IRJET- Comparative Study on Network Monitoring Tools

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 07 Issue: 04 | Apr 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 299
Comparative Study on Network Monitoring Tools
Vudipi Manohar1
1Student of B. Tech, Computer Science and Engineering, GITAM (Deemed to be University), Visakhapatnam, India
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Abstract – Network monitoring systems serve all major
technology companies around the world. The features of
networks revolve around high performance and reliability.
These are the essential features for systems to monitor and
they become the points of comparison among several
monitoring systems competing with each other in the market.
Therefore, network monitoring systems must be selected
keeping, the requirements of the businesses in mind, which
brings us to this paper. In this paper, the comparisons among
network monitoring systems, which are popular among
network administrators, are shown. The features such as
license, user interface, discovery, distributive monitoring and
plugins compared and analyzed.
Key Words: monitoring system, network monitoring,
comparison, networks, Nagios, Solar Winds, PRTG.
1. INTRODUCTION
We are in the golden age of technology as billions of devices
are connected to the network. We must ensure that these
networks are secure and monitored for safety purposes.
Devices connected to networks haveincreasedfrommillions
to trillions. A network monitoring system is essential in this
scenario for maintaining the network devices. It hasbecome
a necessity for every network irrespective of its size. These
networks require a monitoring system which can provide a
well-defined report on problemssuchasperformanceissues
and bottlenecks.
The aspect of network monitoringhas changedwithsystems,
providing dashboards and graphical interfaces. Network
administrators can monitor large networks with interfaces
from a central location. Network monitoring systems can
generate precise reports onconnectivity andperformance of
devices on the network. Network management and many
other tasks can be performed by a network monitoring
system to provide a robust network with high performance.
Monitoring systems have become the first level of security
for most organizations now, ensuring that the devices
connected are properly working.
1.1 Monitoring
There are several monitoring tools available on the market.
These tools can be classified based on the scale of the
organization they cater to, such as small and medium
businesses to large enterprises. Small and medium
businesses need a system which is easy to deploy and
maintain due to their organizational constraints. These
cannot maintain complex monitoring systems. The
enterprises, on the other hand, need a comprehensive and
scalable variant of systems which they could customize
based on their needs. Some of the popular ones with small
and medium businesses are PRTG Network Monitor, Nagios
Core and one of the comprehensive enterprise tools is
SolarWinds.
1.2 Open Source and Proprietary Systems
The concept of open-source is revolutionary, and several
companies are benefiting from them. The availability of
source code is an advantage for security. The code which is
not secure could be modified to achieve a secureapplication.
The end product could be made better in many ways when
the developers have the source code to build on. In network
monitoring, open-source applications are well built. They
have also provided a base for any modifications for the
future. This system has some concerns as anybody could
analyse the code and cause problems to systems, thus
reducing the reliability of the system.
The concept of proprietary systems in network monitoring
provides security through non-availability. The source code
is not available, ensuring that no other system or entity
could modify the code and cause problems. These systems
are updated regularly, keeping in mind the latest exploits in
the monitoring systems. The concept can be applied to open
source systems such as Nagios Core. This open-source
system is updated regularly and maintained to provide the
same security as proprietary systems. Observations led to
the conclusion that whileopensourcemakescodevisible,we
have found that source visibility does little to increase the
security risks posed to a given project, in most cases [1].
2. MONITORING TOOLS
2.1 Nagios
Nagios is a monitoring system for computer networks and
has an open-source license. Nagios is known for being the
best server monitoring software on the market. It operates
on the Linux environment and is platform-independent in
terms of a monitoring system. It can monitor several
resources such as application, network and server and can
provide reports. Server monitoring can be agent-based and
agentless, and Nagios provides this flexibility. It has a web
interface containing all the real-time information being
presented in the form of graphs and grouped based on the
network [2].

