Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.SGI.COM
From: vjs@rhyolite.SGI.COM (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Network Monitor
Summary: try workstations
Message-ID: <24527@sgi.SGI.COM>
Date: 9 Jan 89 22:46:57 GMT
References: <8901090311.aa25225@SEM.BRL.MIL> <8901091832.AA05477@hp-iag.HP.COM>
Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 40

In article <8901091832.AA05477@hp-iag.HP.COM>,
	kincl%hp-iag@HP-SDE.SDE.HP.COM (Norman Kincl) writes:
> 
> [nice features of HP network monitors...]
>
> -Norm Kincl
>  Information Archirtecture Group, Hewlett-Packard

Some of the "dedicated" network monitors are indeed quite nice.

However, for utility and fexibility, it is hard to beat a "native"
monitor which runs on a significant number of the hosts in your
network.  Imagine how handy it is to reach out across a few gateways to
a workstation on the troubled network, and tell that workstation to
snoop on the wire.  Think how it is to watch for damaged packets at
many places along a cable, without having to crawl into ceilings or
floors, or to make any cabling changes.  Think about not having to lug
a fragile box all over creation.  (I assume boxes built to HP standards
are not really fragile, but things that cost lots tend to seem
fragile.)  Since such a monitor is "just" software, one can hope
to get a good deal if you need more than a single monitor.

Such native monitors are available for at least one company's UNIX
workstations.  They are not quite as fast as some (but not all)
dedicated monitors, but they are more programmable by users.  (You just
start hacking in C.)  Monitors for PC's might be useful, if the PC runs
a real operating system, so that you can rsh/rlogin/telnet/sethost/...
to the PC and then run the monitor.  (Or have a remote monitoring
deamon.)

Vendors of workstations tend to like native monitors.  We can tell
customers with problems to "do such and such and send me the results."
This is handy for finger pointing :-) and as well as for finding bugs.

Might one expect a network management system to include network
monitors for all of the levels?

Vernon Schryver
Silicon Graphics
vjs@sgi.com