"It is an 11-in-1 utility, including TCP/UDP Security Port Scanner, Proxy Analyzer, Trace Route, Email Verifier, Links Analyzer, Whois, Network Monitor, Process Monitor, System Info, Resource Viewer, Registry Cleaner." Windows.
"Ethereal is a free network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows. It allows you to examine data from a live network or from a capture file on disk. You can interactively browse the capture data, viewing summary and detail information for each packet. Ethereal has several powerful features, including a rich display filter language and the ability to view the reconstructed stream of a TCP session."
"A tool to monitor the traffic load on network-links. MRTG generates HTML pages containing PNG images which provide a LIVE visual representation of this traffic." Free.
"Linmor's Nebula Performance Monitor suite empowers network professionals to proactively manage network performance and eliminate outages while reducing operating and capital expenditures. Nebula Evaluation is an easy to install subset of Nebula Performance Monitor functionality. It provides an easy way to isolate and analyze hot-spots on your network, automatically discover network devices, and use basic performance monitoring functionality."
A variety of free SNMP tools, including an extensible agent, an n SNMP library, tools to request or set information from SNMP agents and tools to generate and handle SNMP traps.
Network monitor and protocol analyzer. "All traffic is monitored in real time and presented to the user as a combination of tables and charts, giving detailed information about hosts and protocols, as well as an instant overview of the traffic situation on your network. All the information can be searched, sorted, and filtered by protocols, hosts, conversations, and network interfaces." For Windows XP, Windows NT and Windows 2000.
"AdRem iTools 4.0 is an administrative toolset that combines utilities such as Ping, Traceroute, DNS Lookup, SNMP viewer, port/network scanner, bandwidth scanner, and more. All of them are available from a windows-driven interface, and their output can be saved to a file (text, XML, HMTL, or Excel)."
"NetCrunch detects and maps logical and physical network topology and monitors performance, availability and response time of network hosts, services and applications. Provides multiple notification options (e-mail, pager, ICQ, SMS, SNMP), automatic corrective actions, alert escalation and delay, event log, trending, reporting and web access. Custom network views can illustrate business processes. Diagnostic tools include traceroute, bandwidth and port scanner. Supports Windows, NetWare, and SNMP."
"Graphical monitoring, diagnosing and tuning of NetWare servers from a single Windows workstation. Real-time server performance and connection monitoring (CPU, memory, network performance and over 150 other parameters); file/disk/directory/trustee management, trending and reporting; user monitoring (opened files, requests per second); server trends; advanced NLM management; multi-server configuration comparison and software distribution; fast file searching; quick access to all SET variables and configuration/system log files; encrypted, directory-enabled remote console."
"Graphical monitoring, diagnosing and tuning of NetWare servers from a single Windows workstation. Real-time server performance and connection monitoring (CPU, memory, network performance and over 150 other parameters); file/disk/directory/trustee management, trending and reporting; user monitoring (opened files, requests per second); server trends; advanced NLM management; multi-server configuration comparison and software distribution; fast file searching; quick access to all SET variables and configuration/system log files; encrypted, directory-enabled remote console."
"AdventNet Simulation Tool comprises easy-to-use, GUI-based agent simulator and network simulator for testing, training, and demonstration of network management applications. The network simulator enables network simulation of SNMP (v1, v2c, v3), TL1, TFTP and FTP devices, on a single PC."
Simulation Toolkit provides Network Recorder and Trap Recorder to record and replay real SNMP networks and traps and create simulations of actual devices of your network. Devices can be configured at run-time, both on individual and collective basis.
The tool allows bulk addition of devices with unique IP address and port , advanced modeling of agent/network behavior and trap generation, customization of SNMP PDUs. The agent/network management through RMI provides solution for automated testing.
Ability to simulate 10000+ agents simultaneously for scalability testing, dynamic configuration of IP address, bulk modification of device values, utilities to control agents from command line, fault management testing using Trap Stormer and easy-to-use GUI enabling full-fledged simulation of large networks.
LAN analyzer and protocol decoder: "Prepares in-depth network analysis, captures and decodes network packets, checks if any sniffer is running in the LAN. Measures the network traffic, activity of computers and the transmition speed, makes analysis of frames, connections with WWW servers, point-to-point tests, creates lists and statistics of the network protocols."
Application management suite for "managing, managing, diagnosing and analyzing the health, performance and availability of major infrastructures all from the same management console." Console runs on Windows; agents can monitor Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Unix applications.
