Free Network Management traffic monitoring software competition

Group Competition
Because of the different functional orientations of the four software, we cannot take them together for functional competition. I will put the two similar models in a group for comparison.

Scan group-Sniffer Pro and ethereal
Generally, Sniffer Pro and ethereal are used to monitor network data packets, understand all data flowing in the network, and analyze the destination address and port number of the source address in the data packet, you can even analyze the content in the data packet, so it is appropriate to put them in a group.

Through the detailed comparison by the author, both Sniffer Pro and ethereal can capture all the data in the network, understand the communication information of the network, and define appropriate filters to filter packets in the network, the two are similar, but due to the large number of disciples of ethereal, there are more extension plug-ins. You can use these extensions to implement some more advanced functions or make it easier for users to analyze the network, in addition, some built-in Ethereal traffic analysis tools are much more powerful than Sniffer Pro. Therefore, in terms of function competition, ethereal wins Sniffer Pro, and Sniffer Pro is also eliminated because of two defeats.

Conclusion: Ethereal is difficult to promote and Sniffer Pro is eliminated

Monitoring Group-prtg and mrtg
Both prtg and mrtg provide traffic monitoring for each port of the server or router. They can only monitor the traffic information and draw charts based on the input and output data, after repeated comparisons, we found exceptions. So it is more appropriate to put them in a group.

Both prtg and mrtg have been used by the author. As a traffic monitoring software, both of them are very good. The charts drawn after monitoring can be published on a webpage, it is convenient for our network administrators to know the internal traffic of the enterprise in the first place. However, I personally feel that both the use effect and the MRTG configuration process are greatly inferior to prtg. It is mainly manifested in the following aspects.

First, the prtg installation is very simple, and the use is also a graphical interface, while MRTG is much more complex, most commands are based on command line. In addition, prtg can easily implement the function of using a computer to monitor multiple servers, MRTG needs to repeatedly set and modify the default template. prtg has more monitoring content than mrtg. In addition to traffic monitoring of MRTG, prtg can also monitor CPU usage, memory resources, manage cache information. The most important thing is that prtg integrates the page publishing tool. After monitoring, you can access the results on a webpage without any settings; MRTG does not include the page publishing tool. Therefore, we need to install IIS or Apache to release the generated report page. Therefore, after comparison, prtg wins mrtg.

Conclusion -- The prtg was promoted, and mrtg was seriously injured and cannot continue the competition.

Strong and strong fight again
Ethereal finally met prtg in the final competition. The advantages of the two are completely different. Ethereal is used to analyze the content of data packets in network traffic, while prtg is dominant in the number of data packets, the two functions are different. In this case, the two cannot win.

For our small and medium-sized enterprise network administrators, we should learn to use the above two software. After all, it is important to analyze the data packet content in the network traffic and make the number of statistical data packets into webpages for further analysis, only by adopting a two-pronged approach for the use of software can we discover and solve network faults in the first place. This is why ethereal and prtg had to fight for the same outcome. Only software with more powerful functions that combine the two functions can take the lead.

Summary
As analyzed in this article, for our network administrators, we do not have to hold a network traffic management software, if necessary, use multiple network traffic management software to effectively manage the internal network of the enterprise, give full play to the unique advantages of each tool, and reduce the chance of failure, this gives us a clear understanding of the micro (packet content) and macro (quantity statistics) data packets transmitted through the enterprise network.