Orion Network Performance Monitor Review

Network Utilization

Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is a premier network performance monitoring application. It provides fast and  detailed information into network issues, performance analysis and reporting. If you are reviewing network monitoring solutions, then take advantage of Solarwinds offer to download a free trial of Orion Network Performance Monitor.

Orion NMP is packed full of features including: network discovery, dynamic network maps, monitor the performance on devices, bandwidth monitoring, CPU usage, disk usage, device up or down status and much much more. Solarwinds Performance Monitor enables you to quickly detect, diagnose and resolve network issues perform the problem get worse.

Installation & Network Discovery

It’s a simple process to install Orion NMP. You will need to ensure you have IIS installed before you run the install. If IIS is not installed, Orion  NMP will prompt you to exist and install IIS before the installation can continue. Once installation is complete you will need to run a network discovery. A network discovery will scan you network for devices to monitor. You will need to configure the SNMP settings so Orion NMP knows how to authentic to your devices.

The discovery setup has a few different options than can be configured. To start off you can configure the discovery to search specific subnets, multiple subnets or even a single IP address. You can also define how far into the network you want Orion NMP to search , such as scanning past routers and other networks.

Network Discovery

Web Interface for Easy management and Network Monitoring

When the discovery process is complete you can start monitoring and analyzing your network. One of the great aspects to Orion NMP is its great web interface. It’s very simple  and easy to use. With its default dashboard you can simply open the web console and get a quick over view of your entire network. At my organization we created a dashboard just for helpdesk. They leave it up on a large flat screen TV so they can quickly see if a device is down.

You can easily organize your devices how ever you like by creating folders. I like to create a separate folders for my servers and for network devices. Then inside those folders I can create child folders such as routers, switches, firewalls, etc. This makes it easy to drill down to each node for details. Free download of Orion Network Performance Monitor

Network Dashboard

What type of problems can Orion NMP detect on the network

Orion Network Performance Monitor can detect numerous errors, config mismatch, performance and potential problems on the network.

My experience with Orion NPM has provided details on what devices on the network are consuming the most bandwidth. There are times when the network has come to a crawl and everyone starts calling the helpdesk. Before using Orion NMP I would have to use several tools such as a packet sniffer to track down what was causing the slowdown on the network. This could often take awhile, which would makes lots of angry people. With Orion NMP I instantly knew what device on the network is causing the issue, therefore I can fix the problem before it gets worse.

Another great thing is that I instantly know if a remote site is down. I can see on the Orion NMP dashboard what devices are up and what devices are down. I even get email alerts when a device has meet its threshold.  I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten calls saying the network was slow or is down. When I go to check it everything looks fine. With Orin NMP I can run historical report on a device and see if its went down or not. Saving me lots of time and headaches.

In short OrionNPM can find a wide range of network issues, bandwidth hogs and poor performing devices.

Top 10 listNetwork Top Interfaces

Another nice feature to Orion NMP is the top 10 lists. It will automatically keep track of the top 10 devices for specific categories, such as top

  • bandwidth usage,
  • Slow response time (performance indicators)
  • CPU usage
  • Memory usage
  • Disk space usage
  • Device response times
  • Network Traffic

Role based access control

Orion NMP allows you to control who can see what information. For example maybe you want helpdesk or a entry level network administrator to just have view access to the dashboards. You can define groups and who has what access. In version 10.1 you can now authenticate to Orion console using your Active Directory username and password.

Mobile Access

How many times have you been away from the office, like out to lunch and you get a call, “whats going on with the network”. You can access Orion NMP from your smartphone like the iPhone, Blackberry or Android. It provides a simplified display that narrows in on alerts and other critical items. You can also switch to full full to view more information.

Reporting

With Orion NMP you can schedule and export reports. Reports can be emailed and or exported in HTML or PDF format. Reporting is a great way to monitor and view trending reports within your organization. In my organization we do monthly KPI reports of uptime and availability of the network.  Orion NMP reporting is setup so that users can write their own reports using SQL. Reporting is also a built in function to the web console. You can access many customized reports that have been created by others users, through the Solarwinds online community.

Solarwinds Reporting
Summary of my Solarwinds Orion Network Performance Monitor Review

Orion Network Performance Monitor is a great tool for discovering issues on the network. The application will give you a very detailed view into your network. The reporting and network mapping features alone are a huge time savor in network troubleshooting. From my own experience Orion NMP has been a huge time savor and has been worth every penny. Learn More about NMP and download a free trail version to test it out for your self.

