Tracking Bandwidth

[Mike Keenan]

I work for a large company and manage the ASA firewalls (about 15 of them). I am trying to find a practical way to monitor the bandwidth of the firewalls so that we are better prepared when it comes time to create a new context or to upgrade to a new firewall. We do not use tracking software such as Solar Winds. So, I am throwing this question out there to see what the community might suggest as a good solution for tracking bandwidth that doesn't cost a whole lot of money. Thanks.

[Marvin Rhoads · Accepted solution]

If you only need simple interface utilization statistics, you can setup an instance of the open source tool Cacti. You need some Linux admin skills but there are a good number of how-to guides out there.

If you want more of a paid and supported experience, many people use (at the entry level) PRTG or What's Up Gold. Both are pretty decent products for what they do.

[kerryjcox]

Might I also suggest MRTG or PRTG. I have been using the former for years and the latter looks to be promising but with a cost. Nothing like nice green graphs to show bandwidth over time.