Paessler’s PRTG Network Moni­tor proactively alerts administra­tors of issues in the network, the­reby informing them of problemsbefore they arise. The solutionincludes more than 130 sensortypes, which are designed to mo­nitor parameters such as the pro­cessor load of individual sys­tems, free disk space and net­work interface utilization. Sen­sors are also available for net­work services, such as HTTP,SMTP, POP3, FTP, etc. The term‘sensor’ is not to be taken literal­ly in this context: PRTG workswithout agents – that is, withoutsoftware components on the cli­ent systems that are being moni­tored. The sensors run on a cen­tral ‘probe’ (where necessary,multiple probes can be set up inthe network) and, from there,query the clients’ statuses regu­larly via the above­mentionedprotocols, for example, WMI,SNMP or SSH. These findingsare stored in the central databaseand can be used for extensiveanalyses, which can in turn beused to optimize the network. Ifany difficulties arise, PRTG is al­so able to send alerts via email,text message or pager, amongother methods.

Tested: PRTG Network Monitor 12.2

The Entire Network in SightDr. Götz Güttich

The PRTG Network Monitor by Paessler AG runs on Windows and collects data usagefrom computers, applications and other infrastructure components within thenetwork. All information is stored in a central database and can be used at anytime for comprehensive analyses. The tool administrator runs on a powerfulweb interface or a native Windows application. PRTG draws upon severaldifferent technologies for data collection, namely WMI, SSH, SNMP, NetFlow,jFlow and sFlow, as well as packet sniffing. IAIT took a look at thehandling and performance of the solution in daily operations.

1

The license model is dependenton the number of sensors. Up toten sensors are free of charge.Additional sensors can be boughtas they are needed. With PRTG,all functions are included in eve­ry license, regardless of the licen­se size. A 30­day test version isavailable with an unlimited num­ber of sensors.ArchitecturePRTG operates using a core ser­ver that works with an Ajax Webinterface. This interface constitu­tes the main management tooland offers the most extensivefunction range. A Windows ad­ministration tool called Enterpri­se Console is an alternative that

offers a nearly complete range offunctionalities (according to themanufacturer, 95%). A MobileWeb GUI, which provides data inan optimized form for mobile de­vices, is included as well.Apps for iOS and Android com­plete the palette of access optionsfor the network monitoring sys­tem. The Android app (PRTG­droid) provides users with simple

access to the Paessler software’smobile web interface and can in­form administrators of any errorsdirectly.The iOS app (iPRTG) calls upthe data from the web server viathe API and displays them in na­tive iPhone style. PRTG recom­mends Chrome and Firefoxbrowsers for daily desktop use,and we even used Internet Explo­rer for the test, which workedperfectly.Besides the Core Server, PRTGalso uses probes, as mentionedabove, which pull informationfrom the clients. Multiple distri­buted probes can be used, if desi­

red, and are especially usefulwhen monitoring remote installa­tions in addition to the local net­work, while still reviewing all in­formation from a central position.Multiple PRTG installations canalso be managed centrally usingthe Enterprise Console.The sensors have so­called chan­nels that can gather informationon individual parameters. With

memory sensors, for example,these are the total memory andavailable memory in percent.Dependencies can be definedbetween sensors. This makes itpossible to use both a Ping sensorand an HTTP sensor, for exam­ple, to monitor a web server. Ifthe Ping sensor reports an error,the system will pause the corre­sponding HTTP sensor. This isbeneficial because the HTTP ser­vice will not be available if theaffected server is not respondingover the network. The adminis­trator thus only receives a singleerror message that indicates thatthe web server is not responding,not two. This improves clarity si­gnificantly, especially when mo­nitoring systems with many sen­sors.As a general rule, the sensors –according to the area of applica­tion – are very powerful. For ex­ample, not only is it possible todetermine the fact that a webser­ver responds on request, but theIT administrator can configurethe system in such a way that itqueries specific content or evensimulates a purchase in an onlineshop, in order to guarantee thatthe service is actually running asdesired. If a website is hacked,for example, the web server stillcontinues to work, although theshown contents might be com­pletely different from those thatthe affected company actually in­tends to show. This can only bediscovered if the monitoringsoftware evaluates the web ser­vice’s content as well as its re­sponse.Custom scripts can be integratedas sensor types in PRTG at anytime. All found data are saved forup to a year by default, and lon­

