Nov 01, 2019 If you do decide to go the free/open-source route, you should check out the following. It’s our list of the best free network monitoring tools available today. Nagios ® is the great-grand-daddy of monitoring tools, with only ping being more ubiquitous in some circles. Oct 22, 2019 Download Apcupsd UPS control software for free. Apcupsd is a program for monitoring UPSes and performing a graceful computer shutdown in the event of a power failure. It runs on Linux, Mac OS/X, Win32, BSD, Solaris, and other OSes. The free GeekTool app lets users display bits of information on a Mac desktop. Users can monitor MacOS X activity with /var/log/system.log or other files, for example, or launch custom scripts.
Keeping track of everything happening on your operating systems may sound daunting, but the right software allows you to monitor and manage every element and layer of your IT environment. Managing large enterprises and systems means sometimes things just get overloaded and fail. It’s impossible to prevent errors or issues, but you can keep a close eye on your network to troubleshoot as efficiently as possible.
Many businesses provide a guaranteed uptime to their customers and maintaining this isn’t just a matter of keeping promises. Businesses unable to meet their service-level agreements or keep things running smoothly can suffer lost trust from customers, lost revenue, and lost contracts if a customer has a bad experience.
Using an effective and comprehensive tool with good reporting features, alerting abilities, and uptime trackers will help you ensure service levels are met most of the time, and problems don’t affect your end users. By checking measurements constantly and preventing smaller problems from getting out of control, operating system monitoring tools go a long way toward minimizing overall failures and shutdowns of IT environments.
What Operating Systems Should Be Monitored?
You might be dealing with several operating systems in your enterprise, and most have tools purpose-built for monitoring them. When it comes to matching your OS with system monitoring software, Linux, Windows, Mac, and Unix each benefit from a range of options. If you’re using a more obscure operating system, you might not have appropriate tools at your disposal.
You’ll likely have luck finding a high-quality, enterprise-level OS monitor if you’re using one of the following systems:
- Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10
- Windows Server 2008, Server 2012, Server 2016
- Windows Management Instrumentation
- Mac Os X
- Unix
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu Server, Debian, and Fedora
What Should an OS Monitor Measure?
Before you install operating system monitoring software, you need to have a clear idea of the metrics you can and should monitor. These can give you key clues about the performance and health of your system.
- CPU utilization: Depending on which processes are running, your CPU consumption will be higher or lower: a lot of process means a lot of CPU use. If a process has an error and ends up in a hung state, it’ll keep running even when you think you’ve closed the related program. This can keep the CPU running unexpectedly, or could increase CPU usage past a typical point, leading to overheating.
- Network performance: Various aspects of your network can impact operating system performance for end users. This includes faulty network hardware, viruses or malware in the network, incorrect configurations, and protocol overloads or failures. If network bandwidth is high, this can affect all your network traffic and may cause applications or systems to run slowly.
- Memory: If you’re using too much memory at one time, it can affect your operating system, with performance issues or crashes causing major problems.
- Disk drives: If the physical disks you’re accessing for storage are too full, you can end up with high response times whenever you try to retrieve or save data. This can have a big impact on how all of your applications work (read more about checking hard drive health here).
- Events: With all operating systems, you need to monitor event logs, as this is a major factor in keeping your network and infrastructure secure. Unusual event logs or a sudden spike in logs can indicate an error or a network breach.
- OS services: For all operating systems, critical services run in the background—e.g., Windows Active Directory. If one of these services malfunctions or stops working, your whole operating system can stop working as expected.
OS Monitoring Best Practices
Before you start monitoring your operating systems, you need to ensure you have a clear understanding of the best practices involved. You could use the highest-quality OS tools in the world and still not get much out of them if you were using them incorrectly or weren’t monitoring the relevant metrics.
Below are eight key best practices to follow:
- Test configuration and rollout. Before you set up your monitoring system for your entire business, you need to test your configuration on a small number of devices to make sure everything is operating correctly. Have a set rollout process, during which you test changes and problems to see how the monitoring software reacts. Once you feel certain the tool is working as expected and is configured correctly, you can go ahead and roll it out business-wide.
