Cacti and Wireshark FTW

Today is usually the day when 22 Cisco IP Phones fail in the mornings. That didn't happen today! There were no strange traffic spikes, no inexplicable switch failures. Four months in and the first Tuesday that telephone services have not failed us. So today I told Cisco TAC they could close the ticket. There were some tools that later on I found were instrumental in helping discover this particular issue and tops was the free network monitoring software called Cacti. Setup was quick and easy, a three liner install from a walk-in-the-park Ubuntu Server VM install. Just like that, I had a free and quite useful network monitoring solution chugging along. I had evaluated so many other products, price tags around $5k or more, and where did I end up? Ubuntu and Cacti. Total IT investment? An hour. Cost? Nothing for the system. Not having to use the licensing Ouija Board? Priceless.

How much have I learned? I learned first and foremost that the coming Internet of Things is going to be more complicated and more involved than we can imagine. This situation that I endured was all due to buggy driver software in Intel NIC's. Now when I see posts chiming in about IoT, I have a certain trepidation when it comes to even more devices connected to the networks and the coming spiral of complexity.

After all, "all's well that ends well" rules the day. All the little failures won't be forgotten, but they fade like a mirage once the solution is in place. Phones working on Tuesday is the win condition. There are more puzzles to figure out and more ways to make IT better. We are on the tip of the iceberg of complexity. It isn't just Cisco, but HP and Intel and the human element itself, all playing a role.

The heroes of this tale? Cacti and Wireshark. Without those tools, I'd still be lost. If you are looking at a new networking infrastructure, you owe it to yourself to explore these tools. Being free drives away excuses. They can help immensely, and the learning curve is surprisingly level.