Nagios Core Reviews

My main use cases include monitoring of servers and services. Some of them are outside our network and some are inside the network.  

Nagios Core sends notifications when things are out of sync. However you set it up, t will send a notification. So that's the notification that we're looking for.

The notifications are definitely one of the most valuable features of Nagios Core.  We know what to look for and what to expect when things are down.  

There is room for improvement in the graphics.

Another are of improvement is the ability to host and service by other web interfaces rather than configuration files. 

I have been using this solution for 15 years. I am a system integrator so I recently installed the latest version 4.4.17.

So, I work with the latest version of Nagios Core. 

It is very stable. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. In my environment, only I am using the solution. But we definitely plan to increase the usage. 

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one being difficult and ten being easy. 

It was pretty easy. The deployment is really quick, it took us about an hour to deploy the solution in our organization. 

I pretty much followed my own notes from previous experience. So I followed a document and deployed the solution. One person is enough for the deployment and maintenance of the solution. 

It's free. 

I have used Centreon package about five years ago. It's a pretty old one, I guess there is a newer one now. I found that pretty easy to use as well. It was quite impressive. It had some features that Nagios didn't. It has a much nicer web interface and so on. And integrated nicely into RPE.

I tell people to go for it. It really works well. The community version is free of charge, and it's not that difficult to set up and use.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

The main objective to use Nagios Core 4.x is to save significant costs on Infrastructure Monitoring without compromising the monitoring parameters.

So, deploying Nagios Core 4.x  was the only option for me considering the below-listed positive factors.

1) Working on Nagios Core for more than 10+ Years.

2) Good Hands On skills to cover the standard monitoring parameters such as CPU, Memory, Storage & Running Services.

3) By introducing NCPA Agent, further monitoring became very smooth & saves time as NRPE & NCPA Client Side Configuration takes more time. On the other hand, NCPA Installation is very straight & you just need to provide a unique token only.

4) NCPA Agent is available for Windows & Linux like OS environments with most of the current & previous stable kernels.

5) Presently, more than 500+ nodes & 2500+ services are under active monitoring.

The monitored services are as follows.

1) Windows & Linux Nodes

* CPU Utilization (%) & Allotted CPU Cores.

* Memory Utilization (%) & Allotted Memory (MB/GB/TB)

* Total Storage Utilization, Allotted Storage Space & Available Storage Space (MB/GB/TB)

* Running Services, CPU & Memory Utilization (%) by a particular service.

* Start the monitoring service if Nagios finds it SHUT.

2) Cisco Nodes (Switches, WLCs, APs, Routers)

* CPU & Memory Utilization.

* Bandwidth Utilization (Combined & on individual interface as well).

* Cisco WLC: No. of connected APs, CPU & Memory Utilization & Bandwidth Monitoring.

* PING RTA, Jitter & Packet Loss.

* Temperature, Free Interfaces, IOS Version, Switch Stack Status.

3) Services

* DNS/Domain Name Expiry

* SSL Expiry

* Many More...

By integrating below-listed add-ons with Nagios Core, the end-to-end monitoring become more useful. 

1) PNP4Nagios

2) NagVis

3) Nagios BPI

4) NagView 

5) NagDash

6) check_mk livestatus

I started working with Nagios Core when RHEL 5 was there & since then it is still in functioning mode various types of hosts and services have been configured such as the IBM AIX, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Cisco Routers, WLCs, Switches & certain gateway level firewalls. (Fortigate, Juniper Netscreen, Checkpoint, Radware AppDirector Load Balancer) 

As my knowledge gains, I've started deploying additional plug-ins (as stated above) to have a productive monitoring environment. 

Please Note: Nagios Exchange is a great source of plug-ins for testing purposes. 

Nagios is still functional & doing well after many years despite having 500+ nodes & 2500+ services. Moving further, the Nagios HA pilot project is in progress to have a high availability & business continuity.

In opposite to Nagios XI, Nagios Core needs to be configured through a shell console only. Though open-source GUI Content Management tools are available I'm good @ shell level only.

Using NCPA, We monitor active & passive checks both. However, Active checks mostly work well in my architecture.

The biggest difference between Nagios Core & XI is, everything comes pre-built with Nagios XI, while for Nagios Core, all add-ons need to be configured individually. 

So, Nagios Core Engineer/Administrator requires in-depth shell-based knowledge & a clear understanding of Nagios Structure for all kinds of troubleshooting.

Provide a user-friendly GUI to configure various hosts/services using a graphical frontend.

I have been using Nagios Core for 11 years.

Nagios Core Scalability should be a serious concern for IT professionals responsible for overseeing their unique hosting environments.

Presently, my stand-alone Nagios Core engine monitoring 1000+ nodes but from the scalability point of view, I'm going to perform a distributed monitoring environment in HA (High Availability) mode. Single Nagios Core stands of SPOF (Single Points of Failure) having high RTO & RPO.

Nagios Core, being an open source, contains limited measures you can take to increase the scalability of the product. As it said, a free monitoring tool will simply not be able to handle the volumes of a more flexible, robust system.