- Set baselines. Once you have your software set up, you need to monitor your systems to set baselines. Assuming no incidents during this time, the measurements you get will likely serve as a clear and accurate baseline for general operating system behavior. You can use these baselines later to detect security or OS health issues.
- Commit to constant monitoring. To get accurate measurements and spot problems clearly and quickly, you need to be monitoring your operating systems constantly. This will help you identify issues as they arise and build a bigger picture of more complex issues, such as potential blind SQL injections or DDoS attacks.
- Implement comprehensive security. The next step is to ensure your system monitoring software is set up as part of a larger, comprehensive security approach. This should include firewalls, network protection, and anti-malware software. OS monitoring software can form part of a system for security, but generally you should have other tools set up too.
- Set up alerts. Your alerts should be set up to focus on the main problems that are likely risks to your business and major hardware issues or declines in OS or hardware health. You can also obtain lists and repositories of common viruses and malware and set up alerts if your system shows any indicators of these issues. Configure OS tools to alert you only to the most necessary data to avoid being overwhelmed.
- Have an escalation plan. Within your business, you need to have escalation processes in place to pass issues on to the relevant people. This boosts the productivity of your team and stops your end users needing to go through an entire chain of people who cannot help them before their problem is solved.
- Complete audits and reports. If you deal with any sensitive data your users access through your operating systems or servers, you need to regularly complete compliance audits to ensure everything is operating as expected. In addition, you should be examining reports from your software regularly to check your configuration is correct, and you haven’t missed any vital alerts.
- Conduct regular reviews. Finally, your configuration, data collection, and monitoring setup should be reviewed frequently, to ensure it’s still working in the most suitable way for your business plans, your risk factors, and your needs.
Best System Monitoring Software
Now I’ll get into my picks for the best monitor program. In operating system contexts in 2020, you need something comprehensive to ensure hybrid infrastructures and complex networks are completely covered. Most of the OS tools on my list provide free trials, so you can try a few to determine which one best suits your needs.
This guide focuses on helping you to identify the best Windows system monitor tool. If you need Mac system monitoring tools, some of these are compatible, while others are Linux or Windows only.
My top choice for operating system monitoring software is SolarWinds® Server & Application Monitor (SAM). In monitoring servers and applications, SAM looks at the metrics discussed above as factors with an impact on an operating system’s ability to function.
For example, SAM can monitor Windows and Unix servers and their physical health, including checking on disk capacity, measuring CPU utilization, and checking whether there’s sufficient virtual memory for the tasks you’re trying to perform. When tracked, these physical metrics can give clues as to why your workstation or server operating system may not be functioning as expected. Especially with historical data, you can more easily see when something is operating outside normal boundaries and resolve it quickly.
SAM includes specific measuring tools and templates for looking at Windows performance, such as page file usage, processor time, pages per second, and disk queue length. This makes it possible to spot rogue processes and stop them before they affect productivity too much. In addition, it can monitor Windows network load balancing, print service, remote desktop service, FTP service, and update service.
SAM’s hardware health monitoring utilities are also robust. They can look at the drivers and firmware you have installed and check hard drive performance, hosted virtual machines, network interfaces, processors, what version of Windows you’re running, and which updates have been applied. Moreover, SAM helps you determine whether system slowdowns are stemming from one greedy or malfunctioning application, or whether the issue originates in your network infrastructure.
Windows is just one of the operating systems SAM can monitor. The tool also includes out-of-the-box templates for Unix and AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX environments. In addition, it has templates for managing various Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Ubuntu Server, Debian, and Fedora. With this kind of broad applicability, you can use SAM for numerous operating systems, including networks or environments with different operating systems for different tasks. All this information can be displayed in one easy-to-use dashboard, with multiple tabs for switching between different pieces of relevant information.
You can try the full version of SAM free for 30 days.
Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is another great tool from SolarWinds. Any of the devices connected to your network need to be monitored by a network monitoring tool, because what you might think is a problem with your operating system or physical hardware could be a problem with bandwidth or a network slowdown—especially if you use centralized file storage systems accessed through a LAN or WAN. SolarWinds NPM can map your entire network, including all your devices and application dependencies, and provide you with a clear picture of your network topology. This can help you understand how one device can affect another, along with your risk factors if one device or operating system becomes infected with malware.
NPM includes LAN and WAN monitoring and optimization tools to ensure everything is functioning properly, and to help you improve your setup if something isn’t running as well as it could. It includes network uptime and availability tools, so you can pinpoint network spikes and preempt them if necessary. By continuously monitoring all network devices for faults, availability, and performance, you can improve troubleshooting efforts and set alerts to trigger when performance thresholds are met. When troubleshooting an issue for an end user, you want answers fast, and ideally before productivity goes down. These availability tools enable you to quickly determine whether network problems are behind the issue at hand.
Other key features include Wi-Fi analysis, which helps determine whether a device is simply in a low-access zone or whether there are critical issues with Wi-Fi devices, firewalls, or load balancers in your network. Many SolarWinds tools are part of the Orion® Platform, and as such can be used individually or in conjunction with each other. This allows you to mix and match as necessary or choose only the most critical tools to your setup. In combination with other tools, NPM can help you gain a full picture of your operating system and IT environment health, performance, and availability.
Like SAM, NPM has a 30-day free trial available.
ManageEngine OpManager brings together a range of features in one package. It includes network monitoring, server management, and tools for dealing with fault and performance issues.
Tracking server resource usage can reveal the source of problems within your operating system. OpManager can keep tabs on your CPU usage, memory consumption, I/O, network, disk usage, and processes, to determine where physical health issues lie. Within CPU usage, for example, it can measure utilization, speed, idle time, and processor time. In addition, OpManager monitors Windows services to check everything is functioning correctly, with a significant amount of this monitoring done out-of-the-box. It processes Windows event logs to check for security breaches, and monitors guest operating systems hosted virtually to ensure they’re functioning correctly.
OpManager, like SolarWinds NPM, includes network monitoring tools for determining whether poor operating system performance is the result of bandwidth or network component issues. It also monitors your WAN and LAN closely to check for network performance issues and reliability. Each of these metrics can be measured over the long term to set historical benchmarks, and you can establish alerts to let you know when an issue has occurred.
Several add-ons and plugins are available for use with OpManager, including plugins for network traffic analysis, network configuration, application performance management, and firewall management.
You can access a free trial of OpManager for 30 days, or you can download the free version with limited features.
The next tool on my list is Paessler PRTG. It has several user interfaces, including the desktop app, a web interface, and apps for both iOS and Android. This means you can access the PRTG features wherever you are, and you can also use multiple interfaces simultaneously.
PRTG has flexible and easy-to-use alerting you can use through your normal client, or through SMS and email if you prefer. You can schedule alerts and set up systems, so you receive high-priority alerts at your preferred times. If you don’t want to receive floods of alerts when an issue occurs, dependencies and acknowledging can be used to streamline the alerting system.
One of the cool things about PRTG is its interactive and good-looking graphics and maps, as well as various dashboards to show live status information. You can create maps of your entire network and all your devices with the tool’s map designer. The map designer also allows you to use various map objects to display the status of devices, so you can get a full picture of your network layout and health.
You can use PRTG for distributed networks, with the ability to apply remote probes in different geographic locations. You can also spread the monitoring load by spreading probes out as much as you like. PRTG comes with a set of reporting capabilities, and you can request reports on demand or be provided with regular reports depending on your needs.
PRTG offers a 30-day free trial.
Quest Foglight is another good example of OS monitoring software. It provides monitoring across physical, virtual, and cloud environments, with the aim of serving as a complete monitoring service. It can monitor physical operating systems and virtual ones, and can help monitor VMware, Hyper-V, Azure, and AWS along with physical servers and the operating systems they use.
There are multiple versions of Foglight. Which one you choose will depend on whether you want to primarily monitor cloud environments with virtual desktops or you’re looking more at a server or database monitoring solution. Whether you use Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Cassandra, Foglight can provide monitoring and performance optimization. It keeps an eye on every application, database, network device, and server tied in to your operating systems and shows you performance metrics for your entire IT environment in a centralized location with multiple dashboards.
Like other tools, Foglight measures storage capacity trends, top I/O users, memory availability and consumption, top system users, and CPU utilization. Keeping track of these metrics helps ensure your operating systems and hosts are under control and problems are spotted as early as possible.
Foglight is available as a 30-day free trial.
The final tool I want to talk about is Nagios XI. Nagios has a powerful engine designed for IT infrastructure and systems monitoring, with a high degree of scalability as your network grows. It provides several dashboards, with centralized information, so you can get a clear overview of your entire system at a glance. You can highly customize the GUI with mix-and-match layout and design preferences on a per-user basis, which helps make this tool your own.
Nagios includes infrastructure management and mapping, giving you a clear picture of network connections and dependencies potentially affecting the performance of any individual workstation or device. It also carefully monitors infrastructure metrics pertaining to applications, services, operating systems, and network protocols.
Nagios XI offers a free trial, good for 60 days. You can also access an online demo.
How to Choose the Best System Monitoring Software
There’s no shortage of good-quality operating system monitoring software on the market in 2020. Hopefully after reading this guide, you’re equipped to make an informed decision, accounting for your operating system and organizational priorities. My top pick is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor. It provides a quick and easy setup for many useful features, which together enable you to consistently and comprehensively monitor your operating systems and troubleshoot issues well before they affect your end users. By taking advantage of the free trial, you can test the full software to see if it works for you.
Related Posts
The realm of Network Monitoring Tools, Software and Vendors is Huge, to say the least. New software, tools and utilities are being launched almost every year to compete in an ever changing marketplace of IT monitoring and server monitoring.
We've now in the new decade and as we're looking into 2020, you absolutely need a solution that fits all your criteria!
We've gone through as many tools as we could find and rounded up the best ones in easy to read format and highlighted their main strengths and why we think they are in the top class of tools to use in your IT infrastructure and business.
Some of the features we are looking for are Uptime/Downtime indicators, along with a robust and thorough alerting systems (via Email/SMS), custom templates and thresholds, Netflow and SNMP Integration, Automatic Network Topology Discovery and Mapping functionality, and much more.
The features from above were all major points of interest when evaluating software suites for this article and we'll try to keep this article as updated as possible with new feature sets and improvements as they are released, as newer versions of the tools below will likely be released throughout the years.
Here's a List of Top Network Monitoring Tools and Software of 2020:
Below you'll find an Updated list of the Latest Tools & Software to ensure your network is continuously tracked and monitored at all times of the day to ensure the highest up-times possible. Most of them have free Downloads or Trials to get you started for 15 to 30 days to ensure it meets your requirements.
1. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is easy to setup and can be ready in no time. The tool automatically discovers network devices and deploys within an hour. Its simple approach to oversee an entire network makes it one of the easiest to use and most intuitive user interfaces.
The product is highly customizable and the interface is easy to manage and change very quickly. You can customize the web-based performance dashboards, charts, and views. You can design a tailored topology for your entire network infrastructure. You can also create customized dependency-aware intelligent alerts and much more.
The software is sold by separate modules based on what you use. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Price starts from $1,995 and is a one-time license including 1st-year maintenance.
Solarwinds NPM has an Extensive Feature list that make it One of the Best Choices for Network Monitoring, including:
- Automatically Network Discovery and Scanning for Wired and Wifi Computers and Devices
- Support for Wide Array of OEM Vendors
- Forecast and Capacity Planning
- Quickly Pinpoint Issues with Network Performance with NetPath™ Critical Path visualization feature
- Easy to Use Performance Dashboard to Analyze Critical Data points and paths across your network
- Robust Alerting System with options for Simple/Complex Triggers
- Monitor CISCO ASA networks with their New Network Insight™ for CISCO ASA.
- Monitor ACL‘s, VPN, Interface and Monitor on your Cisco ASA
- Monitor Firewall rules through Firewall Rules Browser
- Hop by Hop Analysis of Critical Network Paths and Components
- Automatically Discover Networks and Map them along with Topology Views
- Manage, Monitor and Analyze Wifi Networks within the Dashboard
- Create HeatMaps of Wifi Networks to pin-point Wifi Dead Spots
- Monitor Hardware Health of all Servers, Firewalls, Routers, Switches, Desktops, laptops and more.
- Real-Time Network and Netflow Monitoring for Critical Network Components and Devices
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2. PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler
PRTG Network Monitor software is commonly known for its advanced infrastructure management capabilities. All devices, systems, traffic, and applications in your network can be easily displayed in a hierarchical view that summarizes performance and alerts. PRTG monitors IT infrastructure using technology such as SNMP, WMI, SSH, Flows/Packet Sniffing, HTTP requests, REST APIs, Pings, SQL and a lot more.
It is one of the best choices for organizations with low experience in network monitoring. The user interface is really powerful and very easy to use.
A very particular feature of PRTG is its ability to monitor devices in the datacenter with a mobile app. A QR code that corresponds to the sensor is printed out and attached to the physical hardware. The mobile app is used to scan the code and a summary of the device is displayed on the mobile screen.
PRTG has a very flexible pricing plan, to get an idea visit their official pricing webpage below.
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3. ManageEngine OpManager
At its core, ManageEngine OpManager is an infrastructure management, network monitoring and Application Performance Management “APM” (with APM plug-in) software.
The product is well balanced when it comes to monitoring and analysis features.
The product is well balanced when it comes to monitoring and analysis features.
The solution can manage your network, servers, network configuration and fault & performance; It can also analyze your network traffic. To run Manage Engine OpManager, it must be installed on-premises.
A highlight of this product is that it comes with pre-configured network monitor device templates. These contain pre-defined monitoring parameters and intervals for specific device types.
The essential edition product can be purchased for $595 which allows up to 25 devices.
The essential edition product can be purchased for $595 which allows up to 25 devices.
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4. WhatsUp Gold 2017
WhatsUp Gold (WUG) is a network monitoring software from Ipswitch. It is one of the easiest to use and highly configurable tools in the market. The dashboards are user-friendly and visually attractive.
For daily IT management, WhatsUp Gold is a price/feature balanced network monitoring tool. It is also completely customizable. Dashboards can be customized to display your IT infrastructure and alerts to fit your requirements.
The highlights of the newest 2017 Plus version are hybrid cloud monitoring, real-time performance monitoring, automatic and manual failover and extended visibility to distributed networks.
WhatsUp Gold is limited for Windows OS support. This software comes with different pricing plans to adjust to your network and wallet. Compare different editions in their official website and ask for a price quote.
WhatsUp Gold is limited for Windows OS support. This software comes with different pricing plans to adjust to your network and wallet. Compare different editions in their official website and ask for a price quote.
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5. Nagios XI
Nagios XI is aimed at a wide audience, from freelancers, SMBs (Small-to-Medium-Business), to large corporations. This makes Nagios’s XI pricing model one of the most flexible. They have a free version, open-source, one-time license and subscription. It is one of the few tools that allows an extreme flexibility (because of its adaptability to plug-ins) on what’s being monitored and alerted for a low cost.
Nagios XI focuses on monitoring. The key IT components that Nagios XI monitors are Network, Infrastructure, and Database. Although the software is easy to install, it will initially take some time to adjust to your requirements. This is because Nagios XI does not auto-discover devices. You have to configure each device that needs to be monitored with a configuration file.
Standard paid edition starts from $1,995 for 100 nodes. Nagios XI is supported only by Linux (or UNIX variants) OS.
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6. Zabbix
Zabbix is an open source monitoring tool. It is popular for its easy-to-use and pleasing Web GUI that is fully configurable. Zabbix focuses on monitoring and trending functionality. This software is frequently used for monitoring servers and network hardware. One of the highlights of Zabbix is that it can predict trends in your traffic. Zabbix can forecast future behavior based on historical data.
Since it is open source, it has an active user community spread around the world and good documentation. Zabbix gives the freedom to use the open-source solution without vendor lock-ins (including all components).
Zabbix is powerful for SMB networks below 1,000 nodes. Over that, the software can get slower and its performance decreased. Another disadvantage is that it doesn’t include real-time tests and reports.
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7. Incinga
It is another open source infrastructure and service monitoring tool. Icinga was developed in 2009 by the same team of developers that brought you Nagios.