"AutoMate is the ideal replacement for scripts, batch files, macros, or any other code intensive process. It's easy drag and drop interface allows rapid construction and automation of virtually any task that can be accomplished in Windows." Unisyn. Read the Gearhead review.
Platform(s): Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows ME.
Monitors system and network-delivered services for availability. Big Brother is provided in source code format for Unix and Linux, and precompiled for Windows NT and Windows 2000. Free for non-profits.
"The automated patch management system that enables IT organizations to automatically detect system ulnerabilities and proactively fix them across their networks with a single action." Evaluation covers 30 seats. Network World review of BixFix (and three other patch management tools).
Platform(s): Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server Edition.
"An advanced but user friendly TCP/IP Network Monitor & Analyzer program which works on all Windows operating systems. ... Capture IP packets over the local network and your local host. ... Capsa captures more than just packets. Capsa also captures the protocol of each packet, and this means the you can easily view valuable information, such as passwords and email."
"Cfengine, or the configuration engine is an autonomous agent and a middle to high level policy language and agent for building expert systems to administrate and configure large computer networks. Cfengine is designed to be a part of a computer immune system. It is ideal for cluster management and has been adopted for use all over the world in small and huge organizations alike." Open source.
App for monitoring Internet and LAN activity. It gathers information about data passing through your dial-up connection or Ethernet card and decodes the analyzed data. Runs on Windows. TamoSoft.
"A high performance, extremely flexible system for monitoring trends in time-series data. Cricket was expressly developed to help network managers visualize and understand the traffic on their networks, but it can be used all kinds of other jobs, as well." Written in Perl for Apache.
"If you're looking for point-and-click remote administration of your networked PC's, then it's time to get Desktop Authority, the robust and sophisticated software product created by ScriptLogic Corporation, developer of the world's best selling, GUI-based desktop administration software!
"Desktop Authority is the next step in ScriptLogic's unwavering commitment to providing customers with robust, sophisticated solutions that ease the burden of client-side desktop administration. Desktop Authority expands upon the proactive administration features found in the award-winning ScriptLogic Enterprise Edition by adding browser-based interactive desktop management and real-time remote control of Microsoft Windows desktops."
SOAP-based management tool: "The DE Management Server delivers the capability to find, monitor, manage and secure Web services applications and components across distributed enterprise and extraprise environments."
Free Linux tool that presents your network processes as a series of mutants in a shoot-em-up: "I downloaded one of the many versions and added a few lines of code that would spawn a new soldier for each process, renice the process when it is wounded, and kill the process when it dies."
"Aelita Enterprise Directory Manager provides a secure 'Rules and Roles' administration framework that facilitates account and resource provisioning for Windows 2000, Active Directory and Exchange. It can integrate with HR applications and other enterprise directories to streamline the Employee Identity Management process."
Can evaluate WAN network performance, pinpoint trouble spots and show network managers where improvements can be made. Runs on a standard Windows PC, and requires users to plug the PC into a network hub or mirrored switch port. Once installed, the application can provide information about applications running on the WAN. Free.
"Flow-tools is library and a collection of programs used to collect, send, process, and generate reports from NetFlow data. The tools can be used together on a single server or distributed to multiple servers for large deployments. The flow-toools library provides an API for development of custom applications for NetFlow export versions 1,5,6 and the 14 currently defined version 8 subversions. A Perl and Python interface have been contributed and are included in the distribution." Open source.
Forrester's report lays out what IBM, HP and Sun have in store this year with their respective product initiatives that promise autonomic and utility computing. Free registration required.
"Ganglia is a scalable distributed monitoring system for high-performance computing systems such as clusters and Grids. It is based on a hierarchical design targeted at federations of clusters. It leverages widely used technologies such as XML for data representation, XDR for compact, portable data transport, and RRDtool for data storage and visualization. It uses carefully engineered data structures and algorithms to achieve very low per-node overheads and high concurrency." Open source.
"Monitors your network and servers for failures and fixes them automatically. Checks Exchange Server, SQL, Oracle, HTTP/FTP, disk health and space, event logs and more." 60-day trial version.
Platform(s): Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP Professional, Windows NT.
Silect's Health Reporter 2004 watches for problems with the components and configuration of Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), a performance and monitoring tool. It also can provide users with troubleshooting tips when problems arise and help decipher MOM alert messages. From Start-up keeps an eye on MOM, Network World, 04/26/04. Evaluation copy.