That's why keeping Nagios Core due to the $0 price tag may seem like a cost-efficient approach, but eventually, it becomes mandatory to scale it without impacting productivity.

Nagios Core, which is an open source product has very limited scalability features. Large Nagios solutions have bigger problems as the Nagios core doesn't provide much scalability until you design a decentralized architecture.

Basically, Nagios uses a group of remote servers & services that are configured to perform various kinds of checks. This design makes Nagios difficult to scale, as large fleets quickly reach the limit of vertical scaling, and Nagios does not easily scale horizontally.

For me, I've configured a total of 7 different Nagios Core Servers to monitor hundreds of nodes. Using this methodology, I can be able to cover different groups of infrastructure & all those Nagios Core Servers transmit real-time data on an independent Nagios dashboard tool named MNTOS (Multi Nagios Tactical Dashboard System).

Here, I just need to monitor the MNTOS Dashboard which shows all statistics & can jump on that Nagios Server directly if MNTOS shows any kind of WARNING/CRITICAL Alerts.

In summary, you need to put too much effort to scale Nagios Core to justify organization's actual requirements. 

Positive

I tried using zabbix earlier, however, I was much more confident with Nagios just because of its vast community-based plugins, and active community support, even you can have Nagios Core Paid Support by paying approximately 2200 U$/year.

Some of my known Nagios Community Members have started deploying check mk product but still I stick to Nagios Core.

Setup is straight-forward & well documented.

I'm the only person who manages Nagios Core & relevant services. Once deployed, I provided training to some Linux engineers so that they can manage it during my unavailability.  

So, everything is in-house. Also, we have a roll back option to restore the last configuration if something goes wrong. In most cases, junior Linux engineers make a mistake in Nagios host/service configuration files. So, prior to making any changes, they need to make a backup copy under the same directory level.

Saved millions of rupees just because of Nagios Core. Else, a Tier-III Data Center requires a paid tool for end-to-end monitoring. Even, my organization endorses me for Nagios Core with an award.

As Nagios Core is an open source product, you cannot earn money as a product. 

However, you can earn for Nagios Installation, Configuration  & Ongoing Support. In other words, setup cost for end-client & regular o&m support.

Other side, you can convert Nagios Core into Nagios XI by contacting nagios.com

Nagios is really very good from the configuration point of view. If you have a hefty budget, go with Nagios XI else Nagios Core is equally good. Just you need to put a lot of effort to configure & monitor everything.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Nagios Core a 10 out of 10.

Our primary use case for this solution is an APM for application performance monitoring. For example, we deployed the solution on-premises so we could observe the solution. We look at the threats at the web containers, the data source, and all these components under this monitoring.

The application performance monitoring feature is valuable. We primarily use it for user experience monitoring and determining which layer the problem happened to resolve it.

The initial setup process could be improved.

We have been using the solution for one year.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable but we are still familiarizing ourselves with tool and have not scaled largely yet.

We do not have experience with customer service and support.

The initial setup process could be easier. For example, the setup for infrastructure monitoring is straightforward, but in the case of application monitoring, it is more complicated.

We primarily implement through vendor teams.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good, but the initial setup process could be easier. I recommend the solution to users who want a more diverse environment for monitoring.

We use Nagios to monitor networking infrastructure and services.

The most valuable feature depends on the project. It's great if you need to check to ensure a service is running 24/7. I can use the full solution for free, and it's flexible. If I need to add a dashboard, I can integrate it with Nagios. Cloud synchronization is wonderful.

The mapping is a little hard.

I've been using Nagios Core for three to five years.

Nagios is 100 percent stable.

Nagios is appropriate for companies of all sizes, but a larger enterprise might require a bigger IT team. The largest team I've seen was 50 people. You can easily scale Nagios up, but I've never done it. 

Nagios support is good. They also have a complete knowledge base, so if you need to figure something out, you can find everything about the solution in one place.

I used Pandora about seven years ago, so I can only speak about the capabilities of the solution as it existed at the time. Pandora was excellent, but the documentation was too complicated.

It depends on infrastructure, but normally Nagios is easy to deploy, and I could do it by myself. It usually takes two or three days, but I needed a week for one deployment. You need to install and configure everything and deploy the agents on various servers.

After deployment, you need to do periodic updates and patching. You download the latest pack from the Nagios server with the client. You can do an ATT update depending on if you have Red Hat or Windows between the platforms.

Our main goal with Nagios is to keep a close eye on our servers and the services running in our AWS environment. We’ve got a mix of Windows and Linux systems, each running specific services, and Nagios alerts us whenever something isn’t quite right. It’s also great for monitoring the sites we host on IIS. We've relied on Nagios since 2013, and it’s been a real game-changer when you have so many moving parts to track.

I can say Real-time Monitoring and Alerts, Comprehensive Coverage, Cost-effective Solution, Historical Data and Analysis, and Reliability and Stability

The value of the solution is that we get timely notifications if there are any issues and they can be solved immediately. Nagios provides all the plugins required. 

