Real-time monitoring

branfarm

 Can anyone out there recommend a product to monitor traffic real-time (not 1 min avg or 5 min avg), including multicast, that can "integrate" with the Orion web interface? or does Solarwinds have anything that can do this?  I know I can sniff packets with Wireshark (aka Ethereal), but I need something that is web accessible and listening 24/7.

 I always feel like I'm so close to having a "complete" network monitoring/management solution, but there always something left out. I've compared NPM to PRTG before, and even though NPM is leaps and bounds superior to PRTG, the latter includes a packet sniffer that you can filter and have as a resource with graphs and other stats.  I love NPM, but I still need some real-time monitoring for a few multicast and tcp datafeeds I receive everyday. I currently have a linux box running tcpstat dumping traffic information to a mysql database, accessed via a php web interface. It's so cumbersome to use though.... it kills me.  

 I feel like we are so close to having everything in NPM... but those last few things are still mission-critical...

 

I apologize for the rant... can anyone offer any insights?  SW, do you have any plans to integrate packet sniffing/filtering to Netflow?

FormerMember

NetScout Infinistream (pricey investment, formerly a Network General product).  We have several of these monitoring (capturing) all traffic on our GE backbone, through the firewalls and central site server farms. It's great looking back on performance problems.  The tool has helped resolve numerous firewall misconfigurations and poor application programming proving "it's not the network".  This has saved numerous hours by my network team in diagnosing problems and eliminating any speculation.  We can diagnose whether it is a true network problem or firewall/application issue in a matter minutes rather than hours or days that otherwise would take weeks to shake out with developers or the firewall team.

http://www.netscout.com/products/infinistream.asp