The Best NetApp Monitoring Tools

NetApp, a well-established data management and storage solution provider, has been at the forefront of offering advanced storage solutions that meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. With the growth of data and increasing demand for data accessibility and availability, it's critical to keep a close eye on the performance of NetApp storage systems. Monitoring the NetApp infrastructure is not an easy task, as it involves tracking multiple parameters such as network traffic, disk utilization, data protection status, and much more. If left unchecked, performance issues can quickly escalate, leading to data loss and downtime, which can be detrimental to any business.

Here is our list of the best NetApp monitoring tools:

1. ManageEngine OpManager – EDITOR'S CHOICE A comprehensive auditing and reporting solution that helps you to monitor and audit your NetApp storage systems with ease. Start a 30-day free trial.
2. Paessler PRTG – FREE TRIAL A powerful tool that provides real-time visibility into the performance and health of your NetApp storage systems, for faster troubleshooting and proactive capacity planning. Start a 30-day free trial.
3. IntelliMagic Vision for SAN With its easy-to-use interface and advanced features, IntelliMagic Vision for SAN offers a complete and effective solution for monitoring and managing your NetApp storage arrays.
4. SolarWinds NetApp Storage Performance Monitoring Provides a complete view of your storage environment, enabling you to quickly identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.

That's where NetApp monitoring tools come into play. These tools help you monitor the performance of your NetApp storage environment, identify potential issues, and take prompt action to resolve them. The market is saturated with a wide range of NetApp monitoring tools, each with its unique features and capabilities.

In this article, we will provide an overview of the best NetApp monitoring tools that can help you keep your storage environment running smoothly.

The Best NetApp Monitoring Tools

Let's take a detailed look into each of these tools, so you can decide which of these is the best fit for your organization.

1. ManageEngine OpManager FREE TRIAL

ManageEngine's OpManager is a comprehensive tool that provides in-depth visibility into a wide range of network devices, including NetApp storage tools. In particular, it monitors different performance metrics like CPU usage, packet loss, response time, and more.

Key Features:

Read on to know the key features of OpManager about NetApp storage systems.

• Detailed Auditing: ManageEngine OpManager provides detailed auditing of NetApp storage systems, including changes made to files and folders, user activity, and permissions. This helps organizations keep track of changes made to their storage systems and ensure that they comply with their security and regulatory policies.
• Templates for Monitoring NetApp Devices: You can use ManageEngine's built-in templates to efficiently monitor NetApp devices like routers, switches, and firewalls. All that you have to do is know your NetApp device model number and download the corresponding template from NetApp. Add the NetApp device to your monitoring and stay on top of its performance.
• Real-time Information: OpManager uses StorageRESTAPI to monitor different metrics like latency and throughput in real-time. Based on the need, it may even automatically assign complimentary monitors to track the performance of these metrics.
• Instant Alerting: With OpManager, you can configure the threshold levels for various metrics, and compare the real-time values with these established thresholds. In case of any deviations, OpManager will automatically send alerts through email, SMS, or Slack, depending on how you have configured notifications.
• Capacity Planning: OpManager's NetApp monitoring tool drills down to even the smallest entity on your NetApp storage system to identify its storage and performance requirements. It handles clusters, aggregates, trees, and even Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) to give you a precise idea of current utilization and future needs. All this information will come in handy for capacity planning.

In all, OpManager comes with features that are designed to improve the performance of your NetApp storage devices, so you can use them optimally. Also, you can constantly be one step ahead of their performance through OpManager's intuitive user dashboards and reports.

Download OpManager for a free trial run.

2. Paessler PRTG – FREE TRIAL

Paessler PRTG from Paessler comes with many advanced features that can make your NetApp infrastructure more reliable and cost-effective, without spending too much time and effort.

Key Features:

Here's a look at how PRTG eases the process of monitoring your NetApp infrastructure.

• Provides Deep Insights: PRTG's sensors help you to stay on top of your NetApp devices' health and performance metrics. In particular, you can monitor the CPU utilization, downtime, storage usage, and general health of your NetApp devices, so you can take the necessary measures accordingly.
• Monitors cDOT & ONTAP Components: With PRTG, you can easily monitor the hardware and software of your cDOT and ONTAP storage systems to get a better understanding of what's happening in your NetApp infrastructure. Alongside this, you can monitor the associated network interface cards, hard drives, logical units, and more.
• Collects Detailed Information: The PRTG sensors collect data in XML format from the ONTAP API and process them to provide the insights you need about the overall health and performance of these systems. Depending on the sensor version, PRTG may access the APIs via SOAP or through our protocols.
• Helps to Estimate Future Capacity: Given the vast amount of data that's being generated every day, planning and forecasting the future capacity of your NetApp devices is critical for business continuity. PRTG continuously monitors the available and used capacity and sends reports when there's a need to increase future capacity. This information can also help you to better plan your costs.
• Identifies Security Vulnerabilities: The highly readable and customizable dashboards of PRTG make it easy for you to visualize all your data and take action accordingly. Such a unified view also increases the chances of identifying security vulnerabilities, so you can fix them right away.

Overall, PRTG is a well-developed tool that uses a myriad of different sensors to monitor different aspects of your NetApp infrastructure's health and performance.

Pricing

The cost depends on the number of sensors you use, where one sensor is used for monitoring a single aspect of a device.

• First 100 sensors – free
• 101 – 500 sensors – $1,799
• 501 – 1000 sensors – $3,399
• 1001 – 2500 sensors – $6,899
• 2501 – 5000 sensors – $11,999
• 10K + sensors – $15,999

Start with a 30-day free trial.

Paessler PRTG Start a 30-day FREE Trial

3. IntelliMagic Vision for SAN

IntelliMagic Vision for SAN provides comprehensive monitoring and reporting capabilities for NetApp storage arrays to help you stay on top of their health and performance.

Key Features:

Here's a look at some key features of this tool.

• Enhances IT Management: IntelliMagic combines metrics from your NetApp storage arrays and other multi-vendor SAN systems to provide a unified view of the overall state of storage systems in your infrastructure. You can further drill down from this single view to gain AI-driven visibility into your NetApp systems. In particular, you can stay on top of the health and performance metrics to optimize these arrays and bring down the mean time to resolution.
• Supports Proactive Monitoring: A highlight of IntelliMagic Vision for SAN is its ability to proactively monitor the configuration and performance of your NetApp storage arrays. With this tool, you can proactively assess if there are any performance issues like overutilization, port imbalance, replication delays, etc. You can also stay on top of ongoing irregularities like hosts with single paths or orphaned ports to avoid wasted capacity.
• Sends Alerts: IntelliMagic leverages the power AIOps to check every health metric in all the physical and logical components of your NetApp storage system. Its built-in monitoring capabilities check the values of each metric against established thresholds and send alerts in case of major discrepancies. The obvious advantage is you can fix the issue before it impacts the wider organization.
• Enables Capacity Forecasting: Another salient feature of IntelliMagic is capacity forecasting. It uses domain-agnostic AIOps to understand the current rate of storage capacity and optimization, and accordingly, calculates your future storage requirements. With this tool, you can get a comprehensive understanding of capacity growth and free space expiration. Based on these numbers, you can decide how much more storage capacity to purchase and when.
• Identifies Anomalous Behavior: Identifying anomalous behavior is the first step to preventing disasters. IntelliMagic's automated change detection feature keeps monitoring the key metrics and configurations and alerts you when they are changed. This way, you can quickly identify the root cause and fix the issue at the earliest.
• Secure and Flexible Deployment: You can deploy IntelliMagic on the cloud or on-premise, depending on your organization's requirements. Also, you can consider leveraging IntelliMagic's performance experts if you want to monitor just a few custom services.
• End-to-end Visibility: IntelliMagic's topology charts provide detailed information about connectivity from the host, with performance drill-downs at each point along the path. This information reveals asymmetric connectivity patterns that can have a detrimental impact on performance and resilience. Likewise, host latency and their volumes provide better insights into the performance of storage arrays.

In all, IntelliMagic Vision for SAN is a smart and comprehensive choice for NetApp storage performance and management.

Click here for a custom quote. You can also try this tool for free.

4. SolarWinds NetApp Storage Performance Monitoring

SolarWinds NetApp Storage Performance Monitoring, an integration for the Storage Resource Monitor, is designed to improve NetApp storage's performance and efficiency through coordinated monitoring of all NetApp devices.

Key Features:

Below are some important features of this SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor integration.

• Detects I/O Hotspots: With this tool, you can monitor the health of your NetApp storage at the filers, RAID levels, and volume levels. It provides detailed information on some key metrics like IOPS, throughput, and latency. Using this information, you can identify I/O hotspot issues.
• Provides Historical Information: This NetApp storage performance monitoring tool synthesizes all the past information, so you can easily compare them with real-time information, to understand the deviations and their patterns. Such comparisons can provide a better understanding of how your NetApp storage systems are currently performing and the improvements that specific actions or policies have on them. Using this information, you can strategize better.
• Helps with Capacity Forecasting: With SolarWinds storage performance monitoring integration, you can accurately predict the current capacity of your NetApp storage systems. It collects consumption data, tracks changes and patterns over time, and accurately predicts when your storage could possibly get depleted. With this data, you can better plan to increase storage capacity and budget for the same.
• Sends Custom Alerts: You can get custom alerts and notifications of potential issues in any of your NetApp storage. By addressing these issues right away, you can save your organization from unplanned downtime and storage outages.
• Generates Meaningful Reports: SolarWinds storage performance monitoring tool generates insightful and well-structured reports for your internal auditing and even external compliance. You can even get custom reports on enterprise capacity summary, RAID utilization, thin provisioning, asset information, and more.

Overall, this SolarWinds integration for Storage Resource Monitor is designed specifically for NetApp storage systems and, true to its purpose, provides comprehensive information about the working of your NetApp storage systems.

The cost of a Storage Resource Monitor license starts from $1,876.

Click here for a fully functional 30-day free trial.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, when it comes to NetApp monitoring, having the right tools in place can make all the difference. By leveraging the power of advanced monitoring solutions, you can gain deep insights into your storage environment, anticipate potential issues before they become critical, and optimize the performance of your NetApp infrastructure.

From the comprehensive monitoring capabilities of IntelliMagic Vision for SAN to the real-time analytics and alerting of SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor, the options available today offer a wealth of features to suit a range of needs and budgets.

Ultimately, the best NetApp monitoring tool for your organization will depend on a variety of factors, including the size of your environment, the complexity of your storage systems, and the level of granularity you require in your monitoring data. But by carefully evaluating your options and selecting the right solution, you can ensure that your NetApp infrastructure is operating at peak efficiency while minimizing downtime and maximizing ROI.