COBIT - Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology

The Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) is a good framework strategy to help an organization maintain standards and develop a system of IT governance. COBIT is a common methodology used by many companies in order to develop a systematic means to meet compliance laws.

Why COBIT?

COBIT consists of 34 IT processes and is a way for an organization to use in its attempts to "balance risk and control in a cost-effective manner" (Pederiva, 2003).

Situation Analysis

• Does your enterprise’s IT support the business?
• Is it aligned with the business?
• Is your IT performing to its optimal capability?
• Is your IT adding value to the business?
• Are IT risks being effectively mitigated?
• Are your IT investments being effectively managed throughout their life cycle?
• Is the importance of governance understood at all levels of your enterprise?
• Are the benefits of your IT being maximized?

If you did not answer yes to all of the above questions, your enterprise does not have an effective IT governance framework in place. Most, if not all, business activities are affected by IT, with an increasingly visible impact to end users. Successful enterprises recognize the need to maximize the value of IT-related investments and that the need for the governance of IT is greater now than ever before. The best way to ensure this is to implement an IT governance framework.

An effective IT governance framework:

• Provides clear direction to ensure that IT investments support the business
• Is an effective way to manage change.
• Creates value for the business in alignment with enterprise objectives
• Addresses the complete life cycle of IT investment

COBIT, developed by ISACA®, is a comprehensive IT governance framework.
COBIT 4.1 addresses every aspect of IT and is the only governance framework that addresses the complete life cycle of IT investment.

What Does COBIT Do?
COBIT:

• Improves IT efficiency and effectiveness
• Helps IT understand the needs of the business
• Puts practices in place to meet the business needs as efficiently as possible
• Helps executives understand and manage IT investments throughout their life cycle
• Provides a method to assess whether IT services and new initiatives are meeting business requirements and are likely to deliver the benefits expected
• Helps to develop and document the appropriate organizational structures, processes and tools for effective management of IT
• Provides an authoritative, international set of generally accepted practices that helps boards of directors, executives and managers increase the value of IT and reduce related risks

What are the Benefits of Implementing COBIT?
There is a clear difference between enterprises that manage their IT well and those that don’t, or can’t. Implementation of COBIT is a sign of a well-run enterprise, as it is a proven and internationally accepted set of tools and techniques.
The benefits of implementing COBIT include:

• A common language for executives, business and IT staff
• A view, understandable to management, of what IT does
• A better understanding of how the business and IT can work together for successful delivery of IT initiatives
• Better alignment, based on a business focus
• Better quality IT services
• Improved efficiency and optimization of cost
• Reduced operational risk
• More effective management of IT
• Clear policy development
• More efficient and successful audits
• Clear ownership and responsibilities, based on process orientation

COBIT is a Road Map to Good IT Governance 

• Accepted globally as a set of tools that ensures IT is working effectively
• Functions as an overarching framework
• Provides common language to communicate goals, objectives and expected results to all stakeholders
• Based on, and integrates, industry standards and good practices in:

• Strategic alignment of IT with business goals
• Value delivery of services and new projects
• Risk management
• Resource management
• Performance measurement

IT Governance Is the Key Issue
Enterprises are sacrificing money, productivity and competitive advantage by not implementing effective IT governance
Executives need a better way to:

• Direct IT for optimal advantage
• Measure the value provided by IT
• Manage IT-related risks

Microsoft's ISA Server (Internet Security and Acceleration Server)

Microsoft's ISA Server (Internet Security and Acceleration Server) is the successor to Microsoft's Proxy Server 2.0 (see proxy server) and is part of Microsoft's .NET support. ISA Server provides the two basic services of an enterprise firewall and a Web proxy/cache server. ISA Server's firewall screens all packet-level, circuit-level, and application-level traffic. The Web cache stores and serves all regularly accessed Web content in order to reduce network traffic and provide faster access to frequently-accessed Web pages. ISA Server also schedules downloads of Web page updates for non-peak times.

ISA Server allows administrators to create policies for regulating usage based on user, group, application, destination, schedule, and content type criteria. ISA Server is designed to work with Windows 2000 and later operating systems and to take advantage of Windows' Kerberos security. ISA Server includes a software development kit (SDK).

ISA Server comes in two editions, Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. Standard Edition is a stand-alone server that supports up to four processors. Enterprise Edition is for large-scale deployments, server array support, multi-level policy, and computers with more than four processors. Licenses are based on the number of processors.

ISA Server carries new terms that need to be understood before attempting product deployment on the network.

• Array – a group of ISA computers that are located close together, for example a department, office, and region. There are two types of arrays:

Domain Arrays – that use Active Directory. A domain array can encompass computers located within a single domain.Independent Arrays – allow storage of information not in the Active Directory, but in a local configuration database. This array is mainly used in NT 4.0 based networks.

• Rule – with rules, the system administrator can set up a series of protocols to govern sites, contents, protocols, and IP packet filters.

• Array policy – a set of rules that define the array policy. Such a policy can be applied to any specific (and single) array.
  
• Enterprise policy – enterprise-level policies contain similar rules to those established in array policies but they are applied to multiple arrays.

With ISA Server, array policies can be used to modify enterprise policies making them more restrictive. However, it is not possible for an array policy to ease restrictions imposed by the enterprise policy.

ISA Server supports many more functions than its predecessor. The following options are available with this new product:

• Firewall – the Firewall client is an extension to the ISA Server that features an enhanced set of functions allowing it to compete with other similar products available on the IT market. With Firewall client, Active Directory can be supported from Windows 2000 (or the SAM databases from NT). These are used to provide specific security functions at user or group level. This feature is not supported by a majority of third-party products that use either separate user databases or IP addressing. Firewall functions are enhanced to support so called stateful packet inspection, i.e. a solution for improved security where data packets passing through the firewall are intercepted and analyzed at either a protocol or connectivity level.
• Policy-based administration – ISA Server lets the administrators manage using predefined policy rules. Policies can include a set of consistent rules regarding users, groups of users, protocols etc. A specific policy may apply to a single array or globally, to the whole enterprise. For businesses that use networks with Active Directory enhancements, multi-tiered enterprise policies are those that match their needs to have a comprehensive IT system, to facilitate management of the entire enterprise and its infrastructure.
• Virtual Private Network Support – ISA Server provides an easy solution to create VPN – based networks. The wizards supplied with ISA Server help to configure VPN tunneling and may activate the RRAS service if not already initialized.
• Dynamic IP filtering – depending on the security policy used, an enterprise can dynamically open firewall ports for authorized Internet users on a session-by-session basis. This considerably simplifies the administrator’s duties in situations where there are applications that frequently change ports though they communicate with each other.
• IDS (Intrusion Detection System) – Microsoft has equipped the ISA Server with an Intrusion Detection System. This module had been purchased from Internet Security Systems, the leading developer in these IT solutions. Thus, ISA offers out-of-box support for preventing several types of attacks including WinNuke, Ping of Death, Land, UDP bombs, POP Buffer Overflow, Scan Attack. Once an attack has been detected and identified, ISA may decide either to disable the attack or notify administrators about the event.
• Web Cache – ISA Server provides fast Web caching performance. Administrators are allowed to automatically refresh frequently requested www pages on reverse and scheduled caching basis.
• Reports  – the major point of contrast between ISA and its predecessor i.e. Proxy Server 2.0 is that ISA features numerous report generating possibilities. By scheduling report generation connected. for example, with the users’ actions or security related events, managing ISA Server based networks is a simple task.
• Gatekeeper H.323 – this component allows ISA Server to manage IP telephony calls or H.323-based VoIP applications (for example Microsoft NetMeeting 3.0). The DNS SRV record must be registered in order to have gatekeeper enabled.
• Client Deployment – with SecureNAT (Network Address Translation) feature, ISA Server delivers to clients and servers a transparent and secure access to the Internet with no need to configure extra software on client machines. SecureNAT allows monitoring of all traffic in ISA Server.

Therefore, instead of being a simple product improvement, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server fills a gap in the range of this type of products available at the Redmond colossus and is trying to jump aggressively into the mass market sector associated with Web security and fast Web access. The new potential implemented in ISA Server is expected to allow Microsoft to compete effectively in this business area.

It should be noted that Microsoft’s engineers carefully integrate all products together to bring the Company’s vision of a .NET platform to businesses.

The minimum hardware requirements recommended by Microsoft for this product are:

• 300MHz or higher Pentium II compatible CPU,
• 256 MB of RAM,
• 2 GB hard-disk space on NTFS formatted partition,
• 200 MB of available hard-disk space for installation.

ISA Server requires a computer running Windows 2000 upgraded to Service Pack 1 or greater.

Problems with insufficient server capacity may occur with this type of configuration. Thus, for various ISA Server usage scenarios, the hardware should be adequately strengthened.

If ISA Server is to be used as a firewall, one will need to consider how powerful the CPU should be in terms of throughput requirements.

Throughput requirements	Recommended CPU
Less than 25 Mbyte/s	Pentium II 300 MHz – 500 MHz
From 25 Mbyte/s to 50 Mbyte/s	Pentium III 550 MHz or better
More than 50 Mbyte/s	Pentium III 550 MHz or better for each 50Mb

Table 1 CPU capacity requirements vs. throughput

Obviously these values can only be used as a reference when planning the ISA Server’s hardware to meet the expected load. This may vary in function or various usage scenarios (such as the type of transmitted data).

In case ISA Server is to be deployed as a Forward Cache, in addition to an adequate CPU capacity consider also requirements for RAM and high free disk space available for caching purposes.

Number of users	Recommended processor	Minimal RAM capacity (Mb)	Recommended disk space allocated for caching
Up to 250	Pentium II 300 MHz	256	4 GB
250 – 2000	Pentium III 550 MHZ	256	10 GB
More than 2000	Pentium III 550 MHz for every 2,000 users	256 for every 2000 users	10 GB for every 2,000 users

Table 2 – Capacity planning for forward caching server applications

   

Secure Internet Access is one of the fundamental features provided by ISA Server. It is increasingly necessary to improve security tools and check users that access the network from outside, especially in a situation where the Global Web is vulnerable to outside interference from viruses, trojan horses or hacker attacks.  One may also wish to improve security to monitor network users and protect the network from potential Internet threats. To face this challenge and provide solutions for a broad landscape of users, Microsoft has implemented three types of clients in ISA Server:

• Firewall clients – all computers that have Firewall Client software installed and active,
• SecureNat clients – all computers that do not have Firewall Client software installed,
• Web Proxy clients – all Web browser clients are configured to use ISA Server.
   

Reference Site:
About ISA server installation

Network Monitoring System Tools

Network Monitor is a network server monitoring tool which checks for failures and fixes them automatically. In network management terms, network monitoring is the phrase used to describe a system that continuously monitors a network and notifies a network administrator though messaging systems (usually e-mail) when a device fails or an outage occurs. Network monitoring is usually performed through the use of software applications and tools. At the most basic level, ping is a type of network monitoring tool. Other commercial software packages may include a network monitoring system that is designed to monitor an entire business or enterprise network. Some applications are used to monitor traffic on your network, such as VoIP monitoring, video stream monitoring, mail server (POP3 server) monitoring, and others.

While an intrusion detection system monitors a network for threats from the outside, a network monitoring system monitors the network for problems caused by overloaded and/or crashed servers, network connections or other devices. For example, to determine the status of a webserver, monitoring software may periodically send an HTTP request to fetch a page. For email servers, a test message might be sent through SMTP and retrieved by IMAP or POP3.

Commonly measured metrics are response time, availability and uptime, although both consistency and reliability metrics are starting to gain popularity. The widespread addition of WAN optimization devices is having an adverse effect on most network monitoring tools -- especially when it comes to measuring accurate end-to-end response time because they limit round trip visibility. Status request failures - such as when a connection cannot be established, it times-out, or the document or message cannot be retrieved - usually produce an action from the monitoring system. These actions vary -- an alarm may be sent (via SMS, email, etc.) to the resident sysadmin, automatic failover systems may be activated to remove the troubled server from duty until it can be repaired, etc.

The Benefits of Network Monitoring
Network Monitoring can

• Proactively Warn You of Problems. With proactive network monitoring your IT department can be alerted to issues before they turn into serious problems and down time. If monitoring was in place in the example above the System Administrator could have added disk space or removed older files prior to the SQL Server going down, resolved Exchange data corruption before the email server went down, and updated hotfixes on the web server to prevent hacking before it occurred.
• Track Your Network’s Growth. Network monitoring can also assist you with gathering data to keep track of your network’s growth. Chances are a lot has changed with your network over the past several years. New Servers have come online, perhaps you’ve added a new wireless network, more workstations and printers, and so forth. All of this can add to network traffic loads, leading to overtaxed network connections and possible growth issues. Network monitoring allows you to know what you have and how it’s being used, so you can proactively look to resolve problems before they start.
• Help with Capacity Planning. Network monitoring allows you to track how much disc space and network bandwidth you’re using, enabling you to do capacity planning based on your usage trends. The result: you can proactively plan and budget for your future systems needs.
• Meet Service Level Agreements. Is your department or company is required to meet a Service Level Agreement with a specific percentage of uptime on your network and network resources? If so, monitoring these things ensures that you are indeed meeting the requirements.

Here is a comparison of some notable network monitoring systems:

Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6
AdRem NetCrunch	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging	No	Yes	SQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
AccelOps	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	PostgreSQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
AggreGate Network Manager	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	MySQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Firebird, HSQLDB	Limited free, Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
Argus	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging	Yes	Unknown	Berkeley DB	Artistic License	No	Yes	Yes
Avaya VPFM	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	MySQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cacti	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Via plugin	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	RRDtool, MySQL	GPL	Plugin	Yes	Yes
collectd	No	No	No	No	Push model; multicast possible	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing	Yes	No	RRDtool	GPLv2	No	Apache ACL	Yes
Dhyan Network management System	Yes	Yes	Yes	Unknown	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	MySQL, Oracle, Derby	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
dopplerVUE	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	MS SQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
ExtraHop	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	N/A	Yes	No	No	Yes	Full Control	With ECM	Yes	Proprietary	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6
FreeNATS	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Via plugin	Yes	In PHP Code	Full Control	No	No	MySQL	GPL	No	Yes	Unknown
Ganglia	No	Yes	Yes	No	Via gmond check in	Yes	Via plugin	No	Yes	No	Viewing	Yes	Unknown	RRDtool	BSD	Yes	No	Unknown
HP Network Node Manager (NNMi)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Via integration	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	PostgreSQL, Oracle Database	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kaseya Network Monitor	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	FirebirdSQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
IBM Tivoli Network Manager	Possible via configuration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	MySQL, Oracle Database, DB2	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Icinga	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	No	Via plugin	Supported	Via plugin	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Via plugin	MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle Database	GPL	Yes	Yes	Yes
InterMapper	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing	Yes	Yes	PostgreSQL	Limited free, Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
IPHost Network Monitor	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging, Reporting	Yes	No	FirebirdSQL	Commercial	No	No	Unknown
isyVmon	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Via plugin	RRDtool, MySQL	Limited free, Commercial	Via plugin	Yes	Yes
LiveAction	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Reporting	Yes	Yes	Yes	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6
Munin	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Partial	Viewing	Unknown	Unknown	RRDtool	GPL	Unknown	Unknown	Yes
Nagios	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	No	Via plugin	Supported	Via plugin	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Via plugin	Flat file, SQL	GPL	Yes	Yes	Yes
NagiosXI	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	No	Via plugin	Supported	Via plugin	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Via plugin	MySQL, PostgreSQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
NetMRG	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Via plugin	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full control	Yes	Yes	RRDtool, MySQL	GPL	Yes	Yes	Unknown
NetQoS Performance Center	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging, Reporting	Yes	Yes	Yes	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
Network Instruments Observer Infrastructure	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	Proprietary Database	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
NetXMS	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	No	MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite	GPL	Yes	Yes	No
Nimsoft Monitoring Solution	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging, Reporting	Yes	Yes	SQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
Observium	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Full Control	No	Yes	RRDtool, MySQL	GPLv3	Yes	Yes	Yes
Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6
OpenKBM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Proprietary with JDBC support	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
OpenNMS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Unknown	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	JRobin, PostgreSQL	GPLv3	Yes	Yes	Yes
OPNET's AppResponse Xpert	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging, Reporting	Yes	No	Yes	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
Opsview	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	No	SQL	GPL	Yes	Yes	Yes
PacketTrap	No	Yes	Yes	Unknown	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Reporting	Yes	Unknown	SQL	Commercial	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Pandora FMS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle	GPLv2; (Enterprise edition available)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Performance Co-Pilot	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Flat file	GPL, LGPL	No	No	Unknown
PRTG Network Monitor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	Proprietary	Freeware and Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scrutinizer	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging, Reporting	Yes	Yes	MySQL	Limited free, Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6
ServersCheck	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	No	Flat file, ODBC	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
SevOne	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Unknown	MySQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Solarwinds	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	SQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shinken	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	No	Via plugin	Yes	Via plugin	Via plugin	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging, Reporting	Yes	Via plugin	Flat file, MySQL, Oracle, CouchDB, Sqlite	AGPL	Yes	No	Unknown
Spiceworks	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Supported	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	Sqlite	Commercial (Free)	Yes	Yes	No
TclMon	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Viewing	No	No	RRDTool	BSD	Yes	Yes	No
Verax NMS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	No	Oracle, MySQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
WhatsUpGold	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	SQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Xymon/Hobbit	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Via Plugin	No	Yes	Yes	Viewing, Acknowledging	Yes	No	Flat file	GPL	No	Apache ACL	No
Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6
Zabbix	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, IBM DB2, SQLite	GPL	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zenoss	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	ZODB, MySQL, RRDtool	GPL	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zyrion Traverse	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Supported	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full Control	Yes	Yes	SQL	Commercial	Yes	Yes	Unknown
Name	IP SLA Reports	Logical Grouping	Trending	Trend Prediction	Auto Discovery	Agent	SNMP	Syslog	Plugins	Triggers / Alerts	WebApp	Distributed Monitoring	Inventory	Data Storage Method	License	Maps	Access Control	IPv6

Legends:

Product Name 

The name of the software, linked to its Wikipedia article. Any software listed without being linked to its article, demonstrating its notability, will be removed.

IP SLAs Reports 

Feature reports on IP SLAs

Logical Grouping 

Support arranging the hosts or devices it monitors into user-defined groups

Trending 

Provide trending of network data over time

Trend Prediction 

The software feature algorithms designed to predict future network statistics

Auto Discovery 

The software automatically discover hosts or network devices it is connected to

Agent 

The product rely on a software agent that must run on hosts it is monitoring, so that data can be pushed back to a central server. "Supported" means that an agent may be used, but is not mandatory. An SNMP daemon does not count as an agent.

SNMP 

Able to retrieve and report on SNMP statistics

Syslog 

Able to receive and report on Syslogs

Plugins 

Architecture of the software based on a number of 'plugins' that provide additional functionality

Triggers/Alerts 

Capable of detecting threshold violations in network data, and alerting the administrator in some form.

WebApp 

Runs as a web-based application

• No: There is no web-based frontend for this software.
• Viewing: Network data can be viewed in a graphical web-based frontend
• Acknowledging: Users can interact with the software through the web-based frontend to acknowledge alarms or manipulate other notifications.
• Reporting: Specific reports on network data can be configured by the user and executed through the web-based frontend.
• Full Control: ALL aspects of the product can be controlled through the web-based frontend, including low-level maintenance tasks such as software configuration and upgrades.

Distributed Monitoring 

Able to leverage more than one server to distribute the load of network monitoring.

Inventory 

Keeps a record of hardware and/or software inventory for the hosts and devices it monitors

Data Storage Method 

Main method used to store the network data it monitors.

License 

License released under (e.g. GPL, BSD license, etc.)

Maps 

Features graphical network maps that represent the hosts and devices it monitors, and the links between them.

Access Control 

Features user-level security, allowing an administrator to prevent access to certain parts of the product on a per-user or per-role basis

IPv6 

Supports monitoring IPv6 hosts and/or devices, receiving IPv6 data, and running on an IPv6-enabled server. Supports communication using IPv6 to the SNMP agent via an IPv6 address.

source: wiki