Management software for Cisco switches?

[disturbedone]

Until recently we had 2x Nortel Passport 8600s as our core with a variety of Nortel switches. We used Nortel's Enterprise Switch Manager (ESM) to manage the devices. This provided a graphical view of the switches, which router they were connected to and on which port. Each switch could be double-clicked to see a GUI of the front of the switch and allow each port to be clicked and configured. Very easy. This allowed our service desk team, who aren't highly skilled at command line to be able to make simply changes.

We replaced the Passports with Catalyst 4507s and asked the vendor to supply a Cisco equivalent of ESM and they supplied LAN Management Solution (LMS) but it seems overkill and I can't even find how to see the overall graphical layout like ESM did or even to be able to simply, graphically, modify a port on a switch.

Does anyone know of a piece of Cisco that does this?

 

[unclerico]

CiscoWorks 4

I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)

 

[disturbedone]

Ciscoworks 4 = Ciscoworks LAN Management Solution 4 (LMS) which is what we were sold.

It's overkill and doesn't do what we need. It cost a small fortune and I've been looking at Cisco Network Assistant. It's free and it looks like it will do what we need. It's not as nice as Nortel's EMS but it looks like it might do it.

 

[imbadatthis]

cacti!!!!! and a good snmp server?


We must go always forward, not backward
always up, not down and always twirling twirling towards infinity.

 

[vipergg]

If you have or less devices you could use cisco network assistant which free management software for cisco devices . Do a search on the main cisco page and see if it meets your needs . If network is bigger than that then check out Solarwinds line of products. Cheaper than ciscoworks...

 

[vipergg]

CNA is for 40 or less devices.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5931/index.html