I am looking for a centralized monitoring system for monitor the internet usage of the users in our network. My requirements are, 1. Get the Uploaded & Downloaded MB/GB of each user. 2. Allocate x number of GB for each user for month.
Please give your suggest a software for my requirements.
Thanks in advance.
One option you have is NetFort LANGuardian. It uses deep packet inspection to monitor what users are doing on a network. You can see how much users are downloading and uploading to/from the Internet. More info at this link
https://www.netfort.com/solutions/web-activity/
The question on allocating bandwidth is a more tricky one. LANGuardian can send the user an alert if they go over a certain limit. If you want something to take action when a user goes over a certain limit they you probably need to look at an inline device like a firewall with AD integration.
Hope this helps,
Darragh
I have sent them (NetFort) a request for information as to what platforms they support for hosting servers - Windows-only, or Linux as well since that information is not obviously available on their web site. It is quite pricey - $30USD / year / user. So if you have 500 users, you are looking at a $15,000 / year bill for licensing fees. I will look into open source tools that will effectively do the same and report back here.
This site has some interesting links for bandwidth monitoring tools: http://dynacont.net/documentation/linux/network_monitoring/
I heard back (by phone none the less) from LanGuardian (netfort.com) and their system runs on RedHat based Linux systems such as CentOS, currently at 6.4, though I imagine it will work just fine with 6.6 (the latest 6.x release). I asked about 7.1 support and they will get back to me with that information. If you want to run it under Windows, you will need to install CentOS in a virtual machine such as VMware or VirtualBox.
My guess is that LanGuardian uses pcap to capture packets in promiscuous mode, and then proprietary software to analyze them (source, destination, content, etc).
The price per user decreases as you ramp up, so for 1500 users the cost is $5400 per year.
The LANGuardian is a software based network appliance, fully self-contained, including the operating system, you do not need to provide any software or purchase any other licenses, just a server or virtual machine to install it on. The software updates also include the operating system.
If you download the ISO for example, use the install wizard and install on a spare server or PC with 2 network adapters (one is required for management via the web GUI, second to connect to a SPAN port or port mirror which is configured to monitor the required traffic, VLANs or ports) you can instantly monitor all the machines on your network without installing any agents or client software.
More information here:
https://www.netfort.com/languardian-from-netfort/how-it-works/
https://www.netfort.com/languardian-from-netfort/architecture/
Hope this helps.
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.