Data Communication and Networks: Network Monitoring Tool Analysis

This report analyzes different network monitoring tools for three scenarios and selects Nagios XI as the best tool for central server, wireless, and distributed networking environments. It also discusses the hardware and software requirements for implementing the tool and its important features.

Running head: DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Data Communication and Networks
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Table of Contents
Introduction 2
1. Scenario 1 2
1.1. Justification of the tool choice 2
1.2. Features that are important for the scenario 3
1.3. Network screenshot 6
1.4. To implement the network hardware and software required. 6
2. Scenario 2 8
2.1. Justification of the tool choice 8
2.2. Features that are important for the scenario 8
2.3. Network screenshot 9
2.4. To implement the network hardware and software required. 10
3. Scenario 3 11
3.1. Justification of the tool choice. 11
3.2. Features that are important for the scenario 12
3.3. Network screenshot 14
3.4. To implement the network hardware and software required. 14
Conclusion 16
Bibliography 17

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Introduction
For the preparation of the report on the data communication and networks a research is
done of the different network monitoring tool and the three scenario are analyzed for the
selection of the best tool that would support the central server, wireless and distributed
networking environment. The report helps in gaining knowledge about the different types of
networking technologies and demonstration of the basic principles and ideas for the management
of the application and the network components. The different types of network configuration are
analyzed for the application of the network monitoring tool in the current network and analyze
the flow of the data packets from the different location in the network. Nagios XI is used as a
network monitoring tool for the management of the network and show the status of the network
device and produce a report on the status of the network. The application of the network
monitoring tool helps in reducing the errors in the network and increase the security for the
transmission of sensitive information and data.
1. Scenario 1
1.1. Justification of the tool choice
Nagios XI is considered to be one of the most powerful IT infrastructure tools for monitoring.
This particular networking tool has been designed in such a way that it can monitor and
enterprise open source component (Hernantes, Gallardo and Serrano 2015). All the given loads
can be easily monitored in much effective way if and only central server is used. It can be done
with the help of proper monitoring of the 1st scenario. It has been designed in such a way that it
can easily deliver best monitoring solution as per the need of various organization. This
particular network monitoring software has been designed in such a way that it can offer

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
scalability and flexibility. XI is mainly used for carrying out difficult IT task along with retaining
some of the most powerful attributes for any enterprise (Kufel 2016). This particular monitoring
tool comes up with proper configuration wizards creates a platform where an individual to easily
enter information in step by step way. It helps in quick monitoring of any network. It comes up
with extended beyond out of given capabilities along with custom plugins and wizards which
tends to work from Nagios exchange.
1.2. Features that are important for the scenario
In the first stage, the various features of Nagios which are needed for solving various
kind of problem has given below:
IT Infrastructure monitoring: It helps in proper kind of monitoring of various types of
infrastructure components which is inclusive of service, network-based protocols, system metrics
and lastly network infrastructure (Kocjan and Beltowski 2016). A large number of party add-on
aims in providing proper kind of monitoring in virtual way for various kind of household
application.
Visibility: It helps in providing a central view of the given IT-based network and lastly
various kind of business operation (Ismail, Islam and Islam 2016). It comes up with a powerful
dashboard which is a need for power monitoring and third-party data. By making use of views
provided by user helps in having a quick access to various kind of information.

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Customizability: A powerful GUI is needed for proper kind of customization of various
things like design, layout and lastly preferences as per the needed of various users (Karaarslan
2017). Team members can easily work along with flexibility as per the need of user.

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Network Monitoring: Nagios XI helps in analyzing every given aspect of the given
network. This particular aspect is mainly needed for various aspects like network traffic and its
bandwidth (Pulkkinen 2018). In the domain of monitoring, Nagios XI aims to monitor and avoid
any kind of usual network which tends to occur in usual way. It is effective in certain number of
area which results in creating large number of error. Various kind of sensor needs to be deployed
like machinery of the given centralized which in many comes up in various template. It is a well-
known monitoring tool which is needed by various network administrator for analyzing an error
in the network (Kravenkit 2018). The main point is all about understanding various kind of
graphs with proper figures. It aims in reducing the overall time of troubleshooting.

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1.3. Network screenshot
1.4. To implement the network hardware and software required.

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Hardware Requirement
Hardware Device Name Device Type
Network Device Cisco 2911 series router Router
Cisco 24TT 2960 Series
Switch
Switch
Server Intel Xeon Gold 6132
Processor with 19.25 cache
running at 2.6 Ghz
Min 16GB Memory
1TB hard drive
Central Server
PC Intel i5 8300H with 6 cores
and 3.6 GHz and turbo boost
4.3 GHz
8GB Memory
500 GB HDD
Workstation
Software Requirement
Software Software name Purpose
Network Monitoring Nagios server and network
monitoring
It is used as a comprehensive
application, network
monitoring and services and

