From: darbyweaver@yahoo.com
Date: Mon May 22 2006 - 08:21:54 ART
I love this kind of stuff...
#1 though - We are sorry to spam the rest of you since this topic is OFF-TOPIC.
Now with that said, let's get down to business.
I use and have used a variety of tools over my years of administering and managing networks. Here are some of my favorites:
Ecora.com - Simply Fanatastic Tool. Documents your network fast and allows for great change control, auditing, and SOX compliance. All-in-one. Kind of pricey.
SolarWinds.com - Here we have a few different tools, the Engineer's Toolkits (I think there are three varieties), ORION, and CIRRUS. These guys and batman have a lot in common.
Fluke.com - They have a few different tools and all of them are extremely nice. I don't own the newest batch of them, but they work well and they have hardware and software to help you document your network and create extremely efficient Visio Diagrams (love to watch this puppy make a diagram), and did I forget to tell you about the troubleshooting analysis tools. Spectacular!
Somix.com - They put together a nice site with more affordable tools.
Since we are mostly Cisco fanatics here, let's talk Cisco:
1. CiscoWorks 2000 (I have not used MARS yet - but if you have the resources it is the newest thing and it does it all from what I understand) - CiscoWorks does so much, I don't even know where to start. I have course material from 3 different courses on CiscoWorks alone. I use it to discover my network, to analyze it and use the results for fault determination, etc. I also use it for configuration managemnt. The WLSE provides a similar function for your Wireless Networks (Their is a replacement product line, but I have not purchased this yet and have not evaluated it yet either).
2. Cisco Secure ACS - This is not just provide authentication my friend, it also provides authorization and accounting. And by accounting, I mean every keystroke from every device that is pointed to it and properly configured. Great for auditing.
3. Do not discount a Network Analysis Module. Pricey.
4. NetFlow is just awesome!!! Especially when you combine it with a NetFlow Collector. Many of these are available for free. I bought AdventNet's NetFlow Collector for my shop and I have used Grannog's tools as well. Both are very nice. Nice for detailing what is coming and going and how much.
5. IP Accounting is simple to implement tool as well.
I use Packeteer to help me on my Border Routers and if you can justify the expenditure and have the need, the 6500 model is a very sweet tool. Sitara makes an alternative product as well. I like these products since they are passive and non-intrusive in discovery mode and I can take the results and use for QoS rules quite quickly.
I use a variety of tools to analyse a network for Security - a whole different class of tools.
I also have use PRTG/MRTG for quick and dirty baselining of an interface's traffic. Not quite the best but on a poor man's budget you can't beat them and there are other tools like cricket that can do the job too.
So does this help...
We can discuss further offline if you like...
I'm technically not available this week, as I'm taking some Mock Labs with IE and preparing for a wedding...
Ciao
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