Not Your Average Firewall Monitoring Tool
Don’t let an overloaded firewall choke your network performance. Monitor firewall performance to identify issues like CPU, and bandwidth spikes.
4.96 Average Rating (169 Reviews)
Our Firewall Monitoring Tool
Saves Your Network From Performance Bottlenecks
Quickly Identify Firewall Issues Impacting Network Performance.
In the last decade, firewalls have become more important than ever as security took center stage, but their issues often fly under the radar. That’s because the way they’re used in real life rarely matches what the vendor promises. To make matters worse, vendors often sell firewalls that are too small for a company’s needs.
Sizing a firewall properly is tricky—it’s hard to predict how it’ll perform when all the security features are turned on. Features like intrusion detection, threat prevention, and traffic filtering are a must, but they’re also resource-hungry. The more features you turn on, the harder your firewall has to work, which can lead to performance problems that affect your whole network.
That’s why you need continuous firewall performance monitoring. You need Obkio’s Network and Firewall Monitoring Tool. Using synthetic traffic and ultra-fast SNMP polling, Obkio continuously monitors network and firewall performance to identify issues before they impact your network’s security and end-users. Detect every surge in firewall utilization happening anywhere in your network.
Deploy Obkio in minutes to pinpoint whether your firewall is undersized or misconfigured, and collect the data you need to troubleshoot effectively. From resource spikes to capacity limitations, Obkio provides visibility into how your firewall impacts your network – so you can keep things running smoothly.
Why You Need to Monitor Firewall Performance
5 Firewall Monitoring Use Cases Obkio Will Help You With
Obkio helps monitor firewall performance for a variety of use cases, ensuring your network and firewall run smoothly:
Adding Security Features
Firewalls with advanced security features like intrusion prevention or malware filtering consume more resources. Monitoring ensures these features don’t overwhelm your firewall.
VPN or IPSec Tunnels
Firewalls play a key role in securing VPNs and IPSec tunnels. Monitoring ensures these tunnels run smoothly without bottlenecks.
Utilizing Routing Features
Firewalls often manage routing within the network. Monitoring helps identify performance impacts from these additional responsibilities.
SD-WAN or Multiple Internet Connections
SD-WAN has become essential for businesses relying on WAN. Obkio monitors how firewalls handle traffic across multiple providers to ensure optimal performance.
Supporting A SASE Architecture
With the growing adoption of SASE, firewalls are tasked with more cloud-based security operations. Monitoring helps maintain reliability and efficiency.
How Obkio’s Firewall Monitoring Tool Works
The bottom line: we’ve redefined firewall monitoring to be smarter, simpler, and more effective with ultra fast SNMP Polling combined with end-to-end Network Performance Monitoring.
Many businesses just monitor firewall performance using traditional packet capture tools or by checking the firewall’s GUI, which often shows average CPU usage across multiple cores. However, this method can miss critical performance issues, like a single core running at 100%, affecting the entire firewall’s performance.
Obkio takes a more proactive approach to firewall monitoring. Using Monitoring Agents that exchange synthetic traffic, Obkio continuously monitors network and firewall performance from end-to-end. This allows it to detect issues as soon as they start to develop, sending you alerts before problems escalate. As a result, you only receive relevant notifications that help you address issues quickly and effectively, ensuring your network stays optimized and secure.
Obkio Helps You Answer: Is Your Firewall Strong Enough to Sustain Your Network?
How often do you think about your firewall’s performance?
Vendors make big promises, but sizing a firewall is tricky—especially with resource-hungry security features like intrusion prevention and malware filtering. The more features you enable, the harder your firewall works, which can lead to slowdowns, connectivity issues, and even security vulnerabilities.
Undersized firewalls are responsible for 37% of network issues in enterprise environments.
So the real question is: Is your firewall equipped to meet the growing demands of your network, or is it quietly failing behind the scenes?
1. Firewall Specifications Often Fall Short: Many firewalls can’t handle real-world demands. For example, a device claiming to support 1Gbps might only handle a fraction of that with extra features enabled. Obkio’s Firewall Monitoring software helps identify these gaps, so your firewall meets your actual needs.
2. Bandwidth Mismatches Cause Bottlenecks: When network traffic exceeds your firewall’s bandwidth capacity, it leads to congestion, packet loss, and dropped connections. Obkio tracks bandwidth usage in real time, helping you stay ahead of these issues.
3. Adding Features Increases Resource Strain: Every new security feature consumes more resources. Undersized firewalls often fail under the load, locking businesses into long-term licenses for devices that can’t keep up. Obkio helps you catch these problems early to avoid costly upgrades later.
No Matter Your Network Issue
We've Got the Solution For You
Obkio's solution is designed to be the easiest network performance and network device monitoring tool on the market, making it the ideal choice for businesses of all sizes, from IT professionals working from home to managing the complexities of large-scale corporate networks.
- 14-Day Proof Of Concept
- Single and home offices
- SMEs with less than 3 locations
- Mid to large multisite networks
- MSPs & large businesses
- Non-Profit Organizations
- Colleges and Universities
Check out our plans, all available with a free 14-day trial, no credit card required!
Deploy Obkio’s Firewall Monitoring Tool In Minutes
Start your free trial. Deploy in 10 minutes. Start monitoring firewall performance.
With a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, you can quickly deploy Obkio and begin monitoring your firewall performance without hassle.
Obkio’s easy-to-follow onboarding wizard makes the setup process intuitive, even for those with limited technical knowledge.
- Identify Issues Early: Detect performance issues like CPU spikes or packet loss before they affect your users.
- Streamline Troubleshooting: Quickly pinpoint whether problems stem from the firewall or other network devices.
- Prevent Downtime: Resolve potential issues before they cause service interruptions and maintain a stable network.
Start your free trial today with Obkio!
1.2. How to Configure Obkio's Network Device & Firewall Monitoring
Deploy Monitoring Agents at every end of your network to monitor performance between your firewall, Internet and network locations.
What Are Monitoring Agents?: Monitoring Agents are Obkio’s unique software tools designed to collect network performance data from key locations like data centers, branch offices, or cloud environments. They send synthetic traffic to measure key network performance metrics, helping detect potential issues.
Add Your Firewall As A Network Devices: Once the agents are installed, you can easily add your network devices to the Obkio app and monitor their performance using SNMP. To ensure accuracy, we recommend placing the agent closest to the device being monitored.
Local Polling for Efficient Monitoring: Since Obkio polls your firewall locally through its LAN interface, there’s no need to configure IP Sec tunnels for remote devices. With our distributed approach and local SNMP polling, we can monitor your firewall more aggressively – every 30 seconds instead of the typical 5-minute intervals – giving you faster, more reliable data for proactive monitoring.
Customers Love Obkio's Network Monitoring Tool
Collect Network & Firewall Performance Metrics
Use NPM and SNMP to collect real-time firewall metrics to establish a baseline and uncover bottlenecks.
Obkio provides a complete solution by tracking key firewall metrics, such as CPU usage, memory, and interface errors, alongside critical network metrics like latency, packet loss, bandwidth, and throughput. This combined approach makes it easy to identify performance issues, whether they stem from the firewall or the network, allowing for faster and more effective troubleshooting.
CPU Usage: Detect overburdened firewalls struggling with tasks like deep packet inspection or filtering.
Memory Utilization: Identify low memory levels that may slow down firewall operations.
Bandwidth Usage: Monitor for congestion leading to dropped packets or increased latency.
With firewalls handling critical security tasks, their performance impacts business continuity and security. Any disruptions can lead to downtime, poor user experience, or vulnerabilities, making proactive monitoring key to maintaining reliable and secure operations.
Start monitoring smarter – real-time performance insights are just a few clicks away!
2.1. Obkio Doesn’t Hide Firewall Issues Behind Average Measurements
Network issues shouldn’t be a normal part of your day, so why hide surges of poor performance behind average data?
Traditional tools often hide critical performance spikes by summarizing data over long intervals, giving you a false sense of security. These surges, which might seem minor when averaged out, can actually cause congestion and slowdowns.
For example, if data is polled every 5 minutes (300ms) and the average bandwidth is 12MB, you might have less than 12MB for 4 minutes, followed by a 1MB spike. This surge can cause congestion but will be hidden behind the average measurement, leaving you unaware of the issue. Luckily, Obkio’s approach is different!
2.2. Ultra-Fast SNMP Polling: See Every Detail, No Matter How Small
Compared to traditional polling methods, which rely on 5-minute intervals, Obkio’s monitoring agents collect data every 30 seconds, helping you to detect even the smallest changes in CPU usage, bandwidth, and other critical metrics. By polling at shorter intervals, we show you the real, worst-case performance your firewall has experienced.
This frequent polling ensures no spike goes unnoticed, providing a detailed, real-time picture of your firewall’s performance. You’ll get clear visibility into the network performance that directly impacts your business, not just a summary that misses key issues.
Do You Have A Firewall Issue or Network Issue?
Analyze the data to pinpoint if you have a Firewall Issue (Device-Related) or a Network Issue.
Once Obkio collects real-time and historical firewall and network performance data, it’s time to determine the root cause of any issues. Look at your network monitoring graphs and your network device graphs to see if there's an issue on your network's end or your device's end.
You Have A Localized Firewall Issue!
If you notice performance issues occurring on a single network session to a specific Internet destination, it may indicate a localized problem with your firewall.
Possible causes include traffic congestion, device misconfigurations, or resource limitations like CPU or bandwidth overuse. To confirm, and analyze key firewall metrics like CPU utilization and bandwidth.
No Firewall Issues? Check the Broader Network.
If the firewall metrics appear normal, the issue might stem from the network or external factors like an ISP problem. If the issue impacts multiple sessions, it’s likely an external network problem.
Use Obkio’s NPM features to monitor and share data with your ISP for further investigation.
First: Use SNMP Polling to Troubleshoot Firewall Performance
Identify whether the issue originates from your firewall. If it does, it’s likely a problem within your control, like resource overutilization or misconfigurations. Since SNMP monitoring focuses on devices you manage, it’s a great tool for narrowing down internal problems.
SNMP polling is crucial – it enables you to quickly detect and isolate internal firewall issues without wasting time involving your ISP for problems that stem from your equipment. This saves both time and effort during troubleshooting.
Second: Is It a Firewall Resource Issue?
Leverage data from Obkio’s Monitoring graphs and alerts to analyze critical metrics like CPU usage, memory utilization, or bandwidth saturation.
If any of these metrics surpass their thresholds, your firewall may be struggling with tasks such as packet inspection or filtering.
- Optimize firewall configurations to balance resource use.
- Upgrade hardware if capacity limits are frequently reached.
- Reduce network load by prioritizing essential traffic.
Leverage Obkio to Pinpoint Where Performance Issues Happened
After collecting performance data and identifying firewall issues, use Obkio's Firewall Monitoring software to isolate the source.
Obkio’s intuitive interface displays real-time data and historical trends, empowering you to uncover whether the problem originates from your firewall, internal network, or external Internet connection.
Use Obkio's Sandwich Method for Troubleshooting
To pinpoint the exact issue, apply Obkio’s Sandwich Method by strategically deploying Monitoring Agents:
- LAN Side: One agent is placed on the internal network to monitor the performance of devices and traffic within the local area network (LAN). This gives insight into how well the network is performing internally.
- Device Side: Another agent is deployed right at the edge of the firewall. This allows you to monitor how traffic flows through the firewall and identify if the firewall is introducing any delays or bottlenecks.
- External Internet: A third agent is placed on the Internet side to assess the performance of your external Internet connection. This helps you determine if external factors like ISP performance are contributing to the problem.
4.1. Isolate the Firewall Performance Bottleneck
By using this layered approach, Obkio allows you to clearly isolate the firewall’s role in the problem, making it easier to a whether the issue is internal, related to the firewall, or stemming from external connections.
- On Your End: Analyze data to determine if internal devices or network segments are causing the issue. Obkio pinpoints specific devices, interfaces, and metrics, eliminating guesswork.
- Beyond Your Devices: If the firewall isn’t the issue, look outward. Use Obkio Vision for deeper diagnostics into Internet or Service Provider problems.
Troubleshoot Internal Firewall Problems
Resolve internal firewall issues and restore smooth network performance.
If your firewall isn’t working as it should, the problem might be within its configuration or resource limitations. Using Obkio’s side-by-side performance graphs, you can quickly figure out if the issue is internal to your firewall. Here's how to dig deeper:
1. Check Firewall Logs: Access the firewall’s logs through its management interface. Logs can reveal problems like conflicting rules, failed connections, or security incidents that slow things down.
2. Review Rules and Policies: Firewall rules might be too broad, overlapping, or redundant. Simplify or optimize them to reduce the firewall’s processing workload.
3. Inspect Interface Performance: Look for errors, packet drops, or high retries on your firewall interfaces. Obkio’s SNMP monitoring or the firewall’s dashboard can pinpoint misconfigured or overloaded ports.
4. Test and Fix: Turn off non-essential rules or services temporarily to narrow down the source of the problem. If the firewall is struggling with traffic volumes, you might need to upgrade its hardware or adjust how traffic flows through your network.
5.1. Troubleshoot External Firewall Issues (Service Provider Network)
If the issue lies beyond your network and within your service provider’s infrastructure, troubleshooting can be more challenging, but Obkio simplifies the process with these steps:
- Monitor End-to-End Performance: Obkio’s monitoring tracks network performance across the full path, including your provider’s network. This helps pinpoint where issues like latency or packet loss occur.
- Run Traceroute Tests: With Obkio Vision, you can analyze the network path to locate problem areas, such as bottlenecks or traffic filtering by the provider. Compare different destinations to identify where the issue arises—your firewall or the provider’s network.
- Check for Provider Limitations: Determine if your provider is throttling or shaping specific types of traffic (e.g., VoIP or streaming). These restrictions can lead to performance issues.
- Escalate with Evidence: Use detailed reports from Obkio, such as performance graphs and traceroute results, to present clear, actionable evidence to your service provider. This speeds up issue resolution and ensures your concerns are taken seriously.
Identify the Causes of Firewall Issues
Drill-down to understand what's causing Firewall performance issues in your network.
When a firewall performance issue occurs, it’s crucial to determine the underlying cause. Obkio’s Firewall Monitoring tool helps identify the root causes by providing detailed performance metrics. Here are some common causes of firewall issues to consider:
CPU or Resource Limitations
Aging or undersized hardware, such as firewalls with insufficient CPU or memory resources, can struggle to handle increased traffic loads, leading to poor performance.
Network Congestion or Bandwidth Issues
Incorrect firewall settings or conflicting rules can result in performance degradation. These misconfigurations may cause unnecessary processing or prevent traffic from passing through, leading to slowdowns.
Misconfigurations or Rule Errors
Incorrect firewall settings or conflicting rules can result in performance degradation. These misconfigurations may cause unnecessary processing or prevent traffic from passing through, leading to slowdowns.
Underspecified Firewall
An underspecified firewall may not be able to handle the amount of traffic or the complexity of network traffic passing through it. This could lead to slowdowns or drops in network performance, especially during high-traffic periods.
Firewall Software Issues
Outdated or buggy firewall software can also create issues. Make sure your firewall firmware and software are up-to-date to prevent security vulnerabilities and ensure smooth performance.
Continuous Network & Firewall Performance Monitoring
Keep your firewall and network in top shape with continuous monitoring.
Obkio helps you monitor everything from your firewall’s performance to end-to-end network health, identifying issues before they cause significant disruptions. By integrating SNMP polling, Obkio tracks vital metrics such as CPU usage and bandwidth utilization across the network and firewall.
Smart Alerts for Relevant Notifications
Forget about alert overload. With Obkio, you get only the alerts that matter. This means your IT team can focus on solving real problems – like network congestion or firewall misconfigurations – without wasting time on trivial issues. You’ll be able to act quickly, backed by detailed data, to keep your network running smoothly.
Conquering Network Issues with
Expert Insights and Effective Strategies
Welcome to our blog, where we address the common challenge of identifying network issues and provide you with effective solutions. At times, network problems can be elusive, causing disruptions, performance bottlenecks, and frustration. But fret not, because we are here to help. Our team of experts has extensive experience in tackling network issues head-on, and we are excited to share our knowledge and insights with you.
Start Your Free 14-Day Trial Now!
Get a free POC with Obkio's 14-day trial. Identify network problems & collect data to troubleshoot.
Start Now Book a Demo