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
used as a central solution for
monitoring the IT
infrastructure.
Virus Protection McAfee Antivirus 2019 Reduces the risk of phishing,
Malware, Spyware and
providing security against the
other threats acting on the
system.
OS Windows Server 2016
Windows 10 Professional
It is used for active directory
configuration and
management of the user
group to have the access of
different service.
For the management of the
different application and
protocol and running
application for meeting the
workplace environment.
2. Scenario 2
2.1. Justification of the tool choice
In Nagios XI tool, a proper kind of monitoring tool is needed to be easily installed after
coming across the second scenario. Wi-Fi monitoring tool helps in providing support 2 server

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
email and web and 20 users which can easily join the LAB. Monitoring of Wi-Fi will help the
network to easily keep a track on various kind of wireless network (Nyczak and van Rein 2015).
It will help be helpful in analyzing the network of connected device in the given wireless
network. It will help the administrator to easily keep a track of various aspect like status of
device, signal strength of each router which comes up with usual kind of traffic.
2.2. Features that are important for the scenario
Multi-tenant capabilities: Easy access of multi-user to various kind of web interface
will allow the various stakeholders to have a proper kind of viewpoint which is identical to the
given structure (Prasad and Chakrabarti 2014). Specifying the view of user will help the clients
to analyze the infrastructure components which they are authorized. Various advanced user
specifies the administrator by creating a platform where user can easily manage a large number
of aspect. By the help of clicks provision can be given to new user account where user can easily
receive information with proper kind of login credentials (Partner and Italiana 2017).
Performance: Nagios Core 4 is a monitoring engine which is very powerful in nature. It
provides the user with highest degree of monitoring which is required for performance of
network (McBride 2015). High-efficiency performance comes up with work processes that allow
scalability at limitless level and monitoring in an effective way (Ward and Barker 2014).
Proactive Planning and awareness: Automated and integrating planning have helped
various organization to easily plan for various infrastructure updates before it is caught in the
system (Dayang Efoumena and Tchakounte 2017). In many cases, it is seen that alerts are
provided to various kind of IT staff, where various business stakeholders come up with end user

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
by the email or mobile text. It provides them with various details which are related to outage of
details so that various issues can be easily resolved (Kleehaus et al. 2016).
2.3. Network screenshot

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
2.4. To implement the network hardware and software required.
Hardware Requirement
Hardware Device Name Device Type
Network Device 1 no. Cisco 2911 series router
1 no. Cisco WRT300N
wireless router
Router
2 nos. Cisco 24TT 2960
Series Switch
Switch
Server Intel Xeon Gold 6132 EMAIL Server

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Processor with 19.25 cache
running at 2.6 Ghz
Min 16GB Memory
1TB hard drive
Intel Xeon Gold 6132
Processor with 19.25 cache
running at 2.6 Ghz
Min 16GB Memory
1TB hard drive
WEB Server
PC 20 Nos. Intel i5 8300H with 6 cores
and 3.6 GHz and turbo boost
4.3 GHz
8GB Memory
500 GB HDD
Workstation
Software Requirement
Software Software name Purpose
Network Monitoring Nagios server and network
monitoring
It is used as a comprehensive
application, network
monitoring and services and
used as a central solution for

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
monitoring the IT
infrastructure.
Virus Protection McAfee Antivirus 2019 Reduces the risk of phishing,
Malware, Spyware and
providing security against the
other threats acting on the
system.
OS Windows Server 2016
Windows 10 Professional
It is used for active directory
configuration and
management of the user
group to have the access of
different service.
For the management of the
different application and
protocol and running
application for meeting the
workplace environment.
3. Scenario 3
3.1. Justification of the tool choice.
In the given scenario 3, a big network comes up with user around 300 station and 10
servers. As it has become more important for the use of Nagios XI which is required for
monitoring to various kind of big networks (Wilopo 2016). It can easily monitor such type of

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
given network and server related to it. The whole complexity of the network can be easily
reduced as it can be easily divided into certain number of subnets in the given department. There
is certain number of criteria which is required for choosing specific threshold or level of
tolerance in the given network (Norrlin 2015). It comes up with three floors and which is
required for monitoring and understanding the level of performance of the given dashboard. This
type of tools is required for proper monitoring of network which needs to be monitored for the
given software for any purposes. It is mainly done in accordance of list of various requirements
which is done before selection of appropriate tools which is done before the selection of some
appropriate tool (Wirén 2016). This particular tool should be designed in such a way that it can
be easily modified. Both the parameters that is efficiency and response time of the network can
be easily modified by analyzing various parameters like data loss, bandwidth and any kind of
congestion in the given network.
3.2. Features that are important for the scenario
Ease of Use: Integration which is based on web-based configuration can easily lead
admins to easily have handed out for large number of controls. It mainly used for managing the
configuration of the given network (Chowdhury et al. 2014). It comes up with system setting and
user to easily monitor end to end user and various team members in much easy. A proper kind of
configuration guide is needed for various kind of process which is needed for monitoring various
things like new device, application and lastly various application (Faggiani et al. 2014). It mainly
needed for having an idea regarding various concepts of complex monitoring.
Extendable Architecture: Most of the API comes up with some kind of simple
integration which can be done with in-house and various third party based application. A large
number of community development for providing add-ons along with extended monitoring and

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native functioning (Van Adrichem, Doerr and Kuipers 2014). Both custom interface and
development of addon are made available for tailoring Nagios XI which is needed for meeting
the given organization.
Nagios XI tools come up with ability which is required for handling the strength of the
network which is provided in the given scenario 3 where more than 300 users can be easily
monitored (Anderson‐Teixeira et al. 2015). Nagios monitoring is required for analyzing various
kind of error in the given network. It is considered to be very much helpful in troubleshooting the
given thing. When various instance of performance degradation comes up into action in the
given network system then the administrator can be notified by mapping of network features of
Nagios XI.

