Design and implementation of an automated network monitoring and reporting back system

The task of network monitoring becomes tedious with increase in the network size, heterogeneity and complexity. The available network monitoring and management solutions are not only expensive but also difficult to use, configure and maintain. Manually pin pointing a faulty device in the large complex network is very tricky and time consuming for network administrators. Thus, an automated system is needed that immediately reports to network administrator about fault type and location as soon as it arises. This paper presents design and implementation of an intelligent network monitoring and reporting back system for large size organizations/industries. It is based on programming open-source tools (such as Nagios and RT) and intelligently integrating them to monitor network devices such as switches and routers. To monitor end-user devices in the network, a software package has been developed using Universal Plug & Play (UPnP) technology. The developed monitoring system immediately notifies network administrator as soon as a network problem arises. The notification message clearly pin points the fault location in network topology, its type and impact on rest of the network. If the network problem is not resolved within the pre-specified deadline, a second notification is sent out to the next responsible person. Thus, all people in the priority list are notified one by one with pre-specified deadlines until the problem is resolved.