* A look at some of the more useful freeware and shareware tools you can use to monitor and track your network and applications
Our Special Focus this week takes a look at freeware and shareware tools you can use to monitor and track your network and applications. Our author (ddubie@nww.com) gathered up a few of the more useful tools that fall in those categories. For example:
Expand Accelerator: Expand Networks, a data-compression vendor, recently made available from its Web site a free download of software that can evaluate WAN network performance, pinpoint trouble spots and show customers where improvements could be made. Expand Accelerator 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. Expand also includes an infomercial of sorts: a graph that shows how much better the network would perform if the traffic was being compressed by one of the company’s commercial products.
Peer Monitor: Peer Monitor, a ping-based network freeware program. Once installed in 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, and at what point to be alerted. That means network managers can write rules into the software and set thresholds. The software pings hosts using Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), and then displays results with a color-coded graph that indicates the status and the severity of the host. The program has help built in, and also lets users post a support call via e-mail or to the Peer Monitor forum directly from the program interface.
VisualRoute: Combining a series of famous freeware applications, Visual Route is a graphical traceroute, ping and whois utility that analyzes Internet connectivity problems. Visualware, a software maker that offers both enterprise and small-scale networking products, offers its Internet route mapping application available for cheap. The software is downloaded onto a PC and is available for Windows, Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac platforms. The application can track the hops between IP addresses and track connectivity.
Traceroute results are displayed in a table and world map via a Web-based interface. VisualRoute processes all IP hops in parallel, and also supports Loose Source Route (LSRR) information for advanced debugging. LSRR is an option in the IP header that lets network managers specify a collection of nodes that the packet must traverse before reaching the destination.
This is just a few. Fore more, see: https://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0503specialfocus.html
Use these links to try these freeware applications in your network.
Program: Computer Profilerwww.karenware.com/powertools/ptprofiler.asp
Link:
Program: Expand Accelerator Monitoring Toolwww.expand.com/monitor
Link:
Program: Jabberwww.jabber.org
Link:
Program: Jetico Personal Firewallwww.webattack.com/Freeware/security/fwfirewall.shtml
Link:
Program: LAN monitorwww.karenware.com/powertools/ptlanmon.asp
Link:
Program: NetCelera Scoutwww.netcelera.com/Products/Scout/Scout.aspx
Link:
Program: Peer Monitorhttps://danielclarke.com/peermonitor/
Link:
Program: Test Your VoIPwww.testyourvoip.com/
Link:
Program: Visual Routewww.visualware.com/personal/products/visualroute/index.html
Link:
Program: ZoneAlarmwww.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
Link:
