Network Management over a single console

OpManager is a 38 MB software solution that provides IT administrators a single management console for their entire network management needs. ManageEngine OpManager is derived from the industry–leading Web NMS network management model of Manageengine that follows the ISO FCAPS* model.

OpManager discovers, maps and monitors all the network devices availability and performance, to present over a single console, vital information needed for network managers to operate and maintain healthy networks. The software uses various network technologies to bring together network management capabilities in a single downloadable file of size 38 MB(Windows installation): monitoring via SNMP, ICMP, TCP, WMI, CLI, Telnet, SSH, flow-based traffic analysis (NetFlow, sFlow^®, cflowd^®, J-Flow^®, IPFIX^®, NetStream^® and Cisco NBAR^® ), Traceroutes, Cisco IP SLA monitoring, processing of Syslogs, Eventlog and SNMP traps.

Visit the Online demo and see for yourself the in–built capabilities of OpManager or let a ManageEngine product specialist show you how OpManager makes easy work of network management

^* Network management can simply be defined as a collection of tasks and activities performed to keep one’s network and IT infrastructure running 24x7 and performing at optimal levels. These tasks and activities are commonly grouped into five categories or functional areas as defined in the ISO framework for network management – FCAPS, as below:

• Fault Management
• Configuration Management
• Accounting Management
• Performance Management
• Security Management

A comprehensive network management solution provides all the management functions as described in the FCAPS model.

OpManager for the Network Manager

As a network manager, your primary concern is with the availability, performance and utilization of your WAN links, and a fail-safe mechanism to be the first to know when there is an issue. Your focus areas are to ensure good health of your networks and devices, proactive monitoring, timely control and maintenance, and a trusty fault monitoring capability. Over utilization of the network results in bottlenecks, low performance and congestion, while under utilization means wastage of resources and bandwidth. As your organization grows bigger, the load on your networks would increase as well. To keep up with the growth, and to ensure optimal performance, you would have to increase the capacity. However, additional bandwidth means added cost, which means an even lengthier explanation to your bosses.

OpManager brings together robust network monitoring and a powerful alerting mechanism, with the ability to pull out trends and graphs for analytical study and reporting.

Visualize your WAN

To read your WAN as a logical collection of devices and links is one thing. To see your WAN as a physical entity is quite another.

Your organization may use a network that spans across its offices in California, Detroit, Florida and New York, and a data center at Illinois, with links traversing in various fashions. As the network manager, it would be your task to make sure the network is always right on track.

Instead of looking at your networks as a combination of a myriad of routers, servers, switches and links, OpManager allows you to visualize your WAN. Now you just have to place your network onto its geographic location. You may even choose to receive regional alerts – splitting your WAN into North, South, East and West and then drill down to the issue depending on the regional priority.

Know Links Availability

Of course, the primary task of the network manager is to ensure that the network works! Always being in the 'know' and early response to communication failures is key to ensuring high availability across your WAN.

OpManager lets you proactively monitor and provide a high network availability environment with the aid of configurable thresholds and real time availability distribution charts. Setting, measuring and verifying service levels are greatly simplified with percentage availability and availability distribution dashboards. Additionally, OpManager uses CISCO's IP SLA technology to display top SLA violations and the least available links as well.

However, just knowing that the communication channel is broken is of minimal practical use without the knowledge of where the issue is. With OpManager you can drill down into the network path and identify the specific breakage in the link that caused a failure of the network.

Monitor Network Performance

In the world of networks, a high availability alone is far from sufficient. If the average round trip time between your branches across the coast is about 60ms but the RTT now exceeds 200ms, the poor performance is just as bad as that communication network being down or unavailable.

Now with CISCO's IP SLA technology, OpManager keeps you abreast with the performance across the various links in your network, giving you the capability to proactively manage and sustain your network well over the acceptable performance levels.

By graphically displaying the various communication paths and the RTT associated with each link, identifying the point of performance degradation becomes a breeze. Since the hops which cause the anomaly are brought to the fore, corrective action to restore the business can be initiated immediately.

Guarantee Optimal Utilization

Knowing whether the high consumption of bandwidth is generated by genuine traffic is an important consideration for capacity planning. Videos of no significance to the business might be streaming in, even as essential business services are clogged for bandwidth. On the contrary, there might be a genuine demand for greater bandwidth as well.

OpManager integrates with ManageEngine NetFlow analyzer, a traffic analysis product from ManageEngine, to provide bandwidth management and capacity planning capabilities. In addition to OpManager's monitoring functionalities, the NetFlow Analyzer integration brings in a high degree of visibility into the network's utilization and provides the data to deduce informed decisions.

