Monitor Network Services, Devices, Sensors, Bandwidth, Traffic

Today's networks are complex systems delivering various services, instead of just connecting PC’s together for file transfer. NetCrunch helps you control the performance and availability of network services (Ping, HTTP, SSH, FTP, etc.), watches connections and also reflects them automatically on various graphical network views, like layer 2 segments maps.

SNMP



NetCrunch supports all SNMP versions including version 3 with support for version 3 traps. It uses the SNMP protocol to monitor routers, switches, printers, firewalls, sensors, and other devices.

Using SNMP, it is possible to monitor bandwidth, user activity, hardware utilization, and much more. NetCrunch can actively check performance counters, or passively receive SNMP Traps from network devices. The program allows you to set thresholds and can notify the administrator about hardware issues. The collected data is used for troubleshooting and long-term analysis.

SNMP Traps

NetCrunch listens for SNMP traps and also can receive SNMPv3 encrypted notifications. Incoming traps (even from nodes not being monitored in the Atlas) are visible in the External Events window. With a single click, users can convert them into alerts (node will be added to Atlas if necessary), so NetCrunch allows for the defining of alerts for traps "by example."

MIB Compiler

NetCrunch includes its own MIB compiler so you can easily add new MIBs to the program library. The program comes with a pre-compiled MIB library containing over 8500 MIBs including CISCO, Nortel, 3Com, Alcatel, etc.

Connectivity and Response Monitoring

Network Services

NetCrunch can check connectivity or response patterns to validate service responses.

NetCrunch monitors the availability of over 70 predefined TCP/UDP network services, including DNS, FTP, HTTP, POP3, SMTP, and more.

The program can monitor network service performance measured by a number of packets sent and packets received, response times, and the percentage of packets lost and received.

Users can create their service definitions or duplicate existing definition and change their ports. Services support TCP, UDP and SSL connections. Responses patterns can be defined as text, binary data or by using regular expressions.

DNS Health Monitoring

DNS is the most important service in a network. Without it, nothing will work at all. Therefore, monitoring the DNS service to check its availability is an obvious task for a monitoring system. But availability monitoring only verifies if the service is responding and what its response time is.

On top of simple availability monitoring, NetCrunch allows you to verify DNS responses to given queries which enables you to discover unexpected (unauthorized) DNS changes.

Node Up/Down monitoring

NetCrunch determines node up/down status based upon network service status and other monitors (in case of servers). When a node is down, only is leading service being monitored. So, a node is down when no service is responding and is up when the leading service responds.

@@node-status.png Map shows node status

Switch and Router Monitoring

Interface Status and Bandwidth Monitoring

NetCrunch supports various aspects of switch and router monitoring, including the status of network interfaces and bandwidth monitoring.

@@2node-status-interfaces.png List of node interfaces

@@1SegmentWithTrafiic.png Segment Map with Showing traffic information

Cisco IP SLA

NetCrunch allows you to monitor Cisco IP SLA operations. It tracks the status of operations and also performance parameters. It will enable you to monitor VOIP jitter and other protocols.

Port Mapping

NetCrunch shows information about each switch port, VLANs, port status and devices connected to each port.

@@2node-status-port-mapping.png Node Status - Port Mapping View

Automatic Layer 2 Maps

NetCrunch discovers and presents physical connections between switches and nodes on "Layer 2" topology maps. The program automatically updates physical maps if new nodes are added or connection changes are discovered.

@@3segment.png Layer 2 Segment Map

Traffic Monitoring

Flow Server

NetCrunch includes a NetFlow traffic server which is able to process flow data from a range of network devices using all popular protocols such as IPFix, NetFlow (v5 & v9), sFlow, JFlow, netStream, cFlow, AppFlow, and rFlow.

NetCrunch integrates flow data within our monitoring database (Network Atlas) so that traffic is measured properly per device instead of per IP address.

Analytics & Trends

NetCrunch allows you to analyze traffic using various criteria. It allows you to create custom application definitions and also supports Cisco NBAR technology for application monitoring.

@@flow-analytics.png Flow Analytics

NetCrunch can collect performance trends on summary traffic data and also for specific node data. This allows you to create reports or set thresholds on these parameters.

Flow Traffic Dashboard

NetCrunch shows live traffic on the Flow dashboard.

@@3flows.png Flow Dashboard

Node Flow Statistics

NetCrunch also shows flow statistics for each node. It also allows you to set thresholds on various metrics.

@@node-flows.png Node Traffic Status

Web Monitoring

Web Page Sensor

NetCrunch includes an advanced Web Page monitor which is able to load and render dynamic web pages containing Javascript as if they were loaded by a browser. It also allows you to check pages requiring login (supports standard HTML or custom login forms).

Available Web Page alerts:

  • page size or load time
  • page content change
  • alert if text is present or missing
  • if page does not exists
  • page load error
  • page resource load error
  • page authentication error

Available performance metrics:

  • % Availability
  • HTTP Status Code
  • JS Errors
  • Load Time
  • Main Frame Body Size
  • Resource Count
  • Resources Error Count
  • Total Size


Basic HTTP/S Sensor

This sensor is more suited to send REST requests, so it simply retrieves data over HTTP and checks responses, including response content. It supports GET, HEAD and POST requests,

HTTP/s File Sensor

Check remote file contents, authentication parameters, monitor remote text logs, file size or change time, presence and more. Supports HTTP and HTTPS connections.

Diagnostic Tools

SNMP View

NetCrunch allows you to browse a device's SNMP data in a human readable form. The window contains various views for different device types. NetCrunch also includes an editor for creating custom device specific views. SNMP View allows you to change SNMP device data.

@@2snmp-view.png SNMP View

IP Tools

iTools is an application containing a set of usable network diagnostic tools such as: Ping, Traceroute, Lookup, Connection, Scanner and SNMP. The tools are also available via Web Console and are executed remotely on the NetCrunch Server.

@@ip-tools.png NetCrunch IP Tools