Migrating from PRTG
NetCrunch can read an existing PRTG installation and rebuild its devices and monitoring in the NetCrunch atlas, so a migration starts from your real environment rather than an empty one.
Applications/ServerNetCrunch ServerImport nodes from PRTG
The import connects to a running PRTG installation, reads what it monitors, and recreates it in NetCrunch. It is a starting point rather than a one-to-one conversion — the two products model monitoring differently, and the sections below set out what carries across automatically, what is translated into the NetCrunch equivalent, and what you finish by hand.
Connecting
NetCrunch uses the PRTG API v1 to retrieve the list of monitored devices and their sensors. You will need:
- The PRTG server URL
- Credentials — either a username and password, or a PRTG API key
What Is Imported
Devices become nodes in the NetCrunch atlas, together with their basic monitored elements.
System metrics — CPU load, memory usage and the other standard Windows and Linux parameters — are not recreated as individual sensors. NetCrunch covers these with Automatic Monitoring Packs instead. The relevant monitoring engines are switched on for each node during the import.
You must supply monitoring credentials yourself after the import. The engines are enabled, but they cannot collect anything until they can authenticate.
SNMP devices get the SNMP monitoring engine enabled. Set your SNMP profiles up in the Credentials Manager and NetCrunch will assign the matching profile to each device automatically. SNMP-based PRTG sensors arrive as monitoring packs rather than as individual sensors.
Network interfaces — where PRTG was monitoring interfaces on a device, Interface Monitoring is enabled on the NetCrunch node with default parameters, covering all active interfaces.
Self-contained sensors — those needing no further configuration, such as SSL Certificate or Printer — are imported with their default settings.
Cisco IP SLA — PRTG uses one sensor per IP SLA operation. NetCrunch replaces the whole set with its MultiOperation sensor, which provides the same monitoring through a single, simpler configuration.
What You Finish By Hand
Sensors that cannot work without configuration NetCrunch has no way to infer are not imported. Add them after the import:
- HTTP sensors, which need the monitored URL
- Custom sensors
- Anything else whose definition lives outside the device list
Devices Behind a PRTG Probe
Devices that PRTG monitored through a probe other than its Local Probe are placed in a separate Site in NetCrunch, matching the topology they already had.
Those sites are created empty of monitoring capability — to actually monitor the devices, install a NetCrunch Monitoring Probe in the corresponding location and the site will begin collecting. See Distributed Monitoring.
After the Import
- Supply monitoring credentials for the Windows and Linux nodes.
- Add SNMP profiles to the Credentials Manager if you have not already.
- Install Monitoring Probes for any sites created from PRTG probes.
- Add back the sensors that needed manual configuration.