 

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SolarWinds Real time Netflow Analyzer

SolarWinds Real time Netflow analyzer is a free desktop tool that captures and analyzes netflow data in real time. Netflow analyzer displays inbound and outbound traffic separately for granular analysis, making network troubleshooting quick and easy.  It also breaks down the network traffic out by application, conversation, domain, endpoint and protocol.

This gives you real insight to how exactly how your bandwidth is being used and by whom. With Real-time NetFlow Analyzer, you can take the guesswork out of diagnosing traffic spikes and troubleshooting bandwidth issues. Download this free tool now!

Real time Netflow Analyzer Features:

  • Identify which users, devices and applications are consuming your bandwidth
  • Quickly troubleshoot network problems or network slowness
  • Troubleshoot network congestion issues
  • Customize the Netflow console to display netflow data by certain periods and data units
  • Easily configure NetFlow on your Cisco routers

Here’s what one user had to say about SolarWinds Real time Netflow Analyzer

We needed a tool to provide greater visibility on our network. The netflow analyzer tool provides this as well as excellent alerting and historical reports to assist with planning. (Zorlac)

As a Network Administrator I was amazed to see what network traffic was flowing in the network. I use this tool on a daily basis to analyze the network. If you want to try for yourself – for free – here is the Real-time NetFlow Analyzer link.

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How to monitor network traffic

Why You Should Monitor Network Traffic

Almost everything now days is accessed over the network therefore, network traffic monitoring is crucial. The most common and efficient way to monitor the network is by using a network monitoring tool. Some types of things you can monitor on the network are bandwidth, network availability and uptime, network performance monitoring, Cisco monitoring, and traffic analysis. There is a wide range of monitoring tools to choose from, some perform specific functions and others perform a wide range of network management features. In this article we will explore some of the basics of network monitoring, benefits and tools for monitoring your network. If you are familiar with basics of network monitoring you can skip down to my section on tools I recommend for monitoring the network.

Network Monitoring Basics

Before downloading a program to monitoring your network traffic you should familiar with the different protocols to fully utilize the different network management protocols out there.  Check out this video from Solarwinds, it provides an excellent overview of the network management protocols

Tools for monitoring network traffic

Here is a list of some of my favorite networking tools. These are tools that I use as a network manager to troubleshoot and keep an eye on the network. Some of them are made to perform one specific task and others perform a number of tasks.

Orion Network Performance Monitor
Orion is really the grand daddy of all network monitoring tools. Orion Network Performance Monitor is a web based performance management solution that has a number of features that makes it a great tool for any administrator. This set of tool allows administrators to detect, diagnose and resolve network issues on the network. You can download a free trail of Orion Network Performance Monitor and test it out for yourself. I’ve also provided a full review of this tool here.

Solarwinds Real Time Netflow Analyzer
This is another great tool for monitoring network traffic. This tool has one function and that is to monitor the bandwidth on your network. It does that by collecting the netflow data from your Cisco routers and switches. This is a tool I use on a daily basis to get an overview of how much bandwidth is being used on the network. The best thing is this tool is free! Download your copy of Real Time Netflow Analyzer.

Wireshark
This tool is a packet analyzer. It will give you in depth analysis to your network traffic. It will capture all the traffic that is visible on an interface and allow you to analyze the packets. I use this tool to troubleshoot network and application tools. This is also a free tool and can be downloaded at http://www.wireshark.org/

ManageEngine Network Management
This is a tool I have not used but looks like it has lots of great features. It provides lots of graphical tools so you can get a visual of how your network is setup.

Benefits of Network Traffic Monitoring

There are many benefits to monitoring your network and by downloading the rights tools you can easily achieve those goals. Lets looks at some of those benefits:

  • Easily find bottlenecks in the network
  • More device uptime and availability
  • Monitor bandwidth and identify application and users that use the most bandwidth.
  • Quickly find problems on the network and troubleshoot them more easily
  • Gain in depth analysis to how your network is being used
  • Real time monitoring and reporting
  • Create alerts that can be sent to your email or phone

SUMMARY:

Monitoring network traffic has become critical for anyone that manages a network. There are many different aspects to monitoring network traffic the most common is by using a monitoring too. This help you more easily troubleshoot your network and understand the traffic that flows in and out of your network. So now that you have an overview of the network management protocols and some monitoring tools you are now have the knowledge you need to analyze the traffic on your network.

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Configure Netflow

Tutorials

Here is a great video explaining how to setup netflow on a cisco router or switch. I’ve also included the command lines below. You can use a network bandwidth monitor program to analysis the netflow data.  Video Transcript Hi there, Josh Stevens here head geek at solarwinds and today I’m going to show you how [...]

Network Bandwidth Monitor

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Network Performance Management – Maintain a Fast and Stable Network

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