NetVigil Sees All

NetVigil comes with two ready-to-use accounts. The local user/administrator account enables NetVigil's daily operation. The super user account lets you change sitewide thresholds and privileges, and create containers. Separating devices into containers makes it easy and intuitive to sort out business groups and view information and statistics on each device. As the super user, I created a few administrator roles for the system and set up separate containers to hold routers, switches, as well as Unix, Windows and wireless devices.

Inside the GUI

Interface click to enlarge

When system admins log on, they are greeted with an easy-to-use Web interface, which lists the devices being monitored and provides menus that lead to device status, reports and management options. To populate the system with devices to monitor, I used NetVigil's autodiscovery feature--a time-consuming procedure that involved working through a command line. First I created a file of SNMP community strings and a file of devices I wanted to discover. Then I ran a discovery script file that parses through the files and searches for devices to populate the Web interface.

If autodiscovery isn't your thing, you can add individual devices to be managed within the Manage section of the Web interface. Simply provide the device name, IP address and SNMP community string. NetVigil has 12 tests--including those for SNMP, ping, port, RADIUS--that discover which services are running. For example, after doing an SNMP discovery on an Alteon switch or other infrastructure device, NetVigil set up monitor categories for interface utilization and interface bytes received. Interval polling schedule and thresholds can be changed in the same menu if necessary. Additionally, NetVigil can create custom tests for almost any computing situation using regular expressions.

WLAN Monitoring