Network Assessment Tools

ManageEngine OpManager - All-inclusive network assessment software

OpManager is a powerful, network performance assessment tool, designed for all networks. OpManager provides a comprehensive set of IT assessment tools for identifying performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, and configuration violations in real time. OpManager makes network infrastructure assessment effortless by providing intelligent automations and forecasting based on machine learning (ML).

Network performance assessment tools

One cannot emphasize more on the need for a network assessment solution as an average of 545 man-hours are lost on employee productivity per organization per year due to IT problems. Network assessment tools are indispensable for any business that is supported by an IT infrastructure, as they:

• Detect and resolve network performance bottlenecks.
• Inspect security loopholes and prevent network exploits.
• Identify areas in the network that lack or have underused resources.
• Ensure a faster mean time to repair.

Before performing the IT assessment, it is crucial to list all the internal and external needs of the business. This helps you check if the IT infrastructure is aligned with the business goals.

Network assessment

Here's items on a checklist for the IT admins to perform a complete network vulnerability assessment.

• Identify all resources in the network infrastructure.
• Assess network performance by analyzing networking devices, interfaces, bandwidth, and URLs.
• Assess log files for diagnosing system errors.
• Assess security threats by analyzing firewall and VPN connections.
• Assess configurations and compliance.
• Generate assessment reports for developing long-term network management strategy.

Unfortunately, evaluating various aspects of the network is complex, and most tools do not have the features to provide a holistic assessment of the IT infrastructure. Learn how you can use OpManager to assess your network.

Identify all resources in the network infrastructure:

Discovery: OpManager discovers all the devices present in a network by automated network scanning. The IT admin is not limited to any specific protocol as OpManager discovers devices using SNMP (v1, v2 & v3), ICMP, WMI, and Telnet protocols.

Device Inventory: OpManager maintains an inventory of all devices and interfaces in the network, and collects information such as IP address, DNS name, vendor, OS version, system description, monitoring protocol, device health, traffic counter, and more. With OpManager, you can always keep tabs on devices connected to your network.

Assess network performance by analyzing networking devices, interfaces, bandwidth and URLs:

Device monitoring: OpManager monitors the availability, health, and performance of network devices, including physical and virtual servers, switches, routers, interfaces, and firewalls and can monitor more than 2,000 metrics that provide critical insights on device performance.

WAN monitoring: All global organizations have WAN connections that help in internal communications. It is a significant business tool as it is more secure to send sensitive company data through your internal network rather than through the internet. OpManager uses IP SLA technology to proactively monitor your WAN connections, WAN latency, WAN RTT, and raises alarms when faults are identified.

Bandwidth monitoring: Bandwidth is an important metric to be assessed in an enterprise network. If bandwidth usage reaches critical levels, business crucial applications might get affected causing disruption of services. With OpManager, you can monitor packet loss and bandwidth usage by Top N users, Top N applications, Top N devices with flow technologies such as NetFlow, Jflow, IP Fix, NetStream and AppFlow. It also supports various Cisco technologies such as NBAR, CBQoS, AVC and IP SLA.

Assessing log files for diagnosing system errors

The log files contain information relating to system components such as hardware failure, programs, and logon attempts. Assessing log files helps in efficient troubleshooting and security auditing. With OpManager, you can monitor syslogs and Windows event logs, add multiple rules, and get alerts in real time.

Assess security threats by analyzing firewall and VPN connections

Firewall log monitoring: A firewall is a device that secures a company's network infrastructure by blocking trojans, spyware, and other malicious programs. Firewalls are governed by firewall rules and policies. With OpManager, you can monitor firewall logs, analyze policy effectiveness, and manage firewall rules for increased network security.

VPN monitoring: A VPN provides an encrypted tunnel for safer data transmission between a remote user and the company network. With OpManager, you can monitor the number of active VPN sessions, VPN tunnel status, VPN tunnels count, VPN traffic, and protect your network from malicious attackers and data thefts.

Assess device configurations and compliance

Configuration Management: A device configuration is what makes the networking device work in a desired state. The lack of configuration change information poses a serious threat to the stability of the IT infrastructure. With OpManager, you can backup the existing configurations, track the configuration changes in real time, approve, and restore configuration changes.

Generate network assessment reports for developing long-term network management strategy

Reports: Reports play an important role in network assessments as they act as a reference document for future assessments, and help in audits. OpManager offers more than 100 prebuilt reports on device performance, availability, and much more. These reports are highly customizable, and can be exported as PDFs and Excel sheets for documentation purposes.

Apart from managing bandwidth, firewall logs, and configurations with add-ons, OpManager makes networking assessments effortless with intelligent automations and ML-based forecasting.

1. Discovery Rule Engine: Discovery Rule Engine automatically associates device templates and rules to network devices as defined by the user, thereby automating device management process.
2. Storage capacity forecasting: With the help of ML-based forecasting techniques, OpManager pinpoints when the device storage will reach 80 percent, 90 percent, and 100 percent of the allocated storage, and helps with planning buying decisions.
3. Notification profiles: OpManager lets you notify network faults via Slack channels,trouble tickets, and, web alarms if they are not acknowledged, so no alarm goes unnoticed.
4. Workflows: Workflow is an intelligent automation that enables users to define rules, conditions, and commands. With workflows, you can perform network assessments and generate reports based on triggers.
5. Alarm Escalation: Alarm escalation rules can be configured for mission-critical devices such as application servers, so any fault pertaining to availability, health, and performance is escalated to a higher authority via email or SMS based on user-defined criteria.
6. Scheduling: You can schedule configuration backups, reports, and device downtime with OpManager to meet your individual requirements.
7. 10,000+ Device Templates: OpManager offers over 10,000 device templates and more than 53,000 vendor templates out of the box, which makes device identification and management effortless.
8. Dashboards: OpManager provides intuitive dashboards that provide a 360-degree view of your entire IT infrastructure on one screen, and makes fault identification easier.
9. Visualizations: Determine the availability of crucial services in multiple branch offices with maps and business views. With OpManager, you can easily monitor remote locations visually, and get alerted in real time before network services are disrupted.
10. Multi-level thresholds: OpManager offers multi-level thresholds with color codes, so you can identify show-stopping network faults and promptly take action.