Monitoring servers, applications, and services has become an essential part of the IT department over the past 10 years. However, it can be a daunting task to find the right solution for your Enterprise. This brief paper will examine the differences between Agent and Agentless monitoring, so you can make the right decision based on your company's needs, the metrics you need, your budget range, your resource availability, and your management's reporting needs.
uptime's IT Systems Management Series: For Administrators
Agent vs. Agentless Enterprise Monitoring
The Truth about Agent vs. Agentless Monitoring
A Short Guide to Choosing the Right Solution.
Monitoring servers, applications, and services has become an essential part of the IT
department over the past 10 years. However, it can be a daunting task to find the right
solution for your Enterprise. This brief paper will examine the differences between
Agent and Agentless monitoring, so you can make the right decision based on your
company?s needs.
Authored by: Chris Knowles (chris.knowles@uptimesoftware.com)
Uptime Software PO Box 110 555 Richmond Street Toronto, Ontario Canada, M5V 3B1 (416) 868-0152 sales@uptimesoftware.com
uptime's IT Systems Management Series: For Administrators Page | 1 www.uptimesoftware.com Agent vs. Agentless Enterprise Monitoring
Contents
CONTENTS .................................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION TO THE "AGENT VS. AGENTLESS" DEBATE. .......................................... 3
AGENT-BASED MONITORING ........................................................................................ 3
METRICS ................................................................................................................................ 3 CAPABILITIES .......................................................................................................................... 4
PROS & CONS ............................................................................................................... 5
PROS: ................................................................................................................................... 5 CONS: ................................................................................................................................... 5
AGENTLESS MONITORING ............................................................................................. 5
METRICS ................................................................................................................................ 6 CAPABILITIES .......................................................................................................................... 6
PROS & CONS ............................................................................................................... 7
PROS: ................................................................................................................................... 7 CONS: ................................................................................................................................... 7
ASK YOURSELF. ........................................................................................................... 8
WHAT DATA IS IMPORTANT TO ME? ............................................................................................ 8
ABOUT UPTIME SOFTWARE .......................................................................................... 9
WHY UP.TIME? ........................................................................................................... 10
uptime's IT Systems Management Series: For Administrators Page | 2 www.uptimesoftware.com Agent vs. Agentless Enterprise Monitoring
Introduction to the "Agent vs. Agentless" Debate.
When selecting an enterprise-level monitoring solution, one of the first decisions the IT department needs to make is whether to opt for an agent based, or agentless monitoring solution. The most important part of this decision making process is to understand what metrics you need to measure. Once you understand this, the process of finding the correct solution is quite simple. In a nutshell, agent-based solutions will give you access to much deeper and more granular metrics to aid in the fight against downtime while agentless solutions allow you to skip the step of deploying agents at the risk of less data and a less secure environment.
Agent-Based Monitoring