It is a very easy to use and flexible tool for SMB and enterprise networks. The software focuses strongly on monitoring infrastructure and services. The tool also includes great threshold analysis and report/alert functionalities.
It is a very easy to use and flexible tool for SMB and enterprise networks. The software focuses strongly on monitoring infrastructure and services. The tool also includes great threshold analysis and report/alert functionalities.
Icinga is popular at providing superior alters and reports of the general health of your IT infrastructure. All alert dependencies can be displayed in the dashboard and sent via email, SMS or mobile message applications.
Since Icinga is open source it is completely free. With its strong community forum, you can get all support you need.
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8. Datadog
It is a monitoring service specially designed for hybrid cloud environments. Datadog can also monitor the performance of network, apps, tools, and services.
One of the highlights of Datadog is that it can provide extensibility though many APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) with very good documentation.
The software is very easy to install and can be up and running in on time. To make it easy, agents can download and install the software. The agents are available for various different platforms such as Windows, Mac OS, Several Linux distributions, Docker, Chef, Puppet, etc.
You can create custom graphs, metrics, and alerts in an instant, and the software can adjust them dynamically based on different conditions. Datadog prices start from free (up to five hosts), Pro $15/per host, per month and Enterprise $23 /per host, per month.
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9. ConnectWise Automate
Formerly known as Labtech, ConnectWise Automate is a new cloud-based manager and monitoring solution that can keep track of your IT infrastructure devices from a single location.
ConnectWise Automate discovers all devices in your network so they can be monitored proactively. The network visibility is improved because the tool interprets problems and initiates an automatic pre-defined action to mitigate the issue.
ConnectWise Automate discovers all devices in your network so they can be monitored proactively. The network visibility is improved because the tool interprets problems and initiates an automatic pre-defined action to mitigate the issue.
A cool feature of this software is the “Patch Management”, as it allows you to protect all your systems with simultaneous patching from a centralized manager. Use Windows Patch management or third-party software.
By extending the ConnectWise suite, the software can also allow a premier remote control. You can resolve issues quickly by allowing remote support, remote access and even remote meetings.
ConnectWise Automate is aimed at SMBs. The price of the software is based on quotes. You can get a price on their official site tailored accordingly to the size of your network.
ConnectWise Automate is aimed at SMBs. The price of the software is based on quotes. You can get a price on their official site tailored accordingly to the size of your network.
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10. Logic Monitor
LogicMonitor is an automated SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) IT performance monitoring tool. With LogicMonitor you can get full visibility of the performance and health of your network.
This software will automatically discover IT infrastructure devices and monitor them proactively. Besides from extraordinary monitoring capabilites, the software also improves the performance and health of your network. LogicMonitor can help identify incoming issues by providing predictive alters and trend analysis.
This software will automatically discover IT infrastructure devices and monitor them proactively. Besides from extraordinary monitoring capabilites, the software also improves the performance and health of your network. LogicMonitor can help identify incoming issues by providing predictive alters and trend analysis.
Logic Monitor is popular because it comes with a highly customizable dashboard, alerts, and reports. The software supports over 1000 different technologies, including hybrid cloud and networking devices, in order to provide granular performance metrics.
To get a price you can request a quote from LogicMonitor’s official pricing site.
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11. OP5 Monitor
Free Network Monitoring Software For Mac Os X El Capitan
OP5 Monitor is OP5’s Enterprise level monitoring solution. With OP5 Monitor you can monitor applications, networks, servers and storage, regardless of location, whether that’s on-premise, hybrid or in a private/public cloud.
OP5 Monitor is also Nagios compatible, meaning that it’s easy to migrate from Nagios and re-use existing agents and plugins.
Key features include:
- Unified Dashboard – Fully customizable and interactive dashboards
- Scalability- Unparalleled Scalability across Distributed Environments
- Automation – Endless Possibilities To Automate
- API- Developer Friendly Interface
- SNMP Traps – Read, process and generate alerts from SNMP traps
- Reporting – Custom, SLA- reports and availability reports.
download free, software For Mac
OP5 Monitor is free for up to 20 devices, and has a pricing plan based on your specific requirements.
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