ManageEngine OpManager Network Performance Monitoring Tool Review

This ManageEngine OpManager review explains its network performance monitoring process for multiple devices & how it can help network admins:

A Network Admin’s job isn’t easy. Keeping up with network traffic, managing bandwidth usage, identifying issues, and plugging security breaches can be extremely challenging and constantly frustrating. Network admins have to deal with these frustrations on a regular basis.

Fortunately, we have several applications at our disposal today that can make lives easier when it comes to network management.

ManageEngine OpManager Review

ManageEngine OpManager just so happens to be one of the strongest tools leading the charge in this department today. It is an end-to-end network management software designed for multi-vendor enterprise IT networks.

It essentially proposes a unified approach that aims to manage and scale IT infrastructure distributed across critical IT resources such as WAN, Servers, VoIP links, Domain Controllers, MS SQL, and many other vital IT infrastructural components.

Known widely as the world’s first truly integrated network management software, the system performs a number of fundamental functions like virtual and physical server monitoring, flow-based bandwidth analysis, IP address/switch port management, firewall log archiving/analysis, configuration management, and so much more.

Suffice to say, businesses have gravitated towards this software because of its relatively faster and intelligent network management capabilities. One of the tasks that it performs with this same level of efficiency is network performance and diagnostics–a feature we will be paying extra attention to in this particular review.

We spent hours fiddling with the tool to look into the various elements that facilitate OpManager’s network performance monitoring properties, understand how businesses and individuals can benefit from it, and ultimately leave you with our honest thoughts on what is arguably OpManger’s most sought after feature.

Recommended Reading =>> Popular Network Performance Diagnostic Tools

System Requirements

The below table explains the system requirements:

Specifications

OpManager: Interface And Features Overview

In hindsight, OpManager possesses a very simple and quick installation process. During its installation, you are presented with several options. The software lets you decide whether you want to install it in your system as a service, which web port you would prefer to use, and whether you would like to use PostgreSQL or a separate MSSQL server.

For users who prefer cloud deployment, OpManager is on the AWS marketplace as well.

Once you have the software installed, you will be able to access the application via a default port of 8060 on your browser. Upon installation, you are instantly greeted with a page that allows you to quickly prepare the tool for its core functioning based on your particular needs in 5 steps.

You can either configure your settings here itself or skip it altogether to move on to the main interface.

OpManager possesses a very modern-looking interface that also appears somewhat busy. The admin console itself quickly acquaints you with no less than 9 tabs, which you can use to navigate to all the tool’s main sections. As there are way too many options to choose from, you may find yourself lost initially. However, you will get used to the interface after a few rounds.

You can choose between three formats to configure the display on your home screen.

• Enterprise Dashboard
• Real-Time Dashboard
• System Performance

Although cluttered, the tool still harbors a relatively more compelling visual design than any of its close competitors in the market. The tool also allows you to customize the dashboard and design maps with your own preferred widgets and an intuitive drag-and-drop tool. Moreover, you can also try the tools new NOC view feature, which allows you to project the dashboard with critical metrics for an entire team to witness.

OpManager also grants administrators the ability to design templates that can be assigned to devices. This helps in easily setting numerous devices quickly, so they can all be treated in a uniform manner.

Another aspect of the software that really exalts its position in the industry is the importance it gives to both VMWare and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. It is very simple to track virtual infrastructure and virtual networks using OpManager. Citrix Xen and Nutanix in HCI are also supported by OpManager.

With so many robust features, it is undoubtedly OpManager’s Network Performance Monitoring feature that acts as its biggest draw.

Suggested Read =>> Best Network Monitoring Tools

Network Performance Monitoring

Irrespective of whether a business is small or large, it can barely function without a robust networking infrastructure at its core. A good network monitoring tool needs to understand the losses businesses stand to incur in the event of a sudden network outage.

After spending hours on OpManager’s network monitoring tool, we can confidently claim that it does deliver when it comes to expecting potential outages and identifying network problems before they even arise.

Network Performance Monitoring exists to help businesses monitor the performance of any IP-based device. It basically helps them visualize their system’s performance to better understand their current functioning. It can also be used to monitor bandwidth usage, routers, traffic flow, switches, and network services.

This software acquaints users with live dashboards and comprehensive graphs to monitor network devices in real-time. The software aptly measures both performance metrics such as memory utilization, availability across physical/virtual servers, and CPU along with key metrics like packet loss, errors, and discards, etc.

We like that it enables users to promptly take care of their network issues with the help of threshold-based alerts. You can set multiple thresholds for each performance metric and receive notifications for all of them.

Moreover, you also get valuable insights into network performance with the help of 100 in-built reports. Needless to say, this is an exhaustively capable tool for effective fault and performance management.

Let’s dig a little deeper to understand the various key aspects of this tool to find out how efficient it is in tracking and correcting outages before they occur.

