Statseeker was first cab off the ranks on Wednesday afternoon. The Australian company does one thing and does it well. Scaling interface statistic monitoring built upon FreeBSD. Using a custom, optimized time sequence database to store data and a cookie cutter SNMP OID template, you have a new insight into your network.
Cookie Cutter approach
When I say cookie cutter do not let it detract from the hard work Statseeker has put in. They achieve their ability to scale up to millions of switch ports by monitoring essentials without customization. They select and choose a number of critical OIDs and use SNMP gets , opposed to the traditional TRAPs, to poll and collect the information. These non obscure OIDs are critical in the optimization process.
While others Roll up, Statseeker rolls out.
Historically rolling up of data occurred with programs that collected interface statistics. With Statseeker this is not the case. Their custom, optimized database allows a baseline of data that does not get thrown out or munged. It stores every interface, every minute, accessible for graphing/reports within two seconds.
Negativity in Mindset of Engineers?
Sometimes network engineers want ” ALL THE BUTTONS, TWEAK ALL THE KNOBS” and in this case, Statseeker prove that this isn’t required. Catering to majority and not the minority they know it isn’t applicable in all cases. They also do not market it this way. Some of their clients are massive. Global, highly distributed, and very dense. This template of OID’s allows quick and efficient notification of the worst part of the network. This empowers the engineer to provide information required by a business to help soundly invest CapEx to reduce OpEx.
Small Footprint; Physically better than Virtual brother
Statseeker has modest requirements. You won’t need hundreds of TB’s of hard drive or massive amount of memory. The only worrying part is the fact that their physical offering runs better than the virtual. This would only concern a client when you go over 100,000 interfaces on a virtual deployment. I believe more work needs to be done. I have servers with grunt. I have virtual machines that would be wasted if I was to not deploy VMware on it. Something to consider moving forward but that I am sure is on a roadmap; At least it would be on mine 🙂
Thoughts
Statseeker’s offering will leave you either saying buy me now or It is good but I need more knobs and buttons. It is a very sound product. It can reliably pull interface statistics in two seconds from hundreds of thousands of switch ports The scalability is there. They openly and honestly tell you what their template covers and what it doesn’t. Their focus of majority of the market and not niece uses keeps their product streamline. Overall I felt I was too small to really capitalize on their true power of scale optimization. Their reports though are exactly what I would use it for though. Deliciously detailed with the information correlated to a baseline that confirms any query or doubt with sound evidence.
As Steward Reed said “When you get into a fight the person with the person with the best notes wins”
I will further post on this product when I deploy a trial within my lab and provide more intricate details.