The UI is a little outdated so it's not as user-friendly as it should be and the graphics should be displayed in a better way. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. 

The scalability of this solution is impressive, particularly because it allows us to expand our monitoring capabilities as our infrastructure grows. With Nagios Core, we can easily add new hosts, services, and devices as needed, ensuring that we maintain visibility across an increasing number of systems. While configuring additional checks can require some setup time, the flexibility it offers makes it well-suited for scaling. Additionally, the open-source community provides plugins and resources that help address scaling challenges, making it adaptable for both small and large environments.

Because the solution is open source, there's no direct support from Nagios. We post our questions to the community and that provides sufficient support. 

Positive

The initial setup is easy and straightforward. Deployment probably took us an hour or two and was not implemented all at once. New areas come up all the time that require monitoring so we research which plugin will be useful and implement that. It's enhanced gradually whenever we have a specific requirement. The implementation was done in-house. There is some maintenance involved, including for the upgrades. I manage the solution but there's a development team to monitor the services, around eight to 10 people. 

The product is open-source, so it’s completely free to use. We have it deployed on an Amazon server, which costs us a small amount approximately $30 per month for AWS hosting

We tested ManageEngine and another open-source product like Zenoss but we found Nagios easier to set up and manage. 

I recommend this solution because it’s very user-friendly. There are excellent resources available online, and it provides everything we need to meet our requirements.

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

Our primary use case is for Infrastructure monitoring.

Nagios Core is a great tool for monitoring the infrastructure including MSM queues, and when we use the agent, we can add other things as well.

Nagios Core is very configurable. Whatever you want, you can do it. We have multiple agents and scripts available with the Nagios Core portals and the internet. The cost is also very acceptable.

Datadog provides the compatibility to integrate with these big data platforms like Cloudera and others. These services are very efficient and they provide customer support with it. In this case, I believe Nagios Core will need to provide an option for big data platforms in the future.

I have been working with Nagios Core for the past five or six years.

Nagios Core is highly stable.

Nagios Core is scalable for our purposes.

The implementation was completed in-house because previously it was an open source tool. We can configure it to our own needs, based on our own requirements. The only task we had to complete is creating the script and using the tool. We had alerts created for our mobile phones, email and dashboard.

When we look at pricing version eleven requires purchasing a license. With version seven no license was required since it was open source. When you upgraded to the licensed version only then did you pay for a license

I would rate Nagios Core a nine out of ten.

We use Nagios for one of our customers to monitor all the servers, firewalls, routers, and cameras. While monitoring the server we get alerts, this enables us to raise a ticket and notify end users that we are aware of the issue before they need to notify us.

We have 80 people using the dashboard and getting the alerts. Depending on the number of servers, routers, and firewalls we are monitoring in current clusters. When one cluster goes down, it will automatically take data from another cluster. 

We support 24/7 because our client is a financial company, if the critical servers go down, they would face financial issues. 

The features of Nagios Core that we find most valuable are the plugins we use, we can check the uptime and see how many servers and routers and create groups accordingly. From these groups, we can check how many servers and routers go down. 

We also like the alerting features. One of the dashboards they provide monitor total assets and how many are up and how many are down.

If we need to process quicker, we use third party plugins to avoid downtime.

Nagios Core would benefit from aggregations if a particular server goes down. 

Comparing Nagios UI and Nagios Core, in Nagios Core we need to do some coding while Nagios XI has everything in UI. If you go with Nagios XI the developer task is minimized because they help provide the UI. With Nagios Core, we need to log into the Linux servers and we need to change that particular directory. We need to write a code for each and every server.

I have been working with Nagios Core for two years.

We deploy Nagios on a cloud, so there are features like plugins. The help desk tickets plugins so we can monitor the lock files as well from main server and create dashboards.

The security-related features also are there to monitor antivirus and install or not on each and every server. 

We were working with ELK. Due to costing we switched to Nagios Core because it is free for the alerting feature. 

The initial setup of Nagios Core is straightforward. We installed as per the steps mentioned in Nagios' documentation. It can be deployed in a day.

I completed the installation myself.

Most of the features in Nagios Core are free. Most plugins are free. 

When considering Nagios Core you should consider how many servers, firewalls and routers you need to monitor. Then determine which services need to be monitored by Nagios Core and how many service alerts are needed so you can create clusters and keep your gig size and RAM size accordingly.

I would rate Nagios Core a 7 out of 10.

We mostly use Nagios Core to integrate with Python and Bash Script. If there is a requirement from the client to monitor these services, and Nagios Core does not have the features, we integrate Python and Bash Script with Nagios Core to monitor the services.

Nagios Core does not have a graphic display.

My company has worked with Nagios Core for the last six years.

I rate Nagios Core ten out of ten for stability.

I rate Nagios Core ten out of ten for scalability.

Nagios Core's initial setup was not difficult for me.

Nagios Core is a cheap solution.

Nagios Core is a world-famous open-source monitoring tool. It is easy for us to showcase a Nagios Core demo to the client.

Overall, I rate Nagios Core ten out of ten.