Customizable Dashboards

Perhaps the first thing that really wins you over, OpManager scores some major brownie points due to its impressive customizable dashboard. It virtually presents you with tons of visualization options that can each be chosen to suit different employees in an organization. Each individual user can customize the dashboard as per their needs using a variety of widgets.

You can easily generate network floors and rakes that are already in the data center and use OpManager’s 3D data center to get the status of these devices. In other words, you can easily create topology maps and get 3D visualizations of your floor and rake servers. With the help of these network maps, you can visualize and identify the exact location of network outages.

On the contrary, users can employ the ‘Business View’ if they just wish to view a group of devices with links between them. Additionally, you can also use the phenomenal Heat map view to get a bird’s-eye view of your business’s network across the globe.

Adding A Device To Monitor

It is very simple to employ this tool to monitor single or multiple devices in an instant. You can add a device under the Inventory section. Simply select ‘Add Device’, fill in the IP address or device name with accurate credentials required for access. Once added, you are simply required to click ‘Discover’ and the device becomes ready for monitoring.

On the other hand, the tool facilitates the creation of a Discovery Profile wherein a range of IP addresses and credentials can be specified to monitor multiple devices all at once.

Proactive Performance Monitoring

OpManager is indeed a very powerful tool when it comes to network monitoring. It can competently monitor all your devices on the basis of availability, performance, traffic, and several other vital parameters. By helping you identify network issues proactively, it essentially empowers users to fix these problems on time to prevent long downtimes. Businesses can stand to save a lot of money because of this feature alone.

For instance, OpManager can be used to automatically discover switches in your network and displayed on a special switch map for users to refer to. You get instant notification on the status and availability of switch ports, knowing beforehand when a switch port goes down or is in a critical condition.

It is possible to monitor performances of devices from multiple vendors. We like that this tool allows you to take control of devices by establishing device-specific monitors that fixate on particular aspects of the device in question.

The tool also supports the setting up of custom SNMP MIB variables. The tool is compatible with some of the most popularly used devices in the market, such as Cisco, Juniper, and Palo Alto.

In situations where the performance counter you intend to monitor isn’t available, the tool allows you to get SNMP MIBs from a vendor and create custom SNMP monitors. A monitor can also be created by loading the WMI classes from the devices as well.

Other things you can monitor include:

• TCP Ports for Availability and Response Time
• Files and Folders for Size, Age, and Availability
• Windows Services for CPU, Memory, and Availability
• Windows Event Logs
• Syslog from Linux and Network devices

Issue Diagnosis And Resolution

Once the tool does diagnoses an issue with your network device, you get a set of pre-defined workflows that can be employed to deal with the fault on a routine basis. You can opt for any of the actions mentioned such as refresh data store, reboot, or shutdown system to troubleshoot arising network issues.

You can set an alarm trigger for various workflows to alert you of any impending network outage. Later, you can either opt for the pre-defined actions that the tool suggests and simply execute the workflow to resolve an issue or opt to create an entirely new workflow with a new set of alarm triggers and actions.

You can also get a report on all your executed workflows in the Workflow logs sections or export them as a PDF or XLS file

Configuring Alerts

We also found it pretty convenient to take control of our network, thanks to the two protective measures offered by OpManager.

They are as follows:

#1) Multi-Level Thresholds

OpManager allows you to set multi-level thresholds in order to classify any faults encountered and raise alerts if the device is found under critical condition. So you are informed as to the level of severity facing a device and take appropriate corrective actions to resolve the issue.

By configuring thresholds you are basically commanding OpManager to proactively monitor the services or resources that are running on your servers and network devices. You can configure multiple thresholds across multiple devices or apply them to monitors affiliated with a single device.

#2) Instant Notification

Another way OpManager assists users in controlling their networks is by instantly notifying them via email, SMS, or simply when an alarm goes off. OpManager can be configured to run homegrown scripts and external programs automatically when the alarm is triggered.

It employs color-coded alarms that can be used in a comprehensive manner. It only presents you with meaningful alarms that facilitate the performance of multiple imperative functions like intelligent event processing, filtering unwanted events, and correlating raw network events. You can also set escalation rules to ensure all alarms get the attention needed.

Furthermore, you also get to view the entire history of an alarm and manually clear or delete them if you prefer.

In hindsight, we believe users can benefit from OpManager’s proactive network monitoring abilities on 4 key fronts:

1. Quick detection and resolution of network issues by presenting network administrators with an end-user perspective on application and network performance.
2. Testing network performance to understand its bandwidth
3. Identifying security threats and sudden boost in traffic levels
4. Monitoring IP assets and equipment upgrades.

Network Performance Parameters

OpManager truly shines when monitoring performance on the below 4 parameters. Let’s look into each of these factors and understand how OpManager leverages them to deliver an excellent network monitoring experience.

