System and Network Monitoring

System and network Monitoring

INTRODUCTION

As computers have gotten smaller and networks have gotten bigger, most of us have found ourselves worrying about more and more machines and network devices. In the old days, the typical installation of a small number of central servers, a larger number of ASCII terminals, and a few point-to-point serial or network links meant that a lot of system monitoring could be handled by periodic manual inspection or a few shell scripts, cron jobs, and mail messages.

These days, when there seems to be at least one server for each possible function; when everyone has a machine with what used to be thought of as major processing power on their desk; when networks are bigger, more complicated, and smarter; and when everything from modems to printers to soda machines is network-connected, local monitoring just isn't enough. Virtually every site needs some form of distributed or network-based monitoring mechanism, if only to have some ability to keep track of the worst problems.

In this article I'll discuss what monitoring is, along with where and why you might want to use it, typical components of a monitoring system, and some criteria against which to measure different monitoring systems and tools.

This is the first article in a planned series on system and network monitoring. Future articles will examine a variety of monitoring software packages, measure them against the evaluation criteria, and attempt to discuss the pros and cons of each and identify where the software might be most appropriately used. I'll primarily be examining open source and freely available software, but I'll also try to cover some commercial packages.

And, for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with professional concert sound-reinforcement systems, I promise that I'll try to avoid attempting weak puns about asking for more SNMP in the monitors.

What Is Monitoring?

Monitoring is primarily