SNMP Network Monitoring with Real-Time Data Collection
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a standard approach for monitoring any network device. SNMP network monitoring software is generally used to track the status of routers, switches, servers, wireless access points, printers and other IT equipment. Since SNMP monitoring software can be used with anything that has an IP address, we have seen SNMP monitoring software used with environmental probes, ATM machines, cell towers, fuel tanks and other critical assets that are connected, as well. InterMapper continually collects and reports network monitoring data to keep you attuned to actual network behavior in the moment. You’ll fix small problems before they become big outages. InterMapper can:
- Ping any device with an IP address.
- Monitor devices with IPv4 or IPv6 devices.
- Get the state of a device using any protocol: SNMP, TCP, UDP, etc.
- Measure packet loss and response time for all devices.
- Collect traffic statistics and other data retrieved via SNMP.
- Fast and efficient SNMP/ping engine for thousands of devices.
- Default 30-second polling interval displays current information.
- Higher polling rates can detect microbursts of traffic that may signal problems.
- “Instant repoll” allows real-time checks on current conditions.
InterMapper solves a major data collection problem by automatically collecting a wide variety of data from every device it monitors. There’s no additional setup — every test procedure (or “probe”) that InterMapper uses collects response time, packet loss, and availability, at a minimum.
For devices that speak SNMP, InterMapper also collects traffic statistics and error rates for each of the interfaces. This can be easily charted with a single-click — no text configuration files necessary.
InterMapper can monitor virtually any equipment using one of its built-in probes; — software plugins that can retrieve data from a device. These probes are designed to monitor various kinds of equipment, using a variety of techniques to retrieve data from it. For example, the HTTP probe monitors a web server by sending an HTTP GET request to the server and verifying the response; a DNS probe sends a query (A, MX, PTR, NS, etc.) to the server, and checks that the response is the expected value.
Various probes will collect additional statistics: for the HTTP probe, it collects both the time to establish the connection as well as the duration of the entire connection; the DNS probe displays the response time for the DNS response.
Any of the data collected can be easily added to strip charts or saved to an SQL database. This allows you to see trends or changes in behavior that may indicate problems.
Many competitive tools only collect data at five-minute intervals. This is acceptable for long-term trending, but misses the details necessary for actual network operations. InterMapper’s high-performance polling engine can handle thousands of devices at the default 30-second polling interval.
You can even get higher granularity by setting the polling interval to be shorter (down to 1 second if desired) or by triggering another poll manually to get the status of a device at any instant. These faster poll rates will allow you to see small variations in the statistics, detecting micro-bursts of activity that could signal a trouble situation.
InterMapper is fully IPv4 and IPv6 compatible. Every probe collects the same data, whether it’s an IPv4 or IPv6 device.
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