2

The PRTG Network Monitor at startup

ger time spans can be set up asneeded.The TestFor our test, we installed version12.2 of the PRTG Network Mo­nitor on a Windows Server 2008R2 system in our network andsubsequently used the solution tomonitor computers running Win­dows XP, Windows Server 2008,Windows 7, Windows Server2008 R2, Red Hat and Fedora Li­

nux, Ubuntu Linux, MacOS andSolaris. We also monitored diver­se network components inclu­ding, for example, Cisco swit­ches and routers from Netgearand Lancom, and even includedseveral websites, for example theIAIT website, and the online ser­vices Dropbox, Twitter and Sky­pe in the monitoring as well. Be­cause PRTG supports IPv6, wealso monitored various systemsusing this protocol.After installing the software andsetting up the sensors we needed,we put special focus on monito­ring our Exchange server and our

virtualization environment (basedon VMware). We examined theentire feature set of the monito­ring software, including devicetrees, libraries, maps, reports andalarms. Last but not least, weused the app PRTGdroid for re­mote access to our installation.InstallationThe ideal environment for thenetwork monitor is an up­to­dateWindows operating system on a

dedicated host. Paessler recom­mends not installing the PRTGNetwork Monitor on a virtualmachine for performance rea­sons.A system with four GB RAM anda few hundred GB of availablehard drive should be used for thebest possible performance. Thecomputer used for monitoringmust be equipped with .NET Fra­mework 4.0.The installation of the product iscontrolled by the Wizard – just li­ke any other Windows installati­on – and would pose no problems

for any administrator. The admi­nistrator simply needs to choosethe right language, enter his li­cense key and define his mail ac­count. A failover cluster can beset up later, if desired.After completing the setup, thebrowser with the PRTG loginscreen opened on our system andwe could log in to the monitoringproduct for the first time. Nor­mally, the Configuration Guruappears at this point to supportthe administrator with the initialconfiguration of the system. Ho­wever, because we used a Win­dows server with Internet Explo­rer and enhanced security confi­guration, we first had to add thePRTG page as a trusted site toensure that the system displayedeverything correctly.The Configuration GuruThe Configuration Guru helpsadministrators with basic PRTGconfiguration. In the first step, itsuggests encrypting the access tothe solution’s web interface withSSL. The user is given the optionto activate the SSL encryption orto skip this step. These options –executing the recommended taskor skipping to the next step – areavailable for all steps with theConfiguration Guru.After setting up the SSL encryp­tion, we set up our administratorpassword with the ConfigurationGuru’s help and entered the cre­dentials for the Windows systems– including our network domain.This step is mandatory, so thatPRTG can access the appropriatecomputers to query information.Finally, the guru asked about cre­dentials for SNMP, VMware andXen, as well as Linux systems,and offered to monitor the Inter­net connection with Gateway and

3

The device overview presents users with the status of individual sensors

DNS servers. The next step wasto specify the servers that PRTGshould keep an eye on in the net­work. For this, the guru offeredus domain controllers, Exchangeor other mail servers, as well asother servers, by name or ad­dress. We entered our domaincontroller and Exchange server,as we wanted to use a generalnetwork search in the PRTG en­vironment to add our other sys­tems later.The server monitoring setup wascompleted, and it was time to setup monitoring for websites andonline shops and to activate mo­nitoring of cloud services, suchas Google (search, drive andmail), Office 365, Salesforce,Dropbox, iCloud, Facebook,Twitter and Skype. Finally, theConfiguration Guru ran the Net­work Auto­Discovery, an auto­matic network search for all sys­tems in our LAN. This processinstantly found all active com­ponents. With the VMware sys­tems, PRTG also recognized thatit was dealing with hosts of virtu­al machines (VMs), and imme­diately listed the VMs installedon these hosts as sensors.Network Auto­DiscoveryThe automatic network searchcan be started manually at any ti­me, or can be executed automati­cally according to a schedule.This search presents a sound me­thod of keeping the configurationup to date and incorporating newsystems in the PRTG environ­ment. If a user would like tocreate a new group with all Win­dows servers, for example, all hehas to do is create an automaticnetwork search, select the appro­priate probe, enter a group nameand determine how the sensorcreation should occur. There are

four options: manual creation,automatic creation according todevice, detailed automatic creati­on according to device (this me­thod can create a lot of sensors)and sensor creation using devicetemplates.The last method is especially be­neficial if multiple identical sys­tems with specific componentsare part of the network. In mostcases, normal automatic sensorcreation is sufficient, and the sen­sors that are found can be addedto manually if desired, for exam­

ple with monitoring functions forspecific server types.The next step was to decide on aschedule for the auto­discoveryand to specify the address rangethat should be searched. Thereare several options, namely ClassC IP address ranges (IPv4), a listof individual IP addresses orDNS names (IPv4 or IPv6), anetwork address with a sub­net­work (IPv4) or IP with an octetrange (IPv4). With these options,

every administrator should beable to find something that suitshis network.As soon as the administrator en­ters the required information forthe address range, he can activatename resolution using DNS,WMI or SNMP and skip the au­tomatic search for the addressesof already recognized devices inorder to speed up the process.The final steps included enteringthe credentials for the Windows,Linux, VMware/Xen and SNMP

systems, as well as settings andaccess information for the HTTPproxy. All of this information canbe inherited from the existingconfigurations, so that auto dis­covery can use the credentialsentered via the ConfigurationGuru, if applicable. The accessrights determine which PRTGuser accounts are granted accessto the resulting objects of thecurrent search. After the search iscomplete, the new sensors appearautomatically in the device over­

4

Icons can be selected when adding devices, under which the devices will appearin the overview

view, which we will address indetail in a moment.The Web InterfaceNow that the installation and in­itial configuration were comple­te, we turned to the feature set ofthe monitoring tool. After log­ging in to the operating web in­terface, the administrator isshown a welcome screen, whichpresents the option to call up theConfiguration Guru again, startthe Network Auto­Discovery,switch to the device overview,download the Enterprise Conso­le, install smartphone apps, callup the help function or contactsupport.The top part of the configurationtool’s window presents a menubar, which leads directly to themost important entries, includingthe device overview, library,alarms, etc. Further options forthe user are included under thesemain menus, which can be acces­sed by hovering the cursor overthe menu titles.The ‘Home’ menu, for example,contains four sub­entries leadingto different overview pages. The­se – just like any other page –can be set as the homepage, if de­sired, and will then appear direct­ly after login. The overview pa­ges present a summary of data,containing the most importantsensors (these can be marked as“favorites” by the user), the log,to­dos, alarms, warnings, groups,devices, sensors, sensors with thestatus “unusual” and recent logentries.A sitemap containing all linksavailable for the active user ac­count is also available, as well asthe option to call the mobile WebGUI and the above­mentioned

welcome screen. The Home me­nu thus contains a wide range ofoptions to configure the PRTG

Network Monitor to deliver ex­tensive information about thenetwork directly after login.An in­depth, context­based helpfunction is located on the right si­de, which explains nearly all ofthe available configuration opti­ons. This help is included on eve­ry page of the configuration tool.The Device OverviewThe second menu entry leads tothe device overview mentionedabove. This is the core of theNetwork Monitor and displayseach monitored system with itssensors in a tree structure in therespective groups. Users can seewhere errors, warnings, etc. haveoccurred at first glance, as sen­sors with errors appear red, thosewith warnings are yellow, andproblem­free sensors are shownin green. The device overview isnot only for data display; remote

probes as well as new groups,devices and sensors can be addedas they become necessary. In ad­

dition, a geo map shows whereeach monitored system is locatedin the world, and overview chartsdisplay information regardingalarms, processor usage, datatraffic and response times. Instandard configuration, theseoverviews each show the statusfrom the past two, 30 and 365days.Clicking on a group, computer orprobe opens a correspondingdrill­down overview. If a compa­ny has all Windows servers sum­marized to one group, for exam­ple, clicking on this group willonly display the systems assignedto the group. In this way, IT staffis able to limit the display to in­dividual computers or even singlesensors.If the system displays the datafrom a single computer, all sen­sors found on this computer are

5

The drill­down view of individual systems presents a list of all monitored ser­vices on the system

displayed in a list. This list con­tains small charts, in addition tosensor­specific data including na­me and status, which show im­portant information (e.g.: capaci­ty utilization) at a glance.The individual sensor displaypresents detailed information, in­

cluding 2­day and 30­day over­views and live data. In addition,users can set sensor parametersand modify names, scanning in­tervals, priority (this determinesthe order of objects in list views)and access rights.It is also possible to configure thesensors in such a way that theysend notifications upon crossingcertain thresholds or attainingcertain statuses. If a sensor statusis ‘down’, for example, a messa­ge can be sent to the administra­tor after a specific time period.Individual channels within thesensors can be assigned limits,

