rm@SPIDER.CO.UK (Richard McBride) (01/10/89)
>I am looking for a network monitor to analyze the load on the network. >What equipment do some of you use for this purpose. > Harry J. Foxwell > American Chemical Society As well as the Sniffer and the LANalyser another network monitor to consider is the SpiderMonitor. This differs from the other monitors on the market because it uses an intelligent network board with its own processor rather than a dumb board. The board has its own multitasking executive which allows it to gather station statistics at the same time as monitoring network load. The load can be displayed graphically over a specified time period. The monitor can also capture and decode packets and traffic generate while this network monitoring is going on. Having an intelligent board means that the statistics are gathered continuously even when the PC which the board is plugged into is running another DOS program. Multitasking also means that the monitor is not dedicated to measuring things like the network load in exclusion to capturing data about other aspects of the network. It is far more useful to be able to look at network load and a table of station traffic than just network load. The machine has been designed to be good at collecting statistical information about the network as well as capturing and decoding packets. Decoding seems to be the area which other network monitor manufacturers like Data General have concentrated on. