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Now, why is answering this question important? Because the answers you give here help drive where you place your emphasis during the first round of implementation. Yes, I said the first round of implementation. Implementing a new NMS, even one for a relatively small network, is not a "one and done" thing. Your NMS is a living, breathing solution that grows and improves with time and usage. As a result, you'll need to adjust how it works, and how your team uses it, in order to get the most from it.
You'll learn more about what we refer to as "Crawl
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->Walk→Run" in the Planning section of this guide.
Prioritize
Take the list you just made and prioritize it; top to bottom, everything in order and in its own place. Now, take everything below the top three items and sweep them into a drawer. We'll come back to them in a minute, but for now, set them aside. You don't even want them where you can see them.
Whatever these are, these three answers to "why are you looking for a new NMS?" are your focus.
If you're still in the selection process make sure you discuss these requirements/concerns with your account executive or presales engineer.
Technical Solutions
- ICMP/Ping
- SNMP Collection
- SNMPTraps
- WMI Collection
- Syslog Parsing
- Service Monitoring (DNS/NTP/etc.)
- Application Monitoring
- Configuration Backup
- Compliance Monitoring
- Device Baselining
- File/Folder Change Monitoring
- Software License Usage
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