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Foglight NMS Overview
Foglight Network Management System (NMS) is a robust and complete network monitoring solution that allows you to thoroughly and efficiently manage your network. It is capable of monitoring networks of all sizes, across one or more sites, from small corporate LANs to large enterprises or highly distributed environments.
Foglight NMS automatically discovers key metrics for network resources, such as hardware, operating systems, virtual infrastructure, databases, middleware, applications, and services. You can then use this information to easily and quickly pinpoint and diagnose network issues.
Foglight NMS features include:
• Real-time performance monitoring for routers, hubs, switches, servers, and applications • Distributed environment support for a remote network using probes in locations to
differentiate and increase performance
• Traffic analysis to capture traffic flow data for any device on the network and then use it to identify which users or applications are generating traffic on your network and how much network bandwidth they are consuming
• Advanced alerting for monitoring network events, traffic, and conditions, then establishing a performance baseline to avoid false-positive alerts from normal network activity
• Network mapping for a comprehensive, intuitive view of your network infrastructure across local and distributed environments
• Trending and capacity planning with out-of-the-box reports based on changes over time for anticipating future resource requirements
• Use customized dashboards to display information about your sites' networks, such as CPU load, memory, disk space utilization, network interface traffic, network latency, and packet loss • Remotely and securely run custom scripts that you wrote for Windows, Mac, Linux, or UNIX
devices.
• Create custom SNMP monitors to provide complete SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) coverage on any network by defining a SNMP OID to monitor a SNMP device regardless of the manufacturer or type of device
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Foglight NMS Architecture
The following diagram provides a high-level view of the Foglight NMS architecture. This diagram will help you visualize how Foglight NMS monitors and collects data from your devices and sends it to your Foglight NMS platform server.
Figure 1: How to set up Foglight NMS
Preparing for Your POC
Page 4 of 5 The successful Foglight NMS POC begins with simple preparation, which if followed correctly, will allow for the completion of the POC in a timely manner. This document contains a checklist of items that you need to implement prior to starting your Foglight NMS POC.
Preparation for the Foglight NMS POC will include making hardware and people resources available. To ensure that your Foglight NMS POC goes smoothly, it is very important that you have the following items prepared or available before you begin:
Dedicate a server to be used during the POC – You will need to have dedicated server available for the Foglight NMS platform server. This server will act as the main database for monitoring and collecting all data from your devices during the POC. See the following section, Host Server
System Requirements, for more information.
Open the appropriate ports – You will need to make sure that all the correct TCP Ports are open on your firewall to allow communication to the Foglight NMS platform server. See the following section, Opening Inbound Ports, for more information.
Have your valid WMI credentials available – You will need to have all your valid Windows administrative credentials available for the devices that you want to monitor by WMI. Have your valid read/write SNMP credentials available – You will need to have all your valid
read/write SNMP credentials for the devices that you want to monitor by SNMP.
Telnet/SSH access – You must have Telnet/SSH access to all your routers, switches, and devices that you want to monitor during your Foglight NMS POC.
Compile a list of IPs and/or IP ranges – You should make a list of all the IPs or IP ranges that you want to monitor during the Foglight POC.
Other resources – It is important that you have someone who is familiar with the Networking Equipment available as a resource during your Foglight NMS POC.
Host Server System Requirements
The following table provides you with the minimum hardware and software system requirements for your platform server.
Operating System For 32-bit or 64-bit:
Page 5 of 5 CPU Dual Core, 3.0 GHz or higher (Recommended)
Memory 4 GB RAM
NOTE: You will need to increase the amount of memory based on the high-volume data that you are collecting, such as NetFlow, Syslog, and windows event logs.
Hard Drive Space 50 GB
NOTE: You will need a minimum of 3 GB of free space to install the SNMP MIB Library.
NOTE: You will need to increase your hard drive space based on the retention settings.
.Net Framework 4.0 or higher
Firewall Exceptions – Allowed Programs
The following are automatically configured during installation: • ptserverservice
• ptserverconfig • ptagentservice • ptagentconfig • ptstudio
Opening Inbound Ports
The following table provides the firewall rules for inbound connections.
Ports • 5053 (TCP) = (128 AES Encrypted Host Server port) • 5054 (TCP) = Agent deployment CAB file downloads • 5055 (TCP) = (Encrypted Remote Control Tunnel port) • 161 (UDP) – SNMP Trap collector
• 69 (UDP) - TFTP Server • 514 (UDP) - Syslog collector • 2055 (UDP) – NetFlow collector • 6343 (UDP) – sFlow collector
