Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!SPIDER.CO.UK!rm
From: rm@SPIDER.CO.UK (Richard McBride)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: RE Network Monitors
Message-ID: <24043.8901101325@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 10 Jan 89 09:01:36 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 38

>I am looking for a network monitor to analyze the load on the network.
>What equipment do some of you use for this purpose.

>           Harry J. Foxwell
>           American Chemical Society

As well as the Sniffer and the LANalyser another network monitor to consider
is the SpiderMonitor. This differs from the other monitors on the market
because it uses an intelligent network board with its own processor
rather than a dumb board. The board has its own multitasking executive which
allows it to gather station statistics at the same time as monitoring network
load. The load can be displayed graphically over a specified time period.
The monitor can also capture and decode packets and traffic generate while
this network monitoring is going on.

Having an intelligent board means that the statistics are gathered
continuously even when the PC which the board is plugged into is running
another DOS program. Multitasking also means that the monitor is not dedicated
to measuring things like the network load in exclusion to capturing data
about other aspects of the network. It is far more useful to be able to look
at network load and a table of station traffic than just network load.

The machine has been designed to be good at collecting statistical information
about the network as well as capturing and decoding packets. Decoding seems
to be the area which other network monitor manufacturers like Data General
have concentrated on.

They tend to be weaker on collecting tables of statistics about traffic sent by
machines on the LAN.

Hope you find this useful
                          Richard.

Richard McBride   rm@spider.co.uk    ...!uunet!ukc!spider!rm
Spider Systems                          Spider Systems Inc
Edinburgh                               12 New England Executive Park
UK                                      Burlington  MA 01803
031 554 9424                            (617) 270 3510