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
3.3. Network screenshot
3.4. To implement the network hardware and software required.

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Hardware Requirement
Hardware Device Name Device Type
Network Device 1 * Cisco 2911 series router Router
1 * Cisco 2960 Series Switch
with 24 port
1 * Cisco 3560 series switch
Switch
Server *10
Intel Xeon Gold 6132
Processor with 19.25 cache
running at 2.6 Ghz
Min 16GB Memory
1TB hard drive
Media Server
FTP Server
RADIUS Server
EMAIL Server
WEB Server
DHCP Server
Proxy Server
Print Server
DNS Server
File Server
PC 300 Nos. Intel i5 8300H with 6 cores
and 3.6 GHz and turbo boost
Workstation

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
4.3 GHz
8GB Memory
500 GB HDD
Software Requirement
Software Software name Purpose
Monitoring of the network Nagios server and network
monitoring
It is used as a comprehensive
application, network
monitoring and services and
used as a central solution for
monitoring the IT
infrastructure.
Virus Protection McAfee Antivirus 2019 Reduces the risk of phishing,
Malware, Spyware and
providing security against the
other threats acting on the
system.
OS Windows Server 2016 It is used for active directory
configuration and
management of the user
group to have the access of
different service.

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DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKS
Windows 10 Professional
For the management of the
different application and
protocol and running
application for meeting the
workplace environment.
Conclusion
The use of the Nagios XI network monitoring tool for the management of the network
performance and the management of the data traffic flow helps in increasing the security of the
network. It also reduces the effort of the network administrator by configuring the system to
automate some of the network monitoring option and increase the efficiency of the network. For
the installation of the Nagios network monitoring tool virtual machine is used and an
administrator account is created for monitoring the network. The selection of the platform for the
installation of the network monitoring tool is important for the success of the network and the
supporting environment should be analyzed for the proper working of the tool. It can be used for
the enterprise server and it offers a 4 core monitoring for providing the best security and
allowing maximum scalability for the network. The network administrator can view all the
details of then network and the status of the device from a central location and manage the thid
party access of the data.

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Bibliography
Anderson‐Teixeira, K.J., Davies, S.J., Bennett, A.C., Gonzalez‐Akre, E.B., Muller‐Landau, H.C.,
Joseph Wright, S., Abu Salim, K., Almeyda Zambrano, A.M., Alonso, A., Baltzer, J.L. and
Basset, Y., 2015. CTFS‐Forest GEO: a worldwide network monitoring forests in an era of global
change. Global change biology, 21(2), pp.528-549.
Chowdhury, S.R., Bari, M.F., Ahmed, R. and Boutaba, R., 2014, May. Payless: A low cost
network monitoring framework for software defined networks. In Network Operations and
Management Symposium (NOMS), 2014 IEEE (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
Dayang, P., Efoumena, T. and Tchakounte, F., 2017. Monitoring Government Web Portals in
Cameroon. International Journal of Cyber-Security and Digital Forensics, 6(3), pp.109-121.
Faggiani, A., Gregori, E., Lenzini, L., Luconi, V. and Vecchio, A., 2014. Smartphone-based
crowdsourcing for network monitoring: opportunities, challenges, and a case study. IEEE
Communications Magazine, 52(1), pp.106-113.
Hernantes, J., Gallardo, G. and Serrano, N., 2015. IT infrastructure-monitoring tools. IEEE
Software, 32(4), pp.88-93.
Ismail, U.M., Islam, S. and Islam, S., 2016, August. Towards Cloud Security Monitoring: A
Case Study. In Cybersecurity and Cyberforensics Conference (CCC), 2016 (pp. 8-14). IEEE.
Karaarslan, H., 2017. A Cyber Situational Awareness Model for Network Administrators. Naval
Postgraduate School Monterey United States.
Kleehaus, M., Landthaler, J., Huth, D. and Matthes, F., 2016. Multi-Layer Monitoring and
Visualization. Digital Mobility Platforms and Ecosystems, pp.90-110.

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Kocjan, W. and Beltowski, P., 2016. Learning Nagios. Packt Publishing Ltd.
Kravenkit, S., 2018. The development of web-based application for notification of network status
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Kufel, Ł., 2016. Tools for distributed systems monitoring. Foundations of Computing and
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Wilopo, B.L., 2016. Analisis Dan Implementasi Server Storage Berbasis Infrastructure as a
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