#1) Availability

OpManager can alert all devices being monitored at pre-defined intervals. So if a device is down, packet loss is huge or response time is long, you can bet OpManager will notify you immediately via an email or text message. Thus, allowing you to maintain a consistent uptime period.

#2) CPU and Memory

You can easily monitor devices that employ WMI, SSH, Telnet, VMware native API, and SNMP with OpManager. The tool grants you the opportunity to troubleshoot issues pertaining to CPU and servers before they affect the end-user. The tool can also be used to monitor crucial CPU metrics like speed, idle time, processor time, independent thresholds, and utilization.

#3) Traffic

OpManager basically allows you to analyze traffic patterns and understand your network’s bandwidth performance. By empowering its users with the ability to monitor device traffic, it enables you to identify bandwidth bottlenecks and take care of them before they affect the entire network.

You can take charge of network performance monitoring to view interface traffic or the last polled traffic and use time intervals to filter traffic. Additionally, you also get in-depth visibility on bandwidth usage and network traffic pattern, thanks to OpManager’s NetFlow module.

#4) WAN Performance

OpManager is great when monitoring WAN connections, checking WAN latency, and monitoring the entire WAN network to identify network traffic. It effectively helps in monitoring WAN links for availability to ensure businesses can enjoy fast response times, consistent uptime, and reduced transmission errors.

The tool also helps users in reacting proactively to an issue that can potentially affect the WAN network. It is important to note that OpManager does rely heavily on Cisco’s IP-SLA to monitor WAN availability, latency, and performance.

Moreover, you can also resort to OpManager’s WAN Round Trip Time Monitor feature to get insight into the round trip time, bandwidth usage, WAN link latency, and much more.

The above performance factors can then be used to diagnose and resolve an improperly functioning WAN.

Reports

Getting comprehensive insights into how your network has been performing over a period of time is also very simple with OpManager. It acquaints users with a whopping of 100 built-in reports and over 125 distinct reports.

You get valuable device performance reports like Device Health Reports; Service Response Time reports; Usage report on CPU, Disk Space, and Memory; Inventory reports on various devices, Incoming and Outgoing traffic reports among many others.

These reports can be saved as an XLS or PDF file. You can export these reports as widgets and pin them on your dashboard. It is also possible to create customized reports with OpManager.

Integrations

OpManager is pretty limited when it comes to integration. However, the options it does offer are all extremely beneficial in elevating the overall user experience. It supports seamless integrations with many Manage Engine and other third-party applications. Using webhooks OpManager can integrate with Microsoft Teams, Telegram, PagerDuty, Zapier, Zoho Flow, and many more.

Here are some of the integrations supported by OpManager:

• Network Configuration Manager
• Application Manager
• NetFlow Analyzer
• Slack
• Fall-Over – Hot Standby engine
• VoIP Monitor
• WAN RTT Monitor
• ServiceDesk Plus
• Firewall Log Monitor
• AlarmsOne
• OpUtils: Switch Part and IP Address Management
• ServiceNow
• Jira ServiceDesk

Pros and Cons

The below table enlists the pros and cons:

Pricing

OpManager presents you with three methods to opt for its services. You can seek a customized price quote by directly reaching out to their representatives, go for the free plan with limited features, or opt for one-time payment by subscribing to any of its three pricing plans.

The Standard edition can be acquired at a reasonable price of $245 to monitor 10 devices, the Professional edition with additional monitoring and discovery features is priced at $345 and also monitors 10 devices. The above two additions are ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. You will have to pay extra if you intend to monitor over 10 devices on these plans.

The Enterprise Edition, on the other hand, can monitor a total of 250 devices and will cost around $11454. You get several additional features with this edition, which is ideal for large enterprises. The above is just the starting price, the largest enterprise edition plan will let you monitor over 10000 devices.

You can purchase add-ons that will cost you extra.

You can also try all of these editions separately on a 30-day free trial to get a taste of its various functions without paying a dime. Furthermore, you can also opt for a free demo of the tool.

=> Visit OpManager’s official website today to get a price quote or check all the features you stand to enjoy from its various pricing plans.

=> Click here for a personalized Free Demo

Conclusion

OpManager excels above its competitors in the market by offering a tool that allows you to proactively monitor network performance for multiple devices. Its customizable dashboard does a fine job of making you comfortable with its functions before presenting you with all of its core functionalities.

It is extremely beneficial for network admins and helps them test network performance in order to resolve network issues before they affect the end-user. Apart from this, it also delivers in spades when identifying security threats understanding bandwidth usage, and notifying users of a sudden spike in traffic levels.

Its reasonably priced professional and standard editions make it a perfect option for small and medium-sized businesses struggling to manage their network devices. With an overall robust functionality, clean and customizable UI, and a reliable support system, OpManager is easily one of the best network monitoring tools in the industry today.