Watch the Firewall

With network frauds and threats on the increase, network managers cannot afford to have their communication channels to stand compromised. An in depth monitoring of the firewall and the information flowing across it would not only create a more secure network environment but also help find the usage pattern and identify genuine traffic from business irrelevant ones.

In conjuncture with ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer, OpManager gives insight into employee internet usage patterns such as the protocols used for communication and working vs non-working hours usage, enabling managers to plan capacity or incorporate appropriate usage policies in a timely and efficient manner.

Manage Configuration Changes

Accidental or incorrect configuration of networked devices most often lead to the entire link being rendered unavailable. The impact associated is even more widespread if the device connects across multiple paths. While configuration changes in routers, switches, firewalls and others are few and far between after the initial set-up, it is always a wiser choice to back up configurations for quicker restoration when it must be reset.

OpManager integrates with ManageEngine DeviceExpert to offer network change and configuration management, enabling multi-vendor network device configuration, continuous monitoring of configuration changes, notifications on respective changes, detailed operation audit and trails, easy and safe recovery to trusted configurations, automation of configuration tasks and insightful reporting.

Videos

• ManageEngine OpManager - Overview (5 Minutes)

• IPSLA based WAN Monitoring (5 minutes)

• Network Performance Management (8 minutes)

• Be The First To Know - Fault Management (6 minutes)

• Business Centric IT Management (4 minutes)

Case Studies

1. ERP Suites – Learn how a Datacenter hosting business, ERP Suites, makes use of OpManager integrated with ServiceDeskPlus to meet strict customer SLAs.

2. Galaxy, Fiserv Credit Union Division – Learn how one of the largest credit union applications and services provider, Galaxy - Fiserv Credit Union Division uses OpManager for monitoring WAN network connectivity and critical network services for proactive network management.

Whitepapers

1. Six things your bandwidth tool won't tell you – Throwing additional bandwidth at every application performance problem? Know how you can effectively & judiciously confront performance bottlenecks.

2. Free Network Monitoring Tool – Does control over your entire network have to mean expensive cosultants and training? Learn how you can get it for free!

3. Integrated Infrastructure Management – Learn why it makes more sense to have a single solution to manage your Operations and Networks

4. Cost Effective Network Management – How can you gain greater visibility and performance across your networks without a major Budgetary review? Read more...

5. WAN Monitoring – Read more on WAN Availability and Performance management and the business advantages it translates to.

Customer Testimonials

"We have been using OpManager for several years now to monitor hundreds of devices and thousands of ports. The application has allowed us to be proactive to problems before end users notice, along with being a troubleshooting tool to bring faster resolution to issues when they arise. I installed the new NetFlow plug-in before its release and the application has performed flawlessly. I have even had a chance to use the data to troubleshoot an issue with a particular VPN timeout issue. I would highly recommend the OpManager product and the new NetFlow plug-in to assist in managing networks; from the small network with several devices to the enterprise level with hundreds."

Scott Heckman,
Senior Network Engineer at one of Maine's largest healthcare providers.

"The new VoIP management addition to OpManager provides a clean, centralized monitoring center for your VoIP network. Being able to always view the top call statistics allows you to quickly identify any possible issues. Another key feature is the report section where historical data can be used to view trends in performance."

Nichole K. Boscia,
Senior Network Engineer,
NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division.

"The best way is to give you an example of how this has helped me. In my role probably one of the more important features of OpManager is the proactive monitoring. On occasion, I have received emails, from OpManager, over a weekend highlighting an issue with a switch. The switch was in our Security Gatehouse and the PC, phone and door access for that area all ran through it. I was able to contact the personnel on-site and explain what was needed to resolve the issue, therefore preventing a bigger problem first thing on Monday morning! All in all a very useful tool and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a network management tool."

Rob Wren,
Infrastructure Service Manager,
Westmill Foods Limited.

"This is the best analyzer program I've ever seen!!! OpManager has changed the way I administer my network."

Damian Bermatov

"I must say that we are very happy with the performance and reliability of OpManager. We have written our own alert processor that allows for more flexibility for sending out alerts (sms, email and net send) with multiple escalation levels, server blackout times, and selectable message type by time and day. Together make it a very powerful system."

Kieron Matthews,
Director, Rocktime Ltd

"Your product has won our test against other network management products! Opmanager has a superb GUI, great functions, almost plug & play and it has an extremely attractive price! I'm also going to have Opmanager integrated in my home network, because the free version is great!"

Matthias Bosshard
Zurich University.

"OpManager is a perfect tool to showcase performance management, fault management and applications monitoring. We found it very user friendly and comprehensive in nature. It gives a complete picture of the Network, Systems, applications and services."

Achilles Santos Silva,
Junior Department of Computer Science,
UNERJ - University Center of Jaragua of the South.