Hi,

Thanks for the replies guys.

Our budget is roughly max to $100k. That includes hardware and software.

I'll have a look at the HP products.

We are looking for a product that can monitor the following:

WAN Links, Routers, Switch, VG224/248, Voice Server (mention above), Critical PCs and MPLS routers

Right now, all our gear is base on Cisco, we run CallManager 4.2.1 and Unity 40(5) using HP Proliant DL380 using OS WIN2K.

Please, if you have any recommendation, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

So your minimim specifications would be critical IP devices, routers, switches and MPLS routers.

How many total nodes do you want to watch (remember to multiply your devices by about 1.8 for roughly 18 months worth of expansion unless you've got a better growth rate factor) ?

So far Ciscoworks LMS 3.0 on Windows or Solaris would fit that budget.

Hi,

I had a look at the Ciscoworks LMS 3.0 on Windows and this may be a candidate.

Our network is base on hub and spoke here in Sydney CBD. We have networks throughout Australia states/ter, Asia, Japan, Europe and Middle East total to 100 networks all over the world. There is around about 20 devices per site that we need to monitor (mix of Cisco gear and HP proliant running Windows 2k or 2k3).

For the Cisco gear, we want to monitor CPU, Temp, Syslog, E1 controllers which im sure the CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution will cover this. I havent read much about the HP OVO yet, obviously this is for the WAN links (which is why you recommended it).

The HP OVO was brough up because of its syslog encapsulator/parser which is vendor neutral so it can cover your servers as well as the network devices. But its not inexpensive or man hour sparse to maintain.

So we're talking about some 200 network and server devices devices (rough count). A Ciscoworks LMS 3.01 300 device licence should do you well.

To monitor the enviromentals you mention (CPU, Temp, Syslog, E1 controllers) there are a couple of different parts of LMS 3.01 that can do this: Device Fault Manager (DFM) and Health and Utilization Manager (HUM). Syslog isnt a problem for the Cisco devices, Resource Manager Essentials has that covered. There are sufficient access levels so that you can share the system with those who need to employ it without giving away the cow.

Given your deployments size and homogenaity I would suggest that you also look at HP's System Center Essentials (SCE) with HP ProLiant Server and BladeSystem Management Packs.

I dont think that any one single product is going to give you what you really need to support it without dedicated headcount, but the combination of these two products should give you sufficent managability to succeed. Both of these products cover hardware and software out of the box.

Hi there,

Critical devices also includes our Voice servers running on Win2K or Win2K3 with CallManager and Unity. With this voice servers, we want to manage/monitor the connectivity, cpu, disk drive capacity and if possible know the running services and what is in event viewer.

So far, the Cisco gear are almost covered. Im in the process of reading up your recommendations.

The freeware network monitoring software offerings are getting better. You could take a look at Spiceworks <http://spiceworks.com/> and PT360 from PacketTrap <http://packettrap.com/>. I like PT360 so far but I am still evaluating.

If you want to spend money, I hear good things about the latest version of What's up Gold Pro and you could also take a look at Nimbus for a more expensive option but within budget.