Auvik Network Monitor, a PRTG Killer?

Overview

I have to admit, I’ve got a real addiction to Paessler’s PRTG Network Monitor.  Paessler continues to develop add great features to PRTG.  Even though we mostly use Paessler’s PRTG for network monitoring, we’ve been looking at Auvik as a possible replacement to PRTG.  Auvik is a network monitoring tool which offers a more dynamic result than PRTG which is explained in further detail below.  Please keep in mind that this post is mostly from the perspective and use case of Auvik and not PRTG, so granted that there are features and tools where I believe PRTG is richer, I will not be sharing PRTG’s strengths in this post – that will come later, because it certainly has many.

Auvik is primarily focused on ‘dynamic network monitoring’, it does it well.  Yes, PRTG can monitor your network devices, but Auvik’s strength IS dynamic network monitoring, whereas, PRTG’s strength is monitoring pretty much anything, which is probably it’s strength alone.

Deployment

Auvik is entirely cloud based and leverages an agent (which is titled a “collector”) to be deployed on the internal network.   The collector can be installed on a Windows Server, Windows desktop, Linux, or deployed to VMWare with a OVA.  The collector can also reside at a primary location where it can communicate to the desired monitored networked via VPN, hosted by a Linux/Windows box/VM.

Features

So, why Auvik and not rely entirely on PRTG?  Well, as I mentioned above, Auvik is going to shine in terms of dynamic network monitoring – firewalls, routers, switches, AP’s, etc.

Some listed takeaways from my initial impression and intended use of the product

Automated Network Mapping

Just what it reads, and it’s pretty awesome at that!  It displays every device it found on the physical network and maps it not only to the appropriate switch (via SNMP) but also identifies the port which the device(s) is attached to.  This is fully dynamic, so if an engineer makes any changes to the configuration of the switch, port, or status of the port, Auvik updates the map, documentation, and alerts you if necessary.

Network Documentation

Thanks to the automation of the tool, it definitely serves as a reliable, fresh documentation resource.

QOS/Internet Connection Status at the Edge

Auvik assesses packets from the collector to some of their servers to determine the quality of the internet connectivity and availability.

Remote Management

Leveraging the collector, Auvik allows the ability to tunnel to almost any device for remote management!  This includes Telnet, SSH, HTTP/HTTPS, etc.

And finally, Configuration Management

If you add the credentials for CLI access to a desired network device, Auvik will capture and store the configuration of the device with EVERY change of the configuration, compare selected iterations, and even restore a configuration of your choosing.

Here are just a few features I mentioned above, compared to PRTG

Price

Auvik has a very interesting pricing model – pay a flat fee for every firewall, router, switch, or AP Controller, and all other monitored devices are included.  Contact the great team at Auvik for pricing or a demo.

Conclusion

I’ll go through more details of the tool as time progresses and as we continue to deploy Auvik, but I certainly do not see the product as the PRTG killer as I initially thought it might be.  Both products are unique and different enough to justify a parallel deployment, allowing each tool to shine in their own way.  We’ll soon dive deeper into Auvik!

To find out more!

Auvik https://www.auvik.com/

PRTG: https://www.paessler.com/

Please reach out if you can offer any corrections to my assessment, or have any questions.  Additionally, if you found this helpful, please buy a stranger a cup of coffee the next time you’re at a coffee shop.