Network Monitoring Tools | Monitoring IT infrastructure

Monitoring IT infrastructure is crucial for maintaining the health, performance, and security of networks and servers. There are several open-source software tools available for this purpose. Here are some of the most popular and widely used ones:


Network Monitoring Tools


1.Nagios

Description: Nagios is one of the most popular open-source IT infrastructure monitoring tools. It provides comprehensive monitoring of networks, servers, and applications.

Features: Alerting, reporting, multi-user access, performance graphs, customizable plugins.

Website: [Nagios]


2.Zabbix

Description: Zabbix is a robust open-source monitoring tool for networks and applications. It offers real-time monitoring, alerting, and extensive visualisation options.

Features: Auto-discovery, customizable dashboards, distributed monitoring, SNMP, IPMI, JMX, and more.

Website: [Zabbix]


3.Prometheus

Description: Prometheus is an open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit originally built at SoundCloud.

Features: Multidimensional data model, powerful query language (PromQL), alerting, and Grafana integration for visualisation.

Website: [Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/)


4.Cacti

Description: Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool’s data storage and graphing functionality.

Features: Data aggregation, graph templates, network discovery, SNMP support.

Website: [Cacti]


5.Icinga

Description: Icinga is an open-source network and system monitoring application that forked from Nagios.

Features: Scalable and extensible, robust reporting, performance data visualisation, REST API, alerting.

Website: [Icinga](https://icinga.com/)


Server Monitoring Tools


1.Netdata

Description: Netdata is a highly optimised Linux daemon providing real-time performance monitoring for Linux systems.

Features: Real-time monitoring, rich visualisation, lightweight, extensible plugins, notifications.

Website: [Netdata]


2.OpenNMS

Description: OpenNMS is an enterprise-grade network management application platform that is designed to scale.

Features: Event and notification management, service monitoring, data collection, and network discovery.

Website: [OpenNMS]


3.Sensu

Description: Sensu is a flexible and scalable monitoring system that is used for monitoring infrastructure, applications, and business KPIs.

Features: Monitoring, alerts, auto-remediation, observability pipeline, integrations with tools like Prometheus and Grafana.

Website: [Sensu]


4. Checkmk

Description: Checkmk is a comprehensive monitoring solution developed with a focus on ease of use and scalability.

Features: Automated agent-based monitoring, service discovery, rich visualisation, alerting, reporting.

Website: [Checkmk]


5.Grafana

Description: While primarily a visualisation tool, Grafana is often used with Prometheus or other data sources for comprehensive monitoring dashboards.

Features: Rich visualisation, alerting, mixed data sources, extensive plugin ecosystem.

Website: [Grafana]


These tools are widely used in the industry and have strong community support, making them reliable choices for monitoring IT infrastructure. Each has its strengths, so the best choice depends on the specific requirements and existing setup of your IT environment.