Hi,

Since the Dude has been comatose for the last three years and Mikrotik doesn't really give any evident plans for reviving it, I think it really is time to move on.
However, what is there to move on to?

I know there are plenty of network monitoring software package available, but which one to choose?
We have several customers that are willing to pay us for monitoring their network, comprised of distributed networks of RB hardware.

However we don't feel comfortable using the Dude for all the apparent reasons.

Has anybody got experience with alternative monitoring suites used on a Routerboard network?

BR.

Ammer

Make Your own?

There is a lot of systems - But the best systems, is really expensive. Like solarwinds, etc. I cannot find a problem using the dude With all the benefits and proporitary mikrotik/routeros stuff in dude.

Bump.
I have tried Nagios, but it does not have a nice GUI and simplicity as The Dude.

Well, take a look at http://www.netxms.org, and will find an anternative that is like The Dude, really!

We've switched to Observium too after recent dude DB crash. Lots of nice changes recently, and more in the works.

From what i see in the demo of Observium it seems nice. But I don't see myself switching from The Dude soon.
Yes there are no updates, but it does everything I need and it just works without any issues. And for more tasks I also use smokeping and cacti.

Hello,

at home I have installed TheDUDE on a Windows Home Server 2011, PRTG and now
the SoftEther VPN Server all together it would be reaching for my home network.

In business network we are using the PRTG together with the Kentix sensor solution,
it is able to send alarms over Email and SMS.

But for MikroTik based networks TheDUDE would be unreachable!
So a real alternative is not out there as I am think of this.

We use http://www.cloudviewnms.com as alternative. It is called CloudView and handles any network size. We used PRTG in the past, but it is expensive with unlimited probes. Now we find that CloudView GUI is also easier

...
But for MikroTik based networks TheDUDE would be unreachable!
So a real alternative is not out there as I am think of this.

Forgot to add that CloudView also sends emails. As for situations like you described they have optional agent which can be installed on any OS. The agent works as client, so it can reach CloudView server from behind Firewall/VPN/NAT Address , etc...
So the alternative is there... Hope this helps

I'm in the same boat. Dude service is crashing several times a day and restarting. Rather than jack with it I'm thinking about moving on. So far I've tried cacti, was not remotely impressed. Tried spiceworks, what the hell is that one good for? And right now trying zabbix and it sucks. Reached about 500 devices and it started crashing. I think you get what you pay for. Whats the best paid monitoring software? Oh wait never mind that will exceed my budget!

Might have to try some of the ones mentioned in this thread.

I'm in the same boat. Dude service is crashing several times a day and restarting. Rather than jack with it I'm thinking about moving on. So far I've tried cacti, was not remotely impressed. Tried spiceworks, what the hell is that one good for? And right now trying zabbix and it sucks. Reached about 500 devices and it started crashing. I think you get what you pay for. Whats the best paid monitoring software? Oh wait never mind that will exceed my budget!
Might have to try some of the ones mentioned in this thread.

Yes, exactly our story. I recommended CloudView NMS above . They claim it can monitor thousands ... The price is just $295 . We have about 750 devices (IP and SNMP). No issues so far. Does not hurt to try - they have free trial.

Well, take a look at http://www.netxms.org, and will find an anternative that is like The Dude, really!

Has anyone tested netxms in a large(r) environment? It's not very clear to me how I can create a structure/hierarchy with all servers and network components.

Well, take a look at http://www.netxms.org, and will find an anternative that is like The Dude, really!

Has anyone tested netxms in a large(r) environment? It's not very clear to me how I can create a structure/hierarchy with all servers and network components.

We have NetXMS monitoring about 150 nodes - collecting about 50 OIDs per node.
Another install collecting about 70 OIDs per node on 50 nodes.

MikroTik, Linux, Windows, various vendor switches, NASes, etc...

Very happy with it!
And its free...

I had a play around with Intermapper for a while on a trial licence. It seems to do everything that I am doing with The Dude. Plus it has some other features which would be handy as well. It is almost as intuitive and simple to set up as The Dude. Unfortunately we did not have any budget for a new monitoring system so I am still using The Dude for now.

Thnx for all your replies.
We played around a bit with a few suggestions but ended up with Zabbix.
Its a pain to get the hang of (especially if your not a linux users) but once you get confident it offers loads of oppertunities.
Now we are running two full blown zabbix servers, with a dozen proxies, covering about 1500 hosts.

There are a few drawbacks like the poor options in maps, but overall we are very happy with it, and best of all its free

Topic can be closed.

I thought I would like intermapper but I don't, I just found Total network monitor and tclmon. I might try tclmon.

http://docs.softinventive.com/En/Total_Network_Monitor
http://tclmon.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php

I thought I would like intermapper but I don't, I just found Total network monitor and tclmon. I might try tclmon.

http://docs.softinventive.com/En/Total_Network_Monitor
http://tclmon.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php

Hey Lebowski do you think it will be at some day a comes a new version from the DUDE?

Well, take a look at http://www.netxms.org, and will find an anternative that is like The Dude, really!

how they interact with MikroTik?

how they interact with MikroTik?

You can use SNMP, same as in the Dude.

We have NetXMS monitoring about 150 nodes - collecting about 50 OIDs per node.
Another install collecting about 70 OIDs per node on 50 nodes.

MikroTik, Linux, Windows, various vendor switches, NASes, etc...

Very happy with it!
And its free...

Thanks. Do you use an agent for those Windows servers? I was hoping to find a way to monitor disk space and memory usage through snmp but that's been more difficult than expected.

Thanks. Do you use an agent for those Windows servers? I was hoping to find a way to monitor disk space and memory usage through snmp but that's been more difficult than expected.

No, we monitor all using SNMP.

Its the same as in The Dude, this is all from the Storage table at OID .1.3.6.1.2.1.25.2.3
Storage use % = ((hrStorageSize / hrStorageUsed) * 100)

As for actual storage size:
Actual storage size = (hrStorageSize * hrStorageAllocationUnits)
Actual storage used = (hrStorageUsed * hrStorageAllocationUnits)

We even monitor process mem usage with SNMP.
You can see how here: https://wiki.netxms.org/wiki/OS_process ... using_SNMP

After a recent routing issue I found LiveAction which used to be actionpacked networking. Their product looks like something I will run in addition to the dude. I still have yet to find anything as functional as the dude.

I found intermapper to be not very intuitive last time I tried it. Intermapper was supposed to come out with a new interface so maybe it will get much better. I really only tested the top interface of Intermapper and never built a probe. The old interface started out with a list instead of a top map. I tried to make a top map with a sub map without reading a tutorial and could not do it. In the dude it was completely obvious how this worked and navigating around objects was trivial and intuitive.

Hey Lebowski do you think it will be at some day a comes a new version from the DUDE?

Hey Kreacher, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, I doubt they will. They have said they are trying to build something around web based (although the dude has a web interface) and they said that it is still up in the air but Normis is not answering new questions lately. They certainly have brought a bunch of great hardware and software out lately but monitoring has to improve so someone else will have to fill the gap. If they are going to surprise us that would be great, I am not holding my breath.

I never got around to testing tclmon and total network monitor doesn't let you build your own probes.

I have thought hard about what the community could do and one thing that has not been discussed has been develop our own network monitor. If this idea took off the benefits would be huge. The trouble would be how to get started and what first features are important? This is complicated enough that we should move the discussion somewhere else. I can dabble and fix bugs in a program that compiles and has a working debugger but have only built a couple programs from scratch. So then we need folks that want to build a monitor and that are good at programming. As soon as you start working this you find all sorts of complications with writing programs like what development environment, which graphic library, which tcp/udp-ip modules, which platforms, what database? This is why it is so frustrating, the dude is so far along in all of this and it could easily be fixed and extended with more features.

I'll be lurking,
Lebowski

For open source monitoring tools, Nagios is possible the most popular and has one of the largest ecosystems for plug-ins, but is criticized for being extremely difficult to config. Zabbix http://www.zabbix.com/ will give you the next level of monitoring insight and performance metrics including fancy graphs. With either, I'd recommend looking at an incident consolidation tool like BigPanda https://bigpanda.io/zabbix-alternative , especially if you are going to be working with an increasing number of clients and ultimately scaling your business. Monitoring tools like Nagios, Zabbix, Zenoss, Cacti, etc. can create a lot of unnecessary noise in your environment which can be a nightmare. ServerFocus https://www.serverfocus.org/nagios-vs-c ... -vs-zenoss wrote up a pretty good breakdown of them all.

If you are interested in a commercial tool you can also look at Smarthawk:

http://www.solananetworks.com/products/smarthawk

Disclaimer: I work for Solana Networks.

About a year ago we started using CloudView NMS http://www.cloudviewnms.com as alternative to Dude. In the past we also tried to use used PRTG and it was too expensive for our network size. We tried to use Nagios: it was too complicated and not easy to use. We tried to use several others: did not find the required functions out-of-box. CloudView NMS added several functions per our request. I highly recommend them: they helped us to compile and built in to the system several private MIBs of other vendors.