"Real-time monitoring of networks with 42 application and protocol level monitors. Features administrator alerts, auto recovery, job scheduling, and performance reports." Runs on Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
"jSNMP Enterprise provides application developers a cross-platform means of communicating with SNMP devices and services. It is written entirely in Java and is completely portable. jSNMP provides complete SNMPv1/v2c/v3 support including trap/inform handling and authentication and privacy password alteration. jSNMP has been optimized for minimizing network traffic and maximizing efficiency, allowing for a high degree of scalability. In addition, the package has been optimized for use with multiple simultaneous connections, allowing for a 3-tier model. To support a 3-tier model, jSNMP includes the tools necessary to create distributed network management applications using RMI and CORBA."
"jSNMP provides complete support for SNMPv1, SNMPv2c and SNMPv3 including authentication, encryption, and trap/inform handling. The jSNMP interface allows a developer to communicate with network devices by specifying MIB objects of interest rather than worrying about the intricacies of SNMP. jSNMP also supports the development of distributed management applications through Java RMI and CORBA. jSNMP includes an integrated MIB compiler that allows MIBS to be loaded at runtime allowing requests by name rather than OID. In addition, jSNMP supports retrieving the OID status, access, type, 'abstract' type, and description as well as the translation of OID enumerated values. "
Freeware Windows utility for managing Cisco routers, Catalyst switches, LightStream ATM switches and other network devices. It provides automated configuration backups, password changing and scripted configuration commands. Runs on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows NT. Also supports Foundry Networks, Extreme and 3Com devices.
"Allows you search your entire NT/2000 network and report on resources and configuration settings. Browse registries, installed programs, services, users and more."
"A library that allows management applications to access SMI MIB module definitions. On top of this library, there are four tools to check, dump, and convert MIB definitions. Finally, the distributions contains a steadily maintained and revised archive of all IETF and IANA maintained standard MIB modules."
"Logcaster for Systems Management monitors and consolidates event logs, provides real-time notification and corrective actions, allows for preventative maintenance planning and performance management. Utilizing LogCaster for Systems Management can result in reduced downtime, increased productivity of the IT staff and freed up IT resources to deal with more important issues."
"ManageEngine OpManager is a comprehensive Network, Systems and Applications monitoring software that offers advanced network management functionality at an affordable price of $795. OpManager is easy-to-install, easy-to-use and offers advanced router, switch, printer and server management functionality out-of-the-box. OpManager monitors networks, systems, services and applications and can send automatic notifications by email / SMS. OpManager provides out-of-the-box reports and graphs for Interface statistics, CPU, Memory, disk statistics and service response-times and availability."
Turns a Windows PC into a router with features that include remote admin, bandwidth control, firewall with connection monitoring, Gigabit Ethernet, wireless, frame relay support, IP telephony gateway and asynch PPP/RADIUS (up to 32 ports).
Mon is free software that can monitor network resources, watching for server problems and ensuring that services such as Web pages and e-mail stay available. Network managers can configure mon to watch the service of their choice and generate an alert if that service goes down.
"Provides complete Windows monitoring of EventLogs, Services, Performance Counters and Files; complete monitoring of SNMP Counters and Traps from any server and network device; complete SYSLOG monitoring from any server/device; complete proactive monitoring of Web, Email, Database, and other servers/services. Uses a Web 'console' interface to manage the central MonitorIT from anywhere. Run on Windows NT, 2000, or XP but you can monitor, measure and diagnose any server or network device."
"MP3 Voyeur is a local area network MP3 search tool that crawls local networks for shared MP3 files. It gets tons of files by diving into shared folders that you didn't even know were shared on the network." Free. Runs on Windows.
Windows registry management tool: "Supporting every value type (including binary types), as well as registry security management, drag-and-drop copying of keys and values (even between computers!), and a powerful and easy to use interface, Multi-Remote Registry Change will instantly become an indispensible part of your management toolkit. With the ability to change tens of thousands of keys per minute, it can reduce the amount of time you spend doing registry maintenance from days to minutes."
Platform(s): Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi-Remote Registry Change.
"Nagios is a host and service monitor designed to inform you of network problems before your clients, end-users or managers do. It has been designed to run under the Linux operating system, but works fine under most *NIX variants as well. The monitoring daemon runs intermittent checks on hosts and services you specify using external "plugins" which return status information to Nagios. When problems are encountered, the daemon can send notifications out to administrative contacts in a variety of different ways (email, instant message, SMS, etc.). Current status information, historical logs, and reports can all be accessed via a web browser."
"Find out what's on your network from your desktop with no client software to run on each system. SNMP is not required on clients. Identify devices via smart host profiling technology. Identifies all devices (not just Windows) and operating systems. Assists in correlating a person with a particular pc, which has been highly used with the recent virus/worm outbreaks."
