CommandCenter NOC

The CommandCenter NOC product line from Raritan provide multiple network management and monitoring capabilities to administrators, including asset inventory and tracking, device and server monitoring, vulnerability scanning and assessments, performance reporting, and more. The platform is agentless; the appliances capture network server, device, and desktop statistics and metrics via WMI (for Windows-based machines), NetFlow, SNMP, and traffic monitoring. Additionally, built-in pollers provide the ability to check for the availability/status of specific services (including Citrix, DHCP, DNS, Domino, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, ICMP, IMAP, Informix, LDAP, MySQL, Oracle, POP3, Postgres, SMTP, SNMP, SQLServer, SSH, Sybase, TFTP, and Telnet), and support is offered for the creation of custom pollers, as well. Such pollers generate synthetic transactions against the target service itself to simulate real user activity. Administrators can enable or disable these pollers as needed.

For those systems supporting the collection of performance data, monitoring features include the ability to set custom thresholds with alerting capabilities (E-mail, SMS, and pager). Thresholds can be set separately per device monitored, and Windows services in particularly can be automatically restarted in response to a failure indication.

On the asset inventory front, features include global or single device discovery, and the ability to catalog both hardware and software assets for devices. Asset import/export is supported to/from CSV files.

Access and administration to the appliance is via a Web based interface.

Other features include:

- Bandwidth usage reporting by Ethernet/Internet or application, including top nodes & sessions and most frequently requested Web sites

- Intrusion detection capabilities via SNORT, and built-in vulnerability scanning via NESSUS

CommandCenter NOC is now offered in two primary form factors: As a hardened appliance, and as virtual appliances for VMware.

The appliances are 1U and include dual GigE ports. Three devices are offered: The CommandCenter NOC100 supports the inventorying of up to 1,000 nodes and monitoring of 20; the NOC250 supports inventorying of up to 1,000 nodes and monitoring of 50; and the NOC2500 supports inventory for 2,500 machines and monitoring of 500. Pricing starts at $4,995 for the NOC100.

ON the virtual side, the vendor offers the CommandCenter NOC for use on VMware software; for the high end offering VMware ESX server is required and it is recommended for all others. Four configurations are offered differing only in the number of nodes monitored and inventoried. Aside from the new free version (more below) support for inventoried nodes ranges from 50 to 1,000 nodes, while monitoring support stretches from 10 to 100 nodes. Pricing for the 50/10 version is $1,795.

New to the product line is the freely available (registration required) NOC25VA, a virtual flavored CommandCenter supporting inventory for up to 35 nodes (up to 5 servers and workstations, and 25 workstations) and monitoring of up to 10 nodes (only 5 of which can be Windows machines).

Contact Raritan for further information.