Nagios provides monitoring of network services like HTTP,
ICMP, SNMP, FTP, SSH. It also monitors resources of hosts
such as processor load, their disk usage and system logs. It
can also monitor hardware like IoT devicesandsensorswith
the help of plugins which are written specifically for those
devices. The monitoring system can generate reports forthe
data collected through monitoring, and it uses Round Robin
Database to store the data. Nagios can send notifications in
the form of email, SMS or through any user-defined method.
2.2 PRTG Network Monitor
Paessler Router Traffic Grapher Network Monitor is a
network monitoring software with an open source license.
The monitor can auto-discover hosts on the network, which
helps to identify all the devices connected to the network. It
also has a web interface which helps for real-time
troubleshooting. This open-sourceversionhasmonitoringof
100 integrated sensors.
This system is capable of monitoring bandwidth usage and
uptime of connected devices and collects statistics from
switches, routers, servers and other devices. The system
uses a variety of communication protocols such as Ping,
SNMP, NetFlow. The expansion of this system with a higher
capacity which requires more sensors is not an open-source
system which is a limitation the system possesses.
2.3 Solar Winds
SolarWinds is a system whichhasa simplesetuptoconfigure
and deploy. This tool has a user-friendly interface with
automatic network discovery. It is one of the easiest to use
the system. It shows all devices, applications, networks, and
vendors in single-page path analysis. It is useful to create
more signal and less noise to quickly isolate network
slowdowns.
SolarWinds Network Monitor has multi-vendor network
monitoring for fault, performance, and availability. The
Server and Application Monitor can monitor across private,
public and hybrid cloud environments. It has a Database
Performance Analyzer for optimization, a Network
Bandwidth Analyzer for customizable traffic reports and a
Security Event Manager to normalize log data to spot
incidents.
This system is modular with separate products for
monitoring networks and servers. Network Performance
Monitor is made especially for networks and for server
monitoring, there is Server and Application Monitor. The
limitation of this system is that every module has to be
bought and maintained separately.
3. METHODOLOGY
The research follows a qualitative approach to suggest the
differences between open-source network monitoring tools
and the proprietary tools on the market and produces
empirical results. The different kinds of research performed
by other researchers have been taken into consideration
while comparing these tools. The focus is not only on the
tools but also on the pricing, which is a major factor in
several studies which have compared tools. With the
comparison of the tools taking in several factors related to
the monitoring systems, this research is a comprehensive
study to bring out a suitable monitoring system to be
deployed. This research concludes with the selection of a
system which is easy to use and is cost-effective for a
user/organization.
4. COMPARISON OF TOOLS
The network monitoring tools are compared based on
several factors which define the suitabilityofthesystems for
given businesses. The factors include automatic discovery,
classification, performance monitoring, security
management, alerts, scalability [3].
The comparison of the systems is shown individually in the
form of tables given below, starting with the licensing and
pricing of the systems. The license and price of the
monitoring system are the factors which lead to cost-
effective setups.
Table -1: Licensing and Pricing
Comparison of License and Pricing
Tool License Pricing
Nagios
GNU General
Public License
version 2
Free (Core
version)
Paid (XI version)
PRTG Network
Monitor
Perpetual
License
Free (Until 100
sensors)
Paid (+100
sensors)
SolarWinds
Perpetual
License and
Yearly License
Paid
Discovery and performance monitoring are important for
large businesses. The comparison of these features is
available in the table below. Table-2comparesthediscovery,
storage, configuration and classification features which are
the main components of the monitoring system.
Table -2: Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Performance Monitoring
Tool Discovery
Logical
Groupi
ng
Configur
ation [4] Storage

Nagios
Manual
(Core)
Auto (XI)
Yes [5]
Text
Files
Flat File, SQL
PRTG
Network
Monitor
Auto Yes [5]
Web
Interface
SQL
Database
(Logs)
Flat File
(Monitoring)
Solar
Winds
Separate
Module
for Auto
Discovery
Yes [5]
Web
Interface
and
Separate
Module
SQL (Orion
Database)
A network monitoring system should be scalable to
accommodate the changes which occur in a business. There
should be a support system in place to ensure that changes
in the system do not cause any errors. Table-3 gives
comparisons among these systems based on scalability and
support.
Table -3: Scalability and Support
Comparison of Scalability and Support
Tool Scalability Support
Nagios
Yes (Not effective
for large
businesses)
Paid Phone
Support
Support Forums
PRTG Network
Monitor
Yes (Paid)
User Support
Script Support
Training Courses
SolarWinds Yes
24/7 User
Support
Technical
Support (Mail
and Phone)
5. OBSERVATIONS
There are some observations made after comparing these
network monitoring systems. These observations point out
the differences in these systems and provide the suitability
of systems to particular businesses.
The observations made are as follows,
- PRTG Network Monitor is free and based on the
expansion of the business could be scaled to meet
the demands.
- Nagios is free and provides only a base for the
network monitoring system to be built on by the
end-user.
- SolarWinds has a high price pointforsmall business
owners. The cost of maintaining the system is high,
hence requiring lots of employees. Large
organizations can maintain these systems designed
for modularity.
The observations point outthatsmall businessescouldmove
towards PRTG network monitor, making it easy for them to
monitor their limited devices for free and expanding if
necessary. The feature of the web interface helps these
businesses to maintain the system effectively.
Nagios provides a platform for the development of a
customized network monitoring system. The small
businesses can use the plugins as addons in Nagios to
customize it.
SolarWinds is entirely modular, making it difficult for small
businesses to buy each module and maintain it. SolarWinds
is for large businesses with individual functions. The
modules necessary for a particular function can be
purchased and deployed.
6. CONCLUSION
This paper compared three network monitoring systems
which are popular in their aspect. The suitability of the
system, for small businesses and large organizations, has
been presented. The tools compared are robust in
monitoring systems these days. The differences in these
tools have brought out the limitations and advantages of
each of them. The importance, of pricing and open source, is
also presented in the paper henceleadingtothesuitabilityof
these systems for particular organizations.
REFERENCES
[1] Clarke, Russell, David Dorwin, and Rob Nash. "Is open
source software more secure?." Homeland
Security/Cyber Security, 2009.
[2] Nagios. The Industry Standard in IT Infrastructure
Monitoring. http://www.nagios.org.AccessedMarch24,
2020.
[3] The must-haves of a network monitoring software.
https://www.manageengine.com/network-
monitoring/whitepaper-network-monitoring-
essentials.html. Accessed March 28, 2020.
[4] Isaac Sikubwabo, Mariam Usanase, Dr. Papias Niyigena.
“Comparative Study on Network Monitoring Tools of
Nagios Versus Hyperic”, 2019.
[5] Comparison of Network Monitoring Systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_network_
monitoring_systems.html. Accessed April 3, 2020.

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