Monitoring tool for visualizing the dependencies of systems

General
1

Hello everyone,

I have started a new job as an IT operations manager.

My main task is to find a tool that displays all systems and processes and their dependencies.

Unfortunately, normal monitoring tools such as PRTG or WhatsUp Gold do not offer this option.

For example, if database X fails, then this affects server X Y Z and the programs X Y Z. XYZ are then responsible for this.

Does anyone know of such a tool or have experience with this topic?

Best regards,

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

2

Regarding Checkmk:

On host level you can set or scan for parents, which gives source to network topology visualisation.

For complex dependencies, you can use Business Intelligence (BI):

3

Hi @Marcel2 and welcome to the forum.
I’m afraid that there is no simple and super easy solution for your request. You probably won’t find a software that does the thinking for you and can do everything you ask for automatically. I would say that you can probably do a lot with the BI feature of Checkmk, but you have to put in the work in the first place. If you have your documentation right and know yourself, what is a dependency of what process and system then you can easily create the necessary aggregations in Checkmk with the Business Intelligence feature.

Another approach is to use the Parent Child relations in Checkmk to create a better alerting and dependency overview. It’s maybe not the depth you want, but it is a starting point.

You can also utilize the host and service label feature to tag dependencies in Checkmk to build special dashboards to get a better overview.

Last but not least, I remember the talk from @gstolz about “Setting downtimes on related hosts/services automatically” from this year’s conference. I haven’t tried the software yet, but it could be another step in the direction you want to go.

In the end, this topic can be quite complex, and you can’t have a quick and easy solution to this problem.

Best Regards
Norm

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