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From: elf@oldearth.EBay.Sun.COM (Ed Fleschute)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Looking for comments on network analyzers
Message-ID: <6222@male.EBay.Sun.COM>
Date: 12 Apr 91 00:23:12 GMT
References: <5336.27f1d691@cpva.saic.com> <4669@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
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Reply-To: elf@oldearth.EBay.Sun.COM (Ed Fleschute)
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Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Milpitas, CA
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In article <4669@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, lanmaint@nssdcb.gsfc.nasa.gov
(Dave Yoest) writes:

|> (TEXT DELETED)
|> We have a LANALYZER (bought from Excelan before the Novell buyout)
|> that we have used for 4 or 5 years. I have also demo'ed the SNIFFER
|> and find them to be comparable. In my opinion the SNIFFER is just
|> a little better at protocol decoding and the LANALYZER is a little
|> better at finding physical layer hardware problems. Overall they 
|> are just about equal, If you're more into protocol "problem tracking"
|> then you might be better off with the SNIFFER. If you do more hardware
|> problem solving then the LANALYZER might be a better choice.
|> 

I'll second the evaluation that Dave has performed.  The LANALYZER is
a great tool for doing physical layer analysis.  If you are experiencing
hardware problems on a cable the LANALYZER is phenominal at pinpointing
the source of the trouble very quickly.

The SNIFFER is excellent at higher level protocol analysis.  If I was looking
to find a NFS protocol bug I definitly would prefer the SNIFFER.


|> 
|> Not to cloud the issue since you have already narrowed the field, but 
|> did you look at the Hewlett Packard 4972 LAN protocol analyzer.
|> I like it better than both the SNIFFER and LANALYZER (my opinion).
|> (TEXT DELETED)
|> 

Two things I don't like about the HP 4972.  

	1) It is VERY heavy.  If this isn't going to be mounted in a rack
	   or on a cart, get something else.

	2) I found the HP difficult to program.  With the software they
	    had two years ago it was difficult to do a display sorted on the
	    hosts with the highest error counts.  This may have been updated
	    in the last couple of years.

 
Ed Fleschute (My opinion only)