Netperf is a free tool for benchmarking. The software can measure throughput in one direction and end-to-end latency. It can also measure performance for TCP, UDP and other protocols.
"NeTraMet is an accounting meter which runs on a PC under DOS or a Unix system. It builds up packet and byte counts for traffic flows, which are defined by their end-point addresses. Addresses can be ethernet addresses, protocol addresses (IP, DECnet, EtherTalk, IPX or CLNS) or 'transport' addresses (IP port numbers, etc), or any combination of these." Free.
"Automatically monitor the machines (NT/2000/XP) in your network and get notified visually, by voice or email when usage of the CPU/Memory/Disk/Network is excessive. Setup rules to monitor the resource usage on each host and specify what actions to take when certain conditions are met. Generate report files revealing resource usage and import the file to any database for analysis."
Windows app that will monitor up to 100 network devices for conditions such as packet loss, high latency, or downage. Comes with built-in Web server to let you check in remotely.
Ethernet packet sniffer that can perform a variety of functions, including packet capture and decode, network statistics gathering, software debugging and intrusion detection and activity monitoring. Runs on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows 2000.
"Discover TCP/IP nodes and routes using DNS, SNMP and ports; Get MAC addresses and NIC manufacturer names; Monitor nodes and receive alerts; Document with printed maps and reports; Control and secure with the MIB Browser and the Port Scanner." For Windows.
"Network Weathermap is a perl tool that displays in a visual way the utilization of the network links of your network. The required data are acquired from graphs created by the MRTG package and are displayed as two ways colored arrows on a map representing the logical topology of the network. The resulted image is presented in a web page using extra DHTML and JavaScript code for web-over pop-ups, based on the OverLib JavaScript library."
"ntop is a network traffic probe that shows the network usage, similar to what the popular top Unix command does. ntop is based on libpcap and it has been written in a portable way in order to virtually run on every Unix platform and on Win32 as well." Free.
"A network monitor and protocol analyzer for Ethernet, Wireless 802.11b & 802.11a, Token Ring and FDDI. Observer provides metrics, capture and trending for both shared and switched network environments. ... Observer can monitor single-segment LANs/WLANs and with the addition of Probes, Observer can be upgraded into a full distributed product for monitoring multi-segment LANs, WLANs and WANs. Observer offers both real-time monitoring and troubleshooting, as well as a complete trending and baselining collection system to view historical data collected for days, weeks, months or even years." Runs on Windows. From Network Instruments.
"Build intelligent automated decision-making into your infrastructure and streamline IT-based business processes.OpalisRobot can creatively and effectively automate tasks across the network with support for database queries, program and command line execution, event monitoring, dynamic data, conditional logic, notification, reporting central management and remote control." Read the Gearhead review.
Open-source enterprise management effort: "OpenNMS was built to simulate a user. As such, its focus starts at the application layer (layer 7) and works it way down. Polls are made to network services just as the users would access them - which eliminates the need for application-specific agents. Since users are distributed, its inexpensive nature allows for OpenNMS to be distributed as well, so 'real' service levels can be measured. In fact, even the traditional layer 3 measurement tool, ping, is treated as the 'ICMP service' within OpenNMS."
"PageR will monitor systems, servers, logfiles, TCP/IP, SNMP MIBs, disks, syslogs, services, files, web pages, WMI, scheduled FTPs, devices, network connections, task objects, processes, directories and more. PageR supports mixed platform networks by polling Windows NT/2000/XP, Novell NetWare, UNIX, OpenVMS, HP3000, RS6000, AS/400, IBM, Linux and others. Information obtained from various system resources or log files allows PageR to alert staff or take corrective actions when needed."
Platform(s): Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP Pro.
From RippleTech: "PatchWorks is a patch management automation product that eases the pain of keeping up with the latest Microsoft hotfixes, security updates and service packs. Using PatchWorks, administrators are notified of critical updates as they are made available by Microsoft. When it comes to deciding which updates to install and where, PatchWorks eliminates the guesswork by serving as a research resource, software inventory tool, policy enforcer and a validation tool to ensure a successful installation. Best of all, administrators can remotely administer Windows patches with ease from one management console."
Designed to synchronize the files and registry data for each computer on the network with a master image located on a file server. The program will update Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP workstations. Pyzzo Software.
Ping-based monitoring tool. Once installed on a PC, network users must configure which hosts to monitor for access and connectivity, and how to be alerted (for example, by e-mail) if a host is not available. That means network managers can write rules into the software and set thresholds. The software pings hosts using Internet Control Messaging Protocol, and then displays results with a color-coded graph that indicates the status and the severity of the host.