and they can be configured toshow up in charts and tables. Lastbut not least, administrators areable to insert comments here, andreview the history of each sensor.In addition to the points mentio­ned above, tabs are available inthe device and group views, with

which live data can be viewed ingraphs and tables, and the historycan be called up. Two­day,monthly and yearly overviewsare available, as well as the opti­on to query “historical” data ac­cording to freely definable timeperiods.The menu item ‘Management’ isalso available in the group anddevice overviews. Here, eachuser can arrange the sensors as hepleases using drag & drop.In the settings tab, users can pau­se all sensors in a group or on adevice and determine the type of

sensor management (automatic,manual, etc.). It is also possibleto change device credentials, de­fine schedules and modify otherparameters that were preset du­ring the original network search.Tabs for creating notifications,entering comments and viewingthe history complete the featureset for group and device configu­ration.One more thing worth mentio­ning: the multi­edit function canbe used to select and edit multi­ple objects in the sensor and de­vice lists simultaneously. This isespecially beneficial when confi­guring or pausing multiple sen­sors at once.During the test, we noticed thatadministrating the network ac­cording to groups, devices andsensors helped us to keep a clearoverview even when working inan environment with numerouscomponents. On one hand, analarm can be configured so that itis activated by an error anywherewithin an entire computer group.On the other hand, notificationscan be set up in such a way thatonly a single sensor in a singlesystem is recognized as a trigger.The alert and analysis options arethus minutely customizable to fitthe requirements of specific si­tuations and staff, without redu­cing the clarity of the entire sys­tem.LibrariesContrary to the device overview,libraries allow the user to createcustomized views according tovarious criteria. Environmentsthat are listed in the device over­view according to technicalaspects, like operating systems orroles in networks, can be arran­

6

The ‘sunburst view’ provides information regarding the status of monitoredcomponents at a glance. The overview becomes more detailed as one movesoutward, and individual systems pass on their status to the inside. This way,Paessler ensures that the inner ring, which represents the entire network, isonly displayed error­free when none of the outer systems shows an error.

ged in such a way as to reflectthe organizational structure of thecompany and its departments(marketing, accounting, IT, ma­nagement, etc.). The individuallibrary views can be generatedand modified directly in thebrowser using drag & drop.To insert a library, the user mustsimply enter a name and the ac­

cess rights for the object; the li­brary is then immediately availa­ble for further application. Exis­ting libraries can be changed atany time. We had no difficultiesworking with libraries during thetest.SensorsThe sensor overview comprises alist of all sensors with their statu­ses and a small chart, which dis­plays capacity usage and otherimportant information. Whencreating a new sensor, PRTGNetwork Monitor first asks theadministrator if the sensor shouldbelong to a new or an existing

device, what the device symbolis, whether the connection runsover IPv4 or IPv6, what the cre­dentials are and whether sensorcreation should occur manuallyor via automatic search.If the administrator decides formanual sensor creation, he canchoose from an array of 131 pre­defined sensor types. Paessler of­

fers categorized decision supportto simplify this process.The user can answer questions tofind appropriate sensor types.These questions are: “Monitorwhat?” (availability/uptime,bandwidth/ traffic, speed/perfor­mance, CPU usage, disk usage,memory usage, hardware para­meters, network infrastructure,custom sensors), “Target SystemType?” (Windows, Linux/Ma­cOS, Virtualization OS, File Ser­ver, Email Server, SQL Server),“Technology Used?” (Ping,SNMP, WMI, HTTP, SSH,packet sniffing, NetFlow, sFlow,

jFlow). With the help of thesecategories, we were able toquickly and efficiently set up thesensors we needed to monitor ourExchange systems and our vS­phere environment.Various options are available inthe Sensors menu to provide theuser with an overview of the sen­sor data and results. These inclu­de top­10 lists for various attri­butes including “Best Availabili­ty”, “Fastest Ping”, “Worst Dow­ntimes”, “Slowest Ping”, “Lo­west Bandwidth Usage”, “FastestWebsite”, etc. Overviews organi­zed according to current status,uptime/downtime, group and typeare available as well. It is evenpossible to compare sensors andview historical data. This provi­ded us with very interesting in­sight in our network during ourtest.AlarmsThe PRTG Network Monitor of­fers extensive alarm functions.The alarms can even be used toautomate restarts and to executePowershell scripts, batch files,and DLLs. PRTG also includes alist of current alarms and war­nings. Hovering the mouse overthe list (this applies for otheroverviews as well), the web in­terface blends in an overviewwindow with the most importantdata and charts for the respectiveentry. This is very helpful whenlooking to attain a quick impres­sion of multiple entries withouthaving to open each one indivi­dually.MapsMaps offer a graphical networkoverview that can be enhancedwith background images. A loca­tion map can be created for allcomputers in the building, for

The monitoring software presents the data and measurements for each sensorin a chart. Here, the CPU usage of a server is displayed over the time span ofone month.

