I just got promoted at a small but growing company. Instead of being responsible for just the servers and some of the user support, I now have to take care of everything related to the network. My predecessor didn’t seem to leave much behind in terms of what he used to take care of network problems. Do you have any suggestions?
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At a minimum, you should have some type of cable scanner. This will help you identify cabling related problems when they crop up – and they will. The entry level models will do little more than tell you if you have a good electrical connection end to end. One good example of the kind of tool that would be good to have in your arsenal is the Fluke 620 LAN CableMeter. It can help you identify cabling issues such as crossed or shorted wires. It also helps when making patch cables to know that you have the wiring done right.
The next step is a little more sophisticated tool. This will help you identify problems with network cards, switches, etc. My favorite in this category is the Fluke Enterprise LanMeter 683. Although this is a discontinued device, you can still find them from time to time on eBay in the $500 to $1000 range depending on condition and included accessories. There are other models that do inline testing and have support for Gigabit and wireless connections. These will cost more but depending on the size that your network may grow to would definitely pay for themselves in the long run.
We have covered the hardware side of things. If you go back over some of my previous columns, you will see mentions of several wireless tools worth considering. As your network grows or you have problems that these tools can’t identify the cause, you will want to look at a protocol analyzer. This is in most cases a software package that allows you to see at a packet level what is going on with your network. It can help you find configuration problems on servers, switches or workstations.
You can start with an open source offering such as Wireshark (formerly known as Ethereal) to help minimize the dent in the wallet. As your needs grow, you may find that one of the commercial packages such as Network General’s Sniffer Enterprise or Network Instruments Observer products may be a better choice for you. Most of the better vendors will have some type of eval package that you can try before you buy to help make the best decision for you.
What you have seen here is just a thumbnail sketch of the tools available. Talk to your peers at other companies similar in size to yours to see what they are using and use that as a starting point to see what tools are candidates for you to use. Regardless of the tools you use, remember that tools that are software based need to be updated periodically to help keep them at their best.
