Bandwidth monitoring and historical tracking

[heath]

I'm looking for something specific for bandwidth monitoring.  Not just simple Up/Down and alerting. I need something that tracks bandwidth usage and will keep data and generate historical reports (or export that data to something else so I can work with the data to get the report I want).

I've been using ManageEngine OpUtils and it has worked fine until now. But now I'm being asked to provide more detailed historical bandwidth data than it will provide. The bandwidth report it generates is not very granular and the options are limited. It provides 5 minute interval data over the past hour, 15 minute interval data over the past day, one hour interval data over the past month, and one day interval data over the past year.

I need to retain that 5 or 15 minute interval data over a whole year. And to be able to compare any given point in time over the past year to any other given point in time over the past year (including now).

Oh, and it has to be easy.  And free!     Any suggestions?

[deanwebb]

Is this for measuring security, performance, or both?

Of course, there's the old line, "Fast, cheap, good: pick two." If it's easy and free, chances are it won't be good. If you want free and good, it sure won't be easy.

But, yeah, performance or security, which is the top priority?

[heath]

Performance. 

The immediate issue bringing this about is our ISP is raising our rate because we're using more bandwidth than previously.  While the data I can provide from OpUtils verifies that, my boss still isn't happy and wants more detailed usage data from our side.  Obviously I can't provide data that isn't there so a new monitoring solution won't help for this, but I need to have something for the future.  So I could show him (or our ISP) a direct comparison between, for example, yesterday and a random business day 6 or 8 months ago.  And not only for our ISP connection but connections between core switches and between core and distribution switches, etc.

[NetworkGroover]

Of course, there's the old line, "Fast, cheap, good: pick two."

I like it!

[deanwebb]

Performance. 

The immediate issue bringing this about is our ISP is raising our rate because we're using more bandwidth than previously.  While the data I can provide from OpUtils verifies that, my boss still isn't happy and wants more detailed usage data from our side.  Obviously I can't provide data that isn't there so a new monitoring solution won't help for this, but I need to have something for the future.  So I could show him (or our ISP) a direct comparison between, for example, yesterday and a random business day 6 or 8 months ago.  And not only for our ISP connection but connections between core switches and between core and distribution switches, etc.

If you're a small business, you could get SolarWinds Orion for about $1895. Adding netflow is about another $495, if I recall correctly. Bigger business means a bigger license, but that's a quite usable product.

[that1guy15]

Are you able to adjust your retention intervals? Most NMS tools on the market allow you to adjust these but you will pay in strorage usage on your server.

If Solarwinds is too expensive then I suggest giving Zenoss or OpenNMS a shot. Both are great tools. If they are too overkill for your needs then something like MRTG a great too but minus the reporting. You would need to integrate or use something like Cacti to get reports.

[wintermute000]

You need netflow whatever you do, if you want any visibility into what ips are doing the traffic.

[heath]

Anybody know anything about perfSONAR?