Paessler PRTG provides cluster solution for fail-safe IT infrastructure monitoring at the University of Bern

The University of Bern relies on an extensive and heterogeneous IT infrastructure for its operations. This infrastructure is maintained by the employees of the IT Services Department (ITS). Previously, the five groups of the ITS worked with their own monitoring solutions. Since multiple tools were in use, the ITS had a hard time collecting key annual figures on the availability and performance of the various components of the university’s IT infrastructure. A team composed of members from each of the groups was therefore set up to evaluate and introduce a single, centrally managed monitoring system. Although the members had previously worked with several different tools, they ultimately opted for something new: PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler AG.

In the ITS, a team of representatives from each of the groups is responsible for purchasing items used by all the groups. This team began by determining the current state of the university’s network monitoring system. The resulting documentation outlined the tools and solutions that were already in use, as well as their purposes. It also highlighted the problems and limitations of the existing solutions. This information was extremely helpful in defining and prioritizing the requirements for a new solution. In addition to ease of use, the following requirements emerged from the team’s search:

• The tool must clearly indicate whether all the services are accessible and functioning properly
• The system administrators must be able to manage their systems autonomously
• The tool must be able to monitor basic hardware parameters such as memory and CPU
• The configuration of the tool must be able to be checked according to best practice guidelines
• The tool must allow for custom scripts that can monitor ports, files (including version numbers), and log files
• Services and systems must be monitored, including their subsystems and dependencies
• ITS employees must be notified automatically, depending on the error or issue
• The new tool must come with a reports feature

Cluster ensures reliability and availability

When installing the new tool, the ITS team was intent on creating a high level of resilience and redundancy. Although a single installation of PRTG can monitor the university’s entire infrastructure, what happens if the PRTG server goes down? At universities, students must have access to services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – a fact that makes round-the-clock monitoring all the more important. Since ITS employees are unable to work all hours of the day and night, Stefan Zahnd and his team decided to use a PRTG cluster. The PRTG cluster feature provides any monitoring environment with a high level of resilience and availability.

A PRTG cluster consists of a so-called “master node” (main node), where PRTG is installed and configured. The master node is supplemented by one or more “failover” nodes. If the master node goes down, one of the failover nodes takes over until it recovers. PRTG network monitoring therefore helps ensure availability, even if the master node fails and an employee cannot immediately fix the problem. Key annual availability figures can also be recorded and documented, without any gaps whatsoever.