Question

You are the network administrator for a growing business. when you were initially hired, the organization was small and only a single switch and router were required to support your users. during this time, you monitored log messages from your router and switch directly from each device's console. however, the organization has grown considerable in recent months. you not must manage 8 individual switches and three routers. it's becoming more and more difficult to monitor these devices and stay on top of issues in a timely manner.

Answer 1

Usually, network devices can be set up to send their syslog messages to a syslog server, so you'd just need a *nix computer with syslog setup to receive messages via the network, and you can read stuff there. You also get the advantage of having reglar expressions so that "noise" (messages you don't care about) isn't displayed.

Network devices can also be set up to use SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).