Packet analyzer: "AnalogX PacketMon allows you to capture IP packets that pass through your network interface - whether they originated from the machine on which PacketMon is installed, or a completely different machine on your network! Once the packet is received, you can use the built in viewer to examine the header as well as the contents, and you can even export the results into a standard comma-delimited file to importing into your favorite program." For Windows 2000 and Windows XP only.
"Portqry.exe is a command-line utility that you can use to help troubleshoot TCP/IP connectivity issues. Portqry.exe runs on Windows 2000-based computers, on Windows XP-based computers, and on Windows Server 2003-based computers. The utility reports the port status of TCP and UDP ports on a computer that you select." Free.
Platform(s): Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003.
Free tool from NetIQ that "slices, dices, and checks network response time, throughput, and streaming performance. It even runs anywhere-to-anywhere traceroute."
"Quest Central for Microsoft is a unified administrative console that enables efficient management of Windows NT, Active Directory and Exchange networks from a single integrated interface."
Free Windows server tool that audits the effectiveness of backup software. Each day BackupWatcher delivers a scheduled email report summarizing the files that were not backed up on each server during the last run of the backup software. This allows IT staff to identify and address those servers that need attention. Runs on Windows NT and Windows 2000 servers.
"Router IP Console is a simple SNMP-based tool intended for management and control of IP routers & repeaters. SNMP versions 1, 2c and 3 are supported. Program support an additional functions of Cisco specific routers and Windows NT4/2000/XP SNMP agent." Runs on Windows.
This free utility is a network management platform based on the Tool Command Language. With it, network managers can write scripts to automate network tasks. Scotty discovers what devices are connected to a network, filters events, provides for troubleshooting and includes a browser to look at an SNMP management information base.
"An integrated tool for extensive coverage for faults, performance, assets and security, across servers (Windows, Unix, Linux, Novell), routers, switches, and most any IP device. SilverBack Technologies delivers a completely integrated IT monitoring solution that is more affordable, faster-to-deploy and easier-to-use than traditional, complex enterprise systems. SilverBack's InfoCare software installs in a single day and is automatically maintained and updated via a remote connection."
SmokePing is a delux latency measurement tool. It can measure, store and display latency, latency distribution and packet loss. SmokePing uses RRDtool to maintain a longterm datastore and to draw pretty graphs, giving up to the minute information on the state of each network connection.
Windows program for capturing and analysis of packets transmitted on a network. Having installed on one of computers of a local network it is possible to observe all traffic, including packets not addressed to the chosen computer. Sniffer is extensible with plugins for different protocols: IP, TCP, UDP, IPX and NetBeui. Supports RAS-connections.
Eval of this Windows NT/Windows 2000 app that includes an event manager, trend monitor, alarm facility and the ability to monitor up to 1000 different SNMP devices. SNMP Frameworks.
"Idera's SQLcheck quickly investigates, organizes and explains critical information about your server's hardware, operating system and SQL Server. With SQLcheck's performance dashboard, you can quickly view detailed explanations and receive recovery suggestions. Get the information you need to efficiently manage your SQL Server environment."
"TCPfork is a userland TCP proxy with advanced load balancing capabilities. Its core features are the ability to load balance on a 'least connection' basis and the ability to take the machine load into account ('least load" or 'least resource' load balancing)."
"TestMaster Enterprise is the world's first integrated automated testing solution designed to be delivered and operated within an enterprise. Integrated with Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003, TestMaster Enterprise delivers comprehensive testing of any application that runs on Microsoft Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003 and presents comprehensive, centralized reports."
"User Manager Pro rapidly mass manages security settings on servers and workstations. The tool allows system administrators to report on and make global changes to local user credentials, groups,shares, rights, registry settings, and more across an entire network in a single operation."
Monitors and records the activity as visitors enter your system through open ports that firewalls normally do not protect, allowing you to identify and track unwelcome visitors. Provides a real-time view of all the active network connections showing who is connected and their country of origin, the service being used, inbound/outbound connections, number of connections and time connected. Available for the Windows platform.
Web-based monitoring tool designed for easy reporting of Internet service availability. VisualPulse enables monitoring of specific Web sites, servers, and network nodes anywhere over the Internet, corporate intranet or extranet, visually providing real-time and historical reports for ping, Http and TCP statistics. Provides automated e-mail notification for problem notification. Available for Windows, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD.
Graphical traceroute program that automatically analyzes Internet connectivity, and identifies the geographical location of IP addresses/routers, showing them on a global map. Includes an email tracking tool for troubleshooting email problems, a
