• Insights

A Tool to Monitor Network Devices Effectively

Eric Christiansen

2 min read

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Monitoring network devices and other non-Windows systems has always been a tricky affair.  There are many solutions out there but we were looking for something specific. We needed a solution that can support our many clients (multi-tenant), is able to integrate with our Professional Services Application, ConnectWise, and isn’t exorbitantly expensive.

We tested out several solutions and found that Auvik fit all of our needs. Auvik is a cloud based monitoring solution.  All administration is done via a web interface and the actual monitoring is done via virtual appliances at each physical client location. Auvik not only does SNMP monitoring, but can also monitor VMware servers via direct integration, Windows systems via WMI, and can also back up and track changes of switch and firewall configurations.

Auvik is also easy for us to implement at a client.  We load the virtual appliance into the client’s network and it scans its local subnet.  As it finds network devices, it prompts you for admin credentials.  As it finds new network segments, it asks you if you want to scan them.  Before you know it, you’re monitoring the entire network.

KKAuvik

As the scanning progresses, a live network diagram is built in the web interface.  You can see the physical and logical connections between devices, which is especially helpful for us when on-boarding a new managed services client.  As soon as a device is detected, the monitoring begins. Auvik is integrated with our ticketing system, so any generated alerts become a ticket for us to address.  Another nice feature is being able to remotely manage a switch via a tunneled telnet or ssh connection.  Very handy as we don’t need to connect to a local system first in order to manage a network device.  We’ve also given some of our clients access to view their own networks, which they have found to be tremendously useful.

Auvik is just one of the many tools that we use to monitor and manage our clients.  It provides us much better visibility into our client networks and aids in our troubleshooting process.  We’ve been using Auvik for a few months so far. Considering its rich set of features and ease of use, we’ll probably be using it for quite some time.