP
* It supports multiple modes for graphs and dashboards
* It works as autonomous single server nodes with no dependency on distributed storage

7. Snort: Snort is an open-source network intrusion detection system (NIDS) Snort is a powerful tools that help to detect network intruders.
Features:
* Allows real-time traffic analysis and packet logging.
* Performs protocol analysis and content searching.
* Detects buffer overflows, stealth port scans, and OS fingerprinting attempts.

8. Splunk: Splunk is a paid tool. It makes machine data accessible and usable to everyone.It is a software platform to search, analyze and visualize the machine-generated data gathered from across the components of IT ininfrastructure
Features:
* Delivers operational intelligence to DevOps Team.
* Data drive analytics with actionable insights.
* Delivers a single, unified view of various IT services.
* You can extend the Splunk platform with purpose-built solutions for security.

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