For businesses and organizations of all sizes, tackling security threats and reliable network performance is of the utmost importance. Strategically investing in an effective network monitoring solution can save time and cost, reduce downtime, and increase employee productivity, and would also enable you to focus on what matters. It is important to understand that as your business grows, your network infrastructure keeps evolving continuously.

ManageEngine OpManager: The holistic network planning tool

An effective network planning software will help you visualize your entire network infrastructure. Your device inventory will be tracked automatically and also a live network map will display where network devices are located in your organization. Well, consider that you want to relocate your business or you are expanding on a global scale - the process of designing your network becomes simplified and is more viable when you have a map of your network in your hand.

OpManager is an end-to-end, comprehensive. advanced network planning tool that offers advanced monitoring for all your network devices, ranging from servers, network routers, switches, and firewalls to email servers, web/HTTP servers, network traffic, DNS servers, WAN links, storage devices, databases and virtual machines (VM). Apart from network monitoring and troubleshooting, it mainly helps you with network planning - from when you set up a network, to when you expand your network and also throughout the lifetime of your network

OpManager's network planning capabilities:

Automatic network discovery

The initial step in network management planning is to make a list of the devices in your network. OpManager's simplified network discovery process automatically scans your network and its custom device profiles make it easy to discover a wide range of network devices like switches, routers, and firewalls to virtual servers and machines (VMware, Hyper-V, UCS, Xen) and storage devices (RAID, TapeLibrary, FCSwitches). You can also gain insights about your network devices post-discovery, which can be generated as a report. To automate network discovery, you can also schedule it as per your requirement and OpManager will discover new devices in your network automatically.

Grouping

Another key element in network planning is to group a set of devices. Grouping can be based on location, based on department, or in terms of device vendor type, etc. OpManager's advanced grouping feature allows you to sort devices or interfaces together to organize your network effectively. You can also configure specific criteria to automatically group devices. Once you have grouped the devices or interfaces - OpManager lets you set thresholds for alarm generation, generate reports for a particular group, and also push configuration changes in bulk. The device groups can be effectively utilized as a filter through the product, thereby playing an important role in organizing your network for ages to come.

Layer 2 maps

Layer 2 map plan- ManageEngine OpManager

Understanding the relationship between the parent and dependent devices plays a vital role in advanced network planning design. An effective network map planner tool will help you automatically generate a map of your network. OpManager can instantly generate a logical network map or network topology diagram once the discovery process is completed. This provides a clear-cut visualization of the physical network connections and also helps you troubleshoot network issues in case a device goes down. You get color-coded icons depending on the status with options to drill down to the specific. With OpManager's Layer2 mapping feature, you can just provide the IP address of the seed router and OpManager will automatically provide a list of devices connected to the router from which you can immediately select the devices to be monitored and ignore the rest - it's that easy.

Business views

Business views- ManageEngine OpManager

With businesses continuously expanding, it is quite common for organizations to expand on a global scale. OpManager's Business views provide a graphical representation of your network infrastructure - with support for custom background maps. Business views enable you to group devices based on geographical locations or business services. An important highlight is that you can also add links between devices and monitor the connectivity and traffic load. To give you even more control over your network, you can restrict user access based on Business views, thereby taking care of your network security planning along with network topology planning needs as well.

3D Datacenter view

3D datacenter- ManageEngine OpManager

Datacenter infrastructure management and network planning for your data center can be complex, and it is important to have a clear perspective of all the elements present in your datacenter. OpManager, the advanced network diagram planner helps you create a visual representation of each floor and rack of your datacenter - all in 3D. The 3D view is dynamic, can be created using the simple drag-and-drop technique, and it displays the health of each rack in real time. Any issue detected will be color-coded depending on the severity, with options to drill down to the specific devices' snapshot page. With OpManager, network diagram planning and managing your data center's infrastructure cannot get any more simplified.

Capacity planning

Another important aspect of network planning is to ensure that the IT systems implemented withstand the test of time and also, expansion. Being able to deliver consistently as the business scales is important to preserve the reputation and momentum built by the company. OpManager helps you plan for the future by providing in-depth metrics on bandwidth level and also importantly on network loads.

  • Monitor the temperature of network devices and performance strain on servers and routers.
  • Get insights on storage levels and forecast capacity utilization based on historical trends.
  • Schedule alerts based on capacity utilization and effectively plan before the set capacity thresholds are breached.

