Is there a third party app that will display switch layout and whats connected to each port similar to what Meraki does? If not what are you using to pull the snmp or CDP data from the switches.
We have a lnetwork that we are trying to work through and it would be nice to visualize what's there.
The majority of the switches are Cisco SG-300's
@Jason said:
If you mean the SAN (as in Storage Area Network, not the SAN Devices) was all static, that is completly normal. You don't normally put DHCP in SANs
Nope the entire 200-300 device network
Quick update, We went onsite yesterday to install a device and couldn't get a connection. Come to find out there is no DHCP. It's all static and managed on a spreadsheet.
I'm not really sure why they went this direction. There are a few other things that are making me shake my head and several red flags were raised during our initial meeting. We won't be back for a couple of weeks but I think that a large budget and a lack of understanding lead to their current infrastructure.
Agreed, We are working on getting some usage numbers to figure out what the loads look like over a period of time.
Dell 730 servers, HP MSA SAN's , 5 VM's on each, and only about 1/3 of each SAN used.
I found one. I was asked to take a look at a network recently and not only did I find a the infamous Inverted Pyramid. I found two of them!
Yes, identical SAN's but no replication or snapshots between the two of them. Im looking forward to what else I'll find.
@Jason said:
@NETS said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@NETS said:
So without a UTM device how are you monitoring the network and locking down the traffic?
- What is the actual need here? A firewall already monitors and locks down the traffic. Those are not UTM functions.
- With a UTM, how are you doing it?
I look at UTM's as a single device that can easily secure and monitor and a variety of network traffic with minimal effort. Running a regular ERX works but you lose the malware, mail filtering and IPS features of a UTM. Sure there are other methods of gaining those features back but not on a single box. For SMB that single box is a big sell.
If you use a Edge router how are you adding back in the other security features that a UTM or Nextgen firewall offers?
Why are you filtering mail at the firewall anyway?. Even with onsite mail cloud based email filter is way more powerful at detecting things.
98% of the time we do use some form of cloud based email filtering but if they have the license we also kick on mail filtering in the UTM. While it might be over kill it's caught a few things that we didn't want coming in.
I agree that UTM's are costly and single devices could potentially a better job but from a manageability perspective UTM's make it easier.
@wrx7m said:
@NETS said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@NETS said:
So without a UTM device how are you monitoring the network and locking down the traffic?
- What is the actual need here? A firewall already monitors and locks down the traffic. Those are not UTM functions.
- With a UTM, how are you doing it?
I look at UTM's as a single device that can easily secure and monitor and a variety of network traffic with minimal effort. Running a regular ERX works but you lose the malware, mail filtering and IPS features of a UTM. Sure there are other methods of gaining those features back but not on a single box. For SMB that single box is a big sell.
If you use a Edge router how are you adding back in the other security features that a UTM or Nextgen firewall offers?
Take Cover!
I fully expect it. Possibly even looking forward to the rousing discussion that takes place because of it. 
@scottalanmiller said:
@NETS said:
So without a UTM device how are you monitoring the network and locking down the traffic?
- What is the actual need here? A firewall already monitors and locks down the traffic. Those are not UTM functions.
- With a UTM, how are you doing it?
I look at UTM's as a single device that can easily secure and monitor and a variety of network traffic with minimal effort. Running a regular ERX works but you lose the malware, mail filtering and IPS features of a UTM. Sure there are other methods of gaining those features back but not on a single box. For SMB that single box is a big sell.
If you use a Edge router how are you adding back in the other security features that a UTM or Nextgen firewall offers?
I don't don't doubt that and running 2 to 3 years of QuickBooks at the same time doesn't help. The Tax software in question is also a intuit product so there is another strike.
I would be perfectly ok with continuing to try and find the problem if the user was some what willing to help but all we get is push back that they don;t have time to let us resolve the problem. I seriously her husband who is in IT had her do something to the PC.
Ugh, Here we are again late into tax season and a certain vendors software is slow and giving the user issues. No one else is affected, but this one user. The same user every year.
I'm at a loss on how to resolve this issue. For the past three years we've dealt with ticket after ticket for these same issues that no one but the user can recreate. The software vendor has no clue and once Tax season is over it all clears up or no one cares anymore.
Of course it's not the 10 Chrome tabs, the entire Office suite open, Multiple years of QuickBooks and every accounting packed installed open that's causing the problem. We've asked them to limit their applications to only those needed to finish the task at hand, we've replaced the computer, we've installed more memory, SSD's, and video cards but the issue is still there.
If only we could replace the user. I bet that would clear the problems up.
So without a UTM device how are you monitoring the network and locking down the traffic?
I know there are other methods but a UTM seems to provide an easy way to accomplish this in an SMB environment
I want to price it through Xbyte,I've had great luck with them for parts and would like to give them a shot on this.
Thanks,
I've followed you on SW and your blog and this is another great IT resource. It' helps me sleep and night knowing there's fellow IT people that I can bounce things off of when I hit a wall. Hopefully I can help a few others out as well.