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Ensuring the security of your network infrastructure is critical for all organizations, and this requires going beyond traditional network monitoring and incorporating the monitoring of network devices, such as routers, switches, and other network devices. Whilst network monitoring includes the monitoring of devices, dedicated network device monitoring is a more thorough process for guaranteeing the health and performance of your organization's network devices.
Traditional network monitoring techniques involve continuously tracking and examining network performance, traffic, and availability to guarantee smooth operations and highlight potential issues or anomalies. The process encompasses the entire network infrastructure including devices, servers, applications, and services. Whereas network device monitoring specifically focuses on monitoring and managing the health, performance, and configuration of individual network devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls.
For effective network device monitoring, tools are utilized to streamline the process. Network device monitoring tools offer centralized visibility into the health and performance of network devices, allowing your team to proactively manage and maintain your network infrastructure. However, with the extensive variety of network device monitoring tools available, it can be particularly challenging to determine which is the best solution for your organization. So, to assist you with this, in this article we will outline what network device monitoring is and list the leading network device monitoring tools.
Contents
What is Network Device Monitoring?
Network device monitoring is the practice of monitoring and managing the health, performance, and configurations of specific network devices within a network infrastructure. Network devices can include routers, access points, switches, firewalls, and other hardware components that are responsible for facilitating communication and data transfer across the network. Network device monitoring encapsulates key aspects such as health monitoring, performance monitoring configuration management, and fault management.
Network Device Monitoring Tools
With the extensive array of network device monitoring tools on the market, it can easily become a time-consuming and challenging task to decipher the most appropriate tool for your organization. So, this article will outline the leading network device monitoring tools.
Obkio
The first tool included in our list of the leading network device monitoring tools is Obkio. Obkio is a network monitoring solution with extensive network device monitoring features. To utilize the tool for network device monitoring you will need to deploy monitoring agents and then network devices to track the performance of your devices. With Obkio, you can gain from Fast Polling (every 60 seconds) and Ultra-Fast Polling (every 30 seconds), making the results 10x more precise than traditional software polling, which occurs every 5 minutes. As well as this, no technical expertise in SNMP, OIDs, or MIBs, is necessary and servers aren’t needed as data is shipped to the Obkio Cloud and will be available inside the app with automatic OID detection included.
SolarWinds
The next network device monitoring tool is SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor. With this tool, you can track the performance and health of all your network devices. Using SolarWinds NPM enables you to navigate from tracking your complete network infrastructure to deep diving into a selected node in critical status to view device details. As well as this, you can design a network topology map that automatically updates when new devices are added to your network.
Logit.io
Logit.io is a compliant-focused, cost-efficient, and powerful observability platform offering complete network device monitoring alongside application performance monitoring (APM), and metrics management. Enhancing Logit.io’s Network monitoring capabilities to utilize it as a network device monitoring tool is straightforward. Follow the steps in this configuration guide to begin shipping logs from your network device to Logstash. This will enable you to gain from Hosted Prometheus and effectively visualize and monitor the performance and health of your network devices.
N-Able
N-Able offers N-Central RMM that includes network and device management capabilities. The tool states that it delivers RMM capabilities MSPs need to control increasingly complex networks. This network device monitoring tool will automatically discover and manage connected devices. As well as this, you can track all types of network devices like Cisco, Fortinet, HP, Juniper, and SonicWALL, and manage them with Secure Shell (SSH) and automation.
AKIPS
Continuing with our list of the leading network device monitoring tools, next is AKIPS. With AKIPS you can utilize its NetFlow feature to collect flows of records and attain statistics on which devices are communicating with other devices, this feature can scale to 500,000 flows per second. Also, the algorithm locates and adds new devices, as well as updates the configuration of existing devices.
Kentik
Kentik is a network observability and monitoring platform that offers numerous features for network device monitoring. The various types of data from devices are correlated by Kentik and presented in the devices section of the platform. With Kentik you can utilize numerous filters or the search bar to make analysis much faster. As well as this, with Kentiks Device Status, you can highlight and correct issues with the settings or configuration of a device.
ThousandEyes
Another network device monitoring tool is ThousandEyes which enables the tracking of network devices located within your data center or branch office. This functionality allows you to quickly visualize any issues so you can understand their impact on services. As well as this, the tool automatically discovers network infrastructure, gathers diagnostic data, and generates a system topology map of your devices. This allows you to promptly highlight points of failure.
PathSolutions
PathSolutions offers multiple network management and monitoring solutions that can be utilized as an effective network device monitoring tool. With PathSolutions every device on your network and every interface on every device is automatically examined for performance, errors, QoS, and configuration. As well as this, if a configuration change is conducted then the tool will detect this change and instantly perform a backup.
ExtraHop
ExtraHop is a useful network device monitoring tool. With ExtraHop you can select a built-in metric page to visualize top-level device metrics and even drill down to detailed metrics by clicking on a chart. Additionally, the tool will automatically discover and classify devices that are actively communicating across your network, such as clients, servers, routers, load balancers, and gateways.
Datadog
The final network device monitoring tool included in our list is Datadog. Datadog’s solution offers full support for SNMP, NetFlow, Syslog, as well as other data formats, and enables you to conduct monitoring and troubleshooting of routers, firewalls, switches, and other network devices. Datadog’s network device monitoring tool also offers the ability to deep dive into specific devices to see their SNMP Trap history and build monitors on SNMP Trap events so you’re alerted to device issues as soon as they happen.
If you've enjoyed this article why not read The Top 8 Network Monitoring Tools or What is Network Monitoring next?