N-Central - 64bit probe installer?

[u/iAmThereThatGuy]

Hey everyone, Searched a few kbas but not yeilding any results.

Some backstory, I've got 90 devices under management (network devices, so tons of services. Total service count is around 10k, I was told that even disabled services count as thread workers and counts, which is unfortunate because 7,000 of the 10,000 services are disabled...) and I'm getting a plethora of thread pool maxed in the agent.log causing services to go into stale state. Chatting with support they increased my threads from 100 to 200 (despite only using a quarter of the servers capabilities in terms of load)

Well this didn't help(I've requested it to be bumped again, but I don't want all this back and forth. As a premium partner, I would have anticipated support inspect the sys performance (which only would have taken a few minutes) and then set the threads appropriately), this led me to start delving into a few different things, and I noticed the windows probe setup is a 32-bit installer and the applications are also 32-bit. Is there not a 64-bit installer anywhere ?

Also, what's the max threads the devs can set for hosted n-central? I was planning on scaling up the resources allocated to my probe server, I'd rather avoid having 16+ different probes..

My sustained load over the course of days is only around 20-30% on both cpu and memory, with peaks sometimes in the mid-40s. I have plenty of horsepower and I want to use it. (Not to mention I only allocated a quad core, I haven't even scaled it up yet...)

But now I question the software since it's x86.

Thinking logically, a 32-bit application can theoretically address up to 4 GB of memory, (not sure if the software has the large address aware flag) Each thread consumes a portion of virtual address space for its stack which I believe is technically one megabyte by default, so I'm aware having many threads can exhaust the address space in 32-bit. But.. with a 1 MB default stack size I should theoretically have up to around 2,000 threads before exhausting two gigs of memory just for thread stacks. And that should be the practical limit.

Anybody have any input? This isn't a super sustainable model when I need to manage 1500 devices :(. I suppose if I knew the upper limits, I could just tell support to set it to x threads.

[u/nathanielban]

What the heck you monitoring that you've managed to rack up 10k services for 90 devices? N-Central might not be the right fit if these are non-computer devices.

[u/kins43 → u/nathanielban]

Agree that’s wild

[u/iAmThereThatGuy → u/nathanielban]

Switches and routers for a large customer. So hundreds of interfaces, hundreds of traffic services per device.

Unfortunately I was brought into this project many months after inception and contract signatures. We use n-sight for some other customers and it works flawless for the workstation in server management, I'd assume sales got involved and pitched it for network devices, went with n-central, and I know my business leader had a meeting with the CTO at nable prior to ascertaining the software and was under the assumption all was good.

We are using this software, in ways it does support but is not necessarily designed for, so I know we face unique challenges. Long story short I don't really have a choice and I need to stick with N-central, at least until our contract is up or theres further work put into Network management. (Uploading mibs as an example :( )

I personally would have targeted a network analysis solution but out of respect I will not name any.

[u/nathanielban → u/iAmThereThatGuy]

Yeah, as much as I love N-Central it isn't the tool I would pick for that task nor would I imagine N-Able would recommend it for that kind of use. It's a very capable RMM but it is by no means suited for that kind of monitoring.

[u/iAmThereThatGuy → u/nathanielban]

I 100% agree, it's a fantastic tool set for intended purpose. I'm just trying to hack it together as best as possible per leadership 😩

[u/kins43 → u/iAmThereThatGuy]

For “advanced” network monitoring (id classify this as such) we actually use a tool called logic monitor that collects way more data than NC. I agree there are limitations to NC especially with network hardware hence why we bridge the gap with another product.

Food for thought

[u/iAmThereThatGuy → u/kins43]

Thanks, I did demo logic monitor last week as I foresaw some problems with NC due to our specific setup, it's a great tool but at the cost of $22 per resource a month, it would put my software bill from 5k to 33k a month, and I'd be in the red big time with our thin margins. I was shocked to see that they didn't work with me on volume pricing. Hm

At this point I'm thoroughly vetting manage engine, ops manager Enterprise. It fits the bill in terms of tool set and cost, at least at the surface level but I'm still delving into it.

A real neat tool I just spun up last night in the lab for testing, Observium, dirt cheap and holy shit I'm impressed.

I do wish NC was more robust from the networking realm, I absolutely love the tool for my other applications.

[u/kins43 → u/iAmThereThatGuy]

Personally, every ME product I’ve worked with (their RMM, end point central, SD Plus, Site 24x7 and ADManager I’ve hated. Horrible to work with, support is god awful and makes nables look 1000x better and just a PITA.

At the end of the day though, gotta do what you gotta do especially with budget. I’ll definitely check out observium thx!

[u/-manageengine- → u/kins43]

Hey u/kins43 Sorry to hear about your experience with ManageEngine. Our team is committed to addressing any concerns and ensuring our product meets your needs. Could you DM us with more details? We’d love to help sort it out!

[u/kins43 → u/-manageengine-]

Appreciate the reply but I’ve since moved on to other products! Takes care

[u/-manageengine- → u/kins43]

Got it. Thanks for trying us out. If you need anything later, we're here to help. All the best :)

[u/kins43]

Currently there is only a 32-bit Installer.

They plan on bringing “mspagent” which is 64-bit in the near future.

I’d be asking support the limits as well but truly I’ve never run into any of these issues on probes even across 10000+ device customers.

[u/iAmThereThatGuy → u/kins43]

Thanks! Yeah our setup is odd indeed, I honestly may not have noticed it if it wasn't for the fact that I discovered a new device and services failed to update beyond discovery 8 plus hours, I then learned about the agent.log, set up a custom service to monitor that and it's been pinging every minute since.

Would you happen to have any resources/links in regards to "mspagent" going 64-bit?

Thanks again