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Tip of the Month

Network Analysis Tip of the Month – January 2006

The WP Time Machine

Author – Jim Thor

I know, and you do too. A protocol analyzer is a troubleshooting tool. Right? Well of course it is, but there is so much more that the tool can help with on a daily basis.

The first question should be, ‘What traffic is normal and should be on my network?’ With a good baseline of your network, you can either notice events or traffic that are new or unusual, or automatically be notified of them prior to anyone even reporting it. But I know, you don’t have time, do you? You are already working 50-60 hours a week, and watching/analyzing your network for several hours every day for several weeks or months is just not an option.

So, let’s get the baseline without spending the time, and stop viewing the protocol analyzer as only a troubleshooting tool. It is so much more than that! It is a tool that can provide reporting and alarms too, with only an hour or so for the initial setup.

In all of WildPackets’ products you have the ability to set up monitoring. Once setup, the Peeks will watch the interface you selected, and gather Protocol, Node, Network, Summary as well as other information, all without needing extensive resources, as the packets are not saved. Only statistical information is saved.

To set up monitoring, from the ‘Monitor’ menu, select ‘Monitor Options’ and select the adapter you wish to use in the ‘Adapter’ area. Then, go back to the rest of your responsibilities. If you want to get fancy, output the statistics to a webpage to aid in viewing the information on a more constant basis, from the ‘Monitor’ menu, select ‘Monitor Options’ and use the ‘Statistics Output’ area to set up how often to build the pages. If you save the files to a shared directory on the network, the whole team can now view the pages or set them up as there default web page.

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Coming soon - Automatically getting notified of issues and fine tuning your alarms and notifications. But those will have to wait for a future Tip of the Month. Stay tuned!