7

example, on which the status ofeach system appears next to itslocation on the map. New mapscan be created at any time andcan even be published, so thatthird parties can gain access to

the included information. A mapis also an ideal option for the ho­mepage that is presented directlyafter login. Maps can also be ef­fortlessly integrated in externalwebsites. Maps can be created –just like libraries – via drag &drop from the device tree.Paessler provides additional sym­bols for the maps, which symbo­lize transparent components, likeunmanaged switches, and exter­nal abstract systems, like the In­ternet. It’s no problem to incor­porate connections between indi­vidual systems in the map, either.We found one overview map ofour LAN to be so useful in ourtest that we set it up as our home­page.ReportsThe monitoring system enablesdata and graphics to be combined

in reports. One­time and recur­ring reports are both available.The time frame for which a re­port should be issued can be defi­ned manually, and reports can bedisplayed as HTML, generated as

PDFs and sent per email. Variousreports are included in the soft­ware, like the “100 Fastest HTTPSensors”, “100 Slowest PingSensors”, etc. Reports on band­width, CPU usage, memory usa­ge, disk space and availability areavailable as well. All reports arefully customizable.Reports can be saved and calledup again at any time. The sensorsthat the report is based upon canbe selected manually or accor­ding to tags. Selection by tagcreates dynamic reports: if an ad­ministrator assigns one of thesetags to a sensor or group, it willbe included in the appropriate re­port.To delete a component from thereport, the administrator mustsimply delete the tag. Reportscan also be created and sent out

according to a predefined sche­dule. We encountered no diffi­culties here in our test.LogsPRTG displays its log in listform. The time frame and num­ber of rows that should be dis­played in the list of log entriescan be specified at any time. Allentries can be displayed, or theycan be filtered according togroup, system events or statuschange (ie: OK, down, pau­sed/resumed, acknowledged orunusual).To­DosThe to­dos act as a notificationservice for the user. They includeinformation that the administratormust confirm, including theavailability of new program ver­sions or activation of new sen­sors. The system also uses theseto advise users of newly createdreports.SetupThe Setup menu contains all ent­ries for managing the PRTG Net­work Monitor. The account set­tings (name, password, time zo­ne, email address, notificationsettings, etc.) are included aswell. The PRTG status, on theother hand, contains informationregarding the software version,operating system, time, CPUusage, license, etc.Administrators can use the PRTGstatus to create a snapshot of thedatabase, in case they require as­sistance from the Paessler sup­port team, to restart all probesand to write a probe status file.The ‘auto­update’ function ensu­res the PRTG Network Monitoris always up to date. This workedflawlessly in the test. Also inte­resting: the system administrati­

8

A network map set up as the homepage

on. Here, the administrator canconfigure diagrams and colors,define the name of the PRTGwebsite and select a map provi­der (MapQuest, Nokia Maps,CloudMade or Google). The mo­nitoring tool can even be integra­ted in the Windows domain sothat existing user accounts withinthe company can be used forPRTG as well. Apart from that,threshold values can be set hereto distinguish unusual incidents.The next entries deal with thesettings for sending notifications(via an internal or external mailserver), communicating with ex­ternal probes and working withuser accounts. Various user ac­counts can be set up for differentmonitoring tasks. Users can beassigned to groups, alarm set­tings can be made and rights can

be assigned (“read/write” or“read only”). Command menusfor managing clusters, downloa­ding additional software (Enter­prise Console, apps for mobiledevices and installation files forremote probes) and entering the

license round out the configurati­on tool’s feature set, along with adocumentation of the PRTG API.The tool has been set up in a cle­ar manner and – often thanks tothe good help function – requiredonly a short familiarization pha­se.The Android AppPRTGdroid afforded us secureaccess to the information fromthe PRTG Network Monitor,anytime and anywhere. The con­figuration effort was minimaland the mobile web interface iswell suited to viewing data. Lar­ge icons make the interface espe­cially ‘thumb friendly’. Becauseit can be used with any browser,the app does not necessarily haveto be installed, but it does expandthe feature set of the Mobile WebGUI with the very handy oppor­

