What do they worry about the most? The obvious answer would be the performance of the network. If there are any network outages or downtimes, it is basically a nightmare for network administrators. One of the important things that needs to be monitored in order to keep the performance of the network optimum. Networks are bound to have problems and issues. Some of these issues are related or caused by CPU utilization. The CPU utilization of the routers in the network. This includes the routers and many other network devices. Therefore, monitoring the CPU load of the Cisco routers in the network is really important. This is because if the devices are utilizing more CPU bandwidth than it should be or if a device is not being able to utilize sufficient memory, the network will show weird behavior which includes slow response times. Having slow response times or high latency is basically unacceptable in this competitive world as it definitely gives your competitors an edge especially if you are an online business. To avoid such issues, the utilization of the cores of the CPU in the network has to be monitored. How? We will guide you through.
How to Monitor CPU Load on Cisco Routers?
Obviously, you cannot monitor the number of processes that are being executed by the CPU in the network manually. Thus, you will have to use tools that have been developed for the said purpose by companies. Solarwinds is a big name in the network and system management field because of the quality of the products they develop. Solarwinds Engineers Toolset (download here) is no exception here. Engineers Toolset, as obvious from the name, is a product developed by Solarwinds that includes over 60 tools that prove very useful and helpful to network admins. With the help of these tools, you will be able to monitor availability and latency of network devices (link the article here), troubleshoot network issues via the diagnostics tools packed in the toolset as well as manage network logs and much more. Without a doubt, it packs the best tools and utilities for network administrators. That is why, we will be using ETS (Engineers Toolset) in this guide to show you how to monitor CPU utilization. Therefore, download the tool from the link provided and install it on your system. Fortunately, Solarwinds offers a 14 day evaluation period during which you can use the product to its full potential and then decide for yourself if it’s worth it.
Monitoring the Router CPU Load
Solarwinds Router CPU Load is a tool that is packed inside the Engineers Toolset using which you will be able to monitor utilization. In order to reduce recurring issues and improve the overall network performance, IT admins need to monitor and analyze the CPU load in the network devices. The tool allows you to monitor the load on various Cisco routers in real-time as well as you are able to record peak CPU level along with the time of occurrence. A horizontal bar is used to display the current load of CPU for a Cisco router in relation to the maximum CPU load. A great feature in the tool is that if the utilization of memory exceeds a defined value, you will be notified via different colors. If the value satisfies a defined threshold value for warning, the color of the bar will change to yellow while a red color represents critical level.
Analyzing and Monitoring CPU Load in Real-Time
Now that we are done with all of that, we can get into the gist of this article and show you how to analyze and monitor CPU utilization on Cisco devices in real-time. This is very easy to do with the right tool. So, without further ado, let us get into it.
Setting Custom Alert on Router CPU Usage Spikes
Using Router CPU Load, you can configure thresholds and set up alerts so that you are notified whenever the utilization exceeds a defined value or percentage. To do this, follow the below step-by-step instructions:
How to Analyze and Monitor Memory Utilization in Realtime on Network Devices?How to Manage Configurations of Multiple Cisco Routers and Switches Easily?How to Monitor Availability and Measure Latency of Devices on your Network in…How to Monitor Cisco Devices using Network Performance Monitor