Reports

A significant feature of an effective network planning and monitoring tool is its ability to provide immediate intelligent reports which make all the difference in running a well-planned and optimized IT infrastructure. OpManager provides over 100 in-built reports that are intuitively grouped and classified. There are reports for every aspect of network monitoring devices, ranging from utilization reports, device health reports, to custom 'Top N' reports that display devices based on the highest utilization metric specified. All the reports can be scheduled and automatically sent to your email, so that you stay on top of your network, every single time.

Alarm escalation

Planning for your network seems like a legitimate task, but the real deal lies in planning for network downtime. Able to identify faults before they arise or are reported by end-users is the highlight of effective network planning software. OpManager offers color-coded alarms based on the level of severity and allows administrators to view the event history associated with an alarm. OpManager notifies you through SMS or email when an issue arises and administrators can also configure OpManager to execute scripts or trigger external programs when an alarm goes off. Alarm escalation rules can be set up based on various conditions and OpManager will automatically execute them for you.

Custom dashboards

Distributed network monitoring- ManageEngine OpManager

OpManager helps you quickly gain insights on the critical aspects of your network by presenting monitored data in the work of widgets that can be customized as per your requirement. The dashboard provides an at-a-glance overview of your network, with critical metrics from switches, routers, firewalls, servers, services, printers, UPS, applications, URLs, and other infrastructure devices. You can watch the fruits of all your efforts put into network planning, simplified with OpManager, come alive in the dashboard that can also be personalized for each individual administrator.

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Customer reviews

OpManager
OpManager - 10 Steps Ahead Of The Competition, One Step Away From Being Unequalled.
- Network Services Manager, Government Organization
Review Role: Infrastructure and OperationsCompany Size: Gov't/PS/ED 5,000 - 50,000 Employees
"I have a long-standing relationship with ManageEngine. OpManager has always missed one or two features that would make it truly the best tool on the market, but over it is the most comprehensive and easy to use the product on the market."
OpManager
Easy Implementation, Excellent Support & Lower Cost Tool
- Team Lead, IT Service Industry
Review Role: Infrastructure and OperationsCompany Size: 500M - 1B USD
"We have been using OpManager since 2011 and our overall experience has been excellent. The tool plays a vital role in providing the value to our organisation and to the customers we are supporting. The support is excellent and staff takes full responsibilities in resolving the issues. Innovation is never stopping and clearly visible with newer versions"
OpManager
Easy Implementation With A Feature Rich Catalogue, Support Has Some Room For Improvement
- NOC Manager in IT Service Industry
Review Role: Program and Portfolio ManagementCompany Size: 500M - 1B USD
"The vendor has been supporting during the implementation & POC phases providing trial licenses. Feature requests and feedback is usually acted upon swiftly. There was sufficient vendor support during the implementation phase. After deployment, the support is more than adequate, where the vendor could make some improvements."
OpManager
Great Monitoring Tool
- CIO in Finance Industry
Review Role: CIOCompany Size: 1B - 3B USD
"Manage Engine provides a suite of tools that have made improvements to the availability of our internal applications. From monitoring, management and alerting, we have been able to peak performance within our data center."
OpManager
Simple Implementation, Easy To Use. Very Intuitive.
- Principal Engineer in IT Services
Review Role: Enterprise Architecture and Technology InnovationCompany Size: 250M - 500M USD
"Manage Engine support was helpful and responsive to all our queries"
 
 

Case Studies - OpManager

OpManager

Hinduja Global Solutions saves $3 million a year using OpManager

Industry: IT

Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) is an Indian business process management (BPM) organization headquartered in Bangalore and part of the Hinduja Group. HGS combines technology-powered automation, analytics, and digital services focusing on back office proces

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OpManager

USA-Based Healthcare Organization Monitor's Network Devices Using OpManager and Network Configuration Manager

Industry: Healthcare

One of the largest radiology groups in the nation, with a team of more than 200 board-certified radiologists, provides more than 50 hospital and specialty clinic partners with on-site radiology coverage and interpretations.

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OpManager

Netherlands-based real estate data company avoids system downtime using OpManager and Firewall Analyzer

Industry: Real Estate

Vabi is a Netherlands-based company that provides "real estate data in order, for everyone." Since 1972, the company has focused on making software that calculates the performance of buildings. It has since then widened its scope from making calculations

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OpManager

Global news and media company

Industry: Telecommunication and Media

Bonita uses OpManager to monitor their network infrastructure and clear bottlenecks

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OpManager

Bonita

Industry: Businesses and Services

Bonita uses OpManager to monitor their network infrastructure and clear bottlenecks

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OpManager

Thorp Reed & Armstrong

Industry : Government

Randy S. Hollaway from Thorp Reed & Armstrong relies on OpManager for prompt alerts and reports

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