tunity to display notifications onthe mobile device.Exchange MonitoringThe monitoring options Paesslerprovides for the Exchange Serverare extensive. The system places

a total of 97 sensors at the user’sdisposal that are specially desi­gned for Exchange systems andenable monitoring of variousareas including memory, the da­tabase and the number of activeusers.Several sensors are very straight­forward and self­explanatory, li­ke the sensor that counts thenumber of notifications sent persecond or the sensor that informsadministrators of logon operati­ons per second. Others are notquite as simple, like the “Databa­se Cache % Hit edgetransport”.Keeping an eye on individualmail queues is generally import­ant when monitoring Exchangeservers, as it makes it easy to de­termine if email sending starts topile up. The number of emailssent per second is just as import­ant: this sensor can be used todetermine if a computer in thenetwork is being misused to sendspam.Apart from that, the CPU andmemory usage should be moni­tored, as well as the mail servicesPOP3, IMAP4, SMTP and thequeues for internal redistributionof emails to email inboxes. Ifthere are no problems here, thereis a good chance that the Ex­change Server is in good shape.The “Roundtrip Sensor”shouldn’t be forgotten here, eit­her. It sends an email to an exter­nal service, which the adminis­trator must configure in advanceto instantly and automatically re­turn the email. This enables theadministrator to determine howlong it takes to send the messageto the selected service and back.In our test, monitoring of our Ex­change 2010 servers workedflawlessly.

9

The Exchange monitoring function comes with a large number of sensors

Monitoring vSphereWhen monitoring virtualizationenvironments based on VMware(we used vSphere 5 and ESXi 5systems for our test), the followi­ng points should be kept in mind:if the credentials for the virtuali­zation hosts are entered correctly,the Network Auto­Discovery willfind the system, recognize it asan ESXi host and instantly set upsensors to monitor the VMs run­ning on the system. This entireprocess is incredibly simple andruns out of the box. When wor­king with vSphere servers thatmanage multiple ESXi systemsand Vmotion, which is used tomove VMs from one host to ano­ther according to capacity utiliza­tion, the procedure describedabove cannot be used. If Vmoti­on shifts a VM from one host toanother, this process sets off analarm in PRTG, as the VM sud­denly ceases to exist on the cor­responding host.In this case, the ESXi hostsshould be monitored over the vS­phere server instead of being mo­nitored directly. PRTG thusviews the ESXi hosts from thevSphere’s perspective and reco­gnizes that the VM is still run­ning, just on a different host. Alittle bit of handiwork is requiredin order to realize this. The vS­phere server is Windows softwa­re that runs on a Windows server.When searching this server withNetwork Auto­Discovery, thePaessler product sets up standardWindows sensors, but does notset up the VMware sensors; theadministrator must do this manu­ally. In this case, the login datafor the ESXi server cannot beused as credentials for the VM­ware environment; instead, oneof the Windows user accountsthat have access to the vSphere

server must be used. This processposed no problems for us duringour test.ConclusionThe PRTG Network Monitorcompletely convinced us. Thesystem is easy to install and canbe set up quickly and seamlessly,

thanks to the Configuration Gu­ru. A major feature is that thesoftware operates without agentson the monitored systems. Thisnot only saves the IT depart­ment’s time, but even preventshaving to touch systems in thenetwork, which is very appe­aling, especially with critical in­stallations.We also have to emphasize thesoftware’s incredible range offunctions. Paessler put a lot of ef­fort into providing effective,high­capacity sensors for all ser­vers generally found in modernIT environments. This appliesnot only for Cloud services likeDropbox and Salesforce, but also

for the monitoring of virtual en­vironments and standard applica­tions like Exchange. The admi­nistrator can even keep track ofnetwork traffic using NetFlow,sFlow, jFlow and packet sniffing.In most cases, the Network Auto­Discovery sets up all necessarysensors on its own. In the event

additional sensors must be ma­nually integrated in the environ­ment, this procedure is quick andshouldn’t cause any problems fornetwork specialists. Other positi­ve points are the libraries andmaps. These provide flexibleperspectives that are not onlymeaningful for technicians, butthat are clearly understandablefor staff from other departmentsas well. The required effort forthese views is low and it is evenpossible to publish maps on ex­ternal sites. The comprehensive,high­performance alarm and re­port functions complete the posi­tive overall impression we recei­ved from the PRTG NetworkMonitor.

It’s important to keep an eye on the vSphere server as well as the individualhosts when monitoring VMware environments

10