NC Feb-Mar 2023

PRODUCT REVIEW
AdRem NetCrunch 13
PRODUCT REVIEW
PRODUCT
REVIEWPRODUCT RE
Enterprises and SMBs are spoilt for choice
with network monitoring products but
AdRem Software's NetCrunch stands out
from the crowd for many good reasons. It
offers an impressive set of network monitoring
tools integrated seamlessly into a single
console and teams them up with extreme ease
of use and great value.
This latest version introduces a raft of new
features designed to make it even easier for
support staff to quickly identify and diagnose
network pain points. Automated rule-based
device management allows hundreds of nodes
to be configured together instead of
individually, and NetCrunch 13 enables
flexible visualisations that focus on presenting
live data of business processes, network activity
and services for simplified troubleshooting.
One feature of NetCrunch we've always liked
is its lightning-quick deployment, and v13 is no
exception. We loaded the Server and Console
components on a Windows Server 2022 host,
followed the discovery wizard and were
presented with a complete readout of our lab
network in only 15 minutes.
The NetCrunch console opens with a highly
informative Atlas overview page which uses
colour-coded icons of all monitored devices,
so you can see at a glance which ones have
problems or are down. Custom views take this
further, as they automatically present details
based on the content selected in the left pane
and full search facilities apply your criteria to
nodes, the Atlas view, program settings and
even blog posts, making it easy to find a
device of interest.
Once monitoring accounts had been
provided to the Credential Manager, we could
use NetCrunch's Monitoring Packs to keep a
close eye on our systems. These are a great
idea as they group together performance data
and alerts for specific devices and services.
AdRem provides over 270 Monitoring Packs
including ones for Windows systems, Active
Directory, Hyper-V and VMware hosts and
Linux. You have Packs for Microsoft apps such
as SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server and
the cloud comes into the equation with options
including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft
Azure and 365, Google and even the Zoom
conferencing service.
The best part is you don't have to do anything
as the most appropriate Monitoring Packs are
automatically assigned to systems, devices and
services during the discovery phase.
NetCrunch is clearly capable of presenting a
wealth of information but keeps it very well
organised, as tabs across the top offer displays
of all nodes with colour-coded status icons
and quick views of Windows, Linux, VMware
and Hyper-V hosts.
The Top Charts tab shows graphical views of
nodes with the most alerts and systems with the
highest CPU, memory plus storage usage. Any
NetFlow and sFlow data coming into
NetCrunch will also be broken down into
graphs of apps with detailed flow analytics.
The new Active Alerts console page in
NetCrunch 13 is a welcome addition as it
presents real time views of all the latest
alerts, which can be filtered on their severity.
Move to the analytics page and you can see
all alerts over the last day, week or month
and drill down to selected items for more
detailed information.
Alerting features are extensive and
NetCrunch creates scripts for you and assigns
them to all relevant Monitoring Packs. These
are easy to customise and you can create
escalation scripts that assign a sequence of
alerts and actions to critical devices if they
have problems.
AdRem's NetCrunch 13 takes all the hard
work out of network monitoring and its flexible
licensing schemes make it affordable for
businesses of all sizes. It's incredibly easy to
deploy and the highly informative central
console ensures support staff are always one
step ahead of network issues. NC
Product: NetCrunch 13
Supplier: AdRem Software
Web site: www.adremsoft.com
Price: 100 nodes/interfaces, from £860 per
year exc VAT
WWW.NETWORKCOMPUTING.CO.UK FEBRUARY/MARCH 2023 13
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