Taming WildPackets on your net

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WildPackets last week updated two versions of the company’s Ethernet network protocol analyzer, EtherPeek.

WildPackets EtherPeek NX 2.1 is a protocol analyzer that offers diagnostics and frame decoding in real time, while capturing traffic. EtherPeek NX is designed to help network managers analyze diverse volumes of network data to find problems.

New to EtherPeek NX 2.1 is an improved process for saving packets to disk. The company says the new process provides better efficiency across high-traffic environments. The software now lets enterprise network managers save packets from the driver buffer, rather than having to wait for a packet list or for the packet buffer to be full.

A new performance view feature lets network managers selectively enable or disable individual program functions, which means they can create capture templates that perform specific functions and capture only the data needed for a specific task. EtherPeek NX also adds a few new events: Authentication Failure, HTTP Client Error, HTTP Request Not Found (404 error), HTTP Server Error, DNS Non-Existent Domain, and DNS Server Error. These new events offer a deeper view into the performance of an Ethernet network.

EtherPeek NX allows multiple, simultaneous capture sessions to be active at the same time and from different segments of the network. Multiple capture buffers can be used for a single adapter to separate different types of traffic (for example, TCP/IP into one buffer, NetWare into another). Also, to analyze traffic from different network segments, multiple LAN and/or WAN adapters can be used simultaneously.

WildPackets also upgraded its EtherPeek for Windows. EtherPeek for Windows is also an Ethernet network traffic and protocol analyzer designed to make the tasks of troubleshooting and debugging mixed-platform, multi-protocol networks easier for network managers.

In addition to the save-to-disk and performance view enhancements the company added to both products, EtherPeek for Windows 5.1 also includes a new repeat mode for triggers. Now triggers can be automatically reset to support continuous monitoring. In repeat mode, the capture window will reset the start trigger each time the stop trigger is tripped. Repeat mode allows network managers to capture multiple occurrences of the same event with a single window.

Both products shipped last week, and pricing begins around $3,500.