nagios and cacti - nagios vs cacti

[arit]

Hi,
I'm FOTB, new to this whole nagios and cacti world. But I'm tasked with finding out how they function. Can someone some expert help me answer some basic questions?

I have a Windows 2003 Server environment (6 servers), Sun Solaris with Oracle and SambaFTP Zones. I need to be able to monitor all windows environments, Websphere, Mdaemon, SMTP and other network services and most importantly Oracle services running on Solaris and present them graphically. Do I need both nagios and Cacti to do that? Or can Cacti do both the monitoring and the graphical presentations on its own? Or can nagios handle it on its own. If I do need both, can they run on the same system. What would be the minimum system requirements for running Nagios and/or cacti.

Please Help!!

Thanks in advance
arit

[gandalf]

Nagios IMHO comes more from the fault management side of the story whereas cacti comes from performance management. Both now are able to handle the other topic to a certain extend.
So, if you're focussing on one of those issues, run that system only. Else use both. You may want to link them by e.g. using the Nagios Plugin for cacti.
Find some more words about cacti principles at the first link of my sig
Reinhard

[arit]

Thanks Gandalf! Will I need to install any nagios and/or client agents on the hosts that need to be monitored?

And what is the best practice for installing nagios and cacti? Should they run on the same system? I know you mentioned that I could link them by using a Nagios plugin in Cacti. But should Nagios and Cacti be installed on the same system?

Still not sure which link you directed me to.
Thanks
Arit

[gandalf]

Documentation: http://docs.cacti.net/node/70
Nagios Plugin: See first plugin forum
Installing both on the same system makes sense unless it will be overloaded. Likely only for a quite huge installation.
For nagios, it's very likely that you will have to install remote code. That's one of the greatest strength's (and greatest weakness) of nagios. Cacti does NOT use any agent code (apart from snmp agent of the target system)
Reinhard