What is a good choice for IP traffic monitoring?
I need to follow what is happening with my office's network, and was wondering what admins were using to monitor IP traffic. The lower the cost, the better. Thanks for your help!
Answers
Hi lbloom,
Here are five free tools that might be of use to you.
Five free, dead-easy IP traffic monitoring tools
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-free-dead-easy-ip-traffi...
"Monitoring your network can be a real pain. First and foremost, what tool should you use? Everyone you ask will give you a different answer. Each answer will reflect a different set of requirements and, in some cases, fill completely different needs. Here are the five network monitors I prefer, based on two criteria: They’re free (as in cost) and easy to use. You might not agree with the choices, but at the price point, you’d be hard pressed to find better solutions."
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I use one of the free analyzers mentioned in the article in the link posted by jimlynch. Capsa (the free version) has worked well for me. The free version only allows you to analyze one network adapter at a time, so it is fine for small businesses like mine, but larger companies might want to pay the $500 or so that the full version costs so you can look at multiple adapters at once. It is easy to use, assuming you have a working knowledge of internet protocols, and I actually found it fun to use for digging down and seeing usage patterns. You can configure the settings in a variety of ways and it can tip you off to patterns that suggest things like DoS attacks, your network being used for spamming, etc. Capsa was a good choice for me, especially considering that it was free.