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Network performance monitor hardware requirements

I was so happy when I got hold of the EE tookit and the network performance monitor (NPM), as it gave me what I was missing - the continous pulse sound of my network.. you know the one you need to be sure everything works allright emoticons_happy.png

First I just tested from a Compaq Deskpro EN (933MHz P3, 392MB RAM, 100Mbit link to core). I got to the point where I had 23 network node elements in the list and 2400+ interface elements. Polling interval was set to per minute for network node elements, and 10minutes for interface elements.
Response was increasingly slower, and I always had outstanding SNMP queries. I checked the network traffic to see if I was killing it off, but nope - just 50Kbit/sec throughput and not an alarmingly high PPS count.

I have at least 60-70 network nodes that I want to monitor though, so where to go from here?

I figured that I needed to test using a server, but the only server my manager had for my immediate use, was a Compaq Proliant 1850R with dual P2 400MHz's and a gig full of RAM - running Windows 2000 Server.
I was worried about it, and I was proven true; this server hardware was even performing worse than my little desktop computer.

I hope to get my hands on a HP P4 pizzabox server some time in the future, but I will be testing a HP P4 2.4GHz desktop first.
Just a few words on my experiences with the NPM.

I would really appreciate feedback from others that are using the NPM, especially related to performance and how you are tuning your systems.

My network consists of about 1600 client/server nodes, tied together with about 70 switches and routers. A medium-sized network for my region I'd say.

Best regards,
Ørjan Sandland
  • I am running EE and monitoring 35 nodes and 684 interfaces. EE is running on a P4 1.7Ghz with 1gig ram. I'd say that I can see a bit of lag in the system with that amount of monitoring. I run the syslog server, Advanced CPU monitor and NPM. I'm not to sure if this software would benefit from a multi or hyper-threading cpu configuration. One important thing is to buy a good NIC, don't get one with uses the cpu for communications. Your not sending and receiving large packets but alot of data (Packets Per Second). I am also running big brother as a web based host monitor. I'd say with the numbers you are monitoring, you need a beefy systems to keep up.

    Lockheed Martin
    Atlas V Launch Operations
    Network Engineer