Tip of the Month

Network Analysis Tip of the Month – July 2006

Are they Peers?

By Jim Thor, WildPackets Professional Services

You’ve heard of the Peer Map, but what about the Peers column?

One of the new features in Omni 4 is something called the Peers column. Its purpose is to show the number of peers that any particular node has. It can be found in the nodes pane, and turned on like any other column (right-click) on the columns header.

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Imagine the information you can get by quickly comparing the number of peers, with the total bytes, or total packets. What if a node was one of the quietest in terms of packets or bytes, but number 1 when sorted by peers? What if a node was the top talker, but only with one peer? It is quick to see how this information could help you to quickly identify a compromised machine or a top talker (to a single peer or multiple peers). Just imagine how you could use this information if you compared it with some of the other information in additional columns available in the nodes pane.