Paessler Gives a Nod to VoIP Monitoring Needs

Network admins new to VoIP management have been making do with traditional network monitoring tools. Paessler's new VoIP modules provide direct support for the issues most commonly facing networks with a lot of voice and video traffic.

Nuremberg, Germany-based Paessler AG, which has had a sizable customer base in North America for its PRTG Network Monitor software, has gotten with the times and added to its latest version (version 7.2) new modules for monitoring the health and performance of IP voice and video connections-for both Cisco-based networks and those running other brands of networking gear.

Enterprise VoIPplanet spoke with Ken Sanofsky, Paessler's general manager for North America, who filled us in on the basic product architecture:

"We have two elements," Sanofsky said: "We have the core engine, where our code runs on a server, and then we have a local probe attached to that server for monitoring the network that that server's attached to."

Remote probes (standalone PCs running a small piece of additional code) do the actual monitoring, using what Paessler calls 'sensors.' The probes collect data from the various network devices and forward it to the core engine, via secure SSL.

Paessler offers some 50 different sensor types: SNMP sensors for switches, routers, and other networking infrastructure, sensors for monitoring servers-including POP, IMAP, and Exchange mail servers-even sensors that function in virtual environments, such as VMWare.

Read "Paessler Adds VoIP Modules to Network Monitor" at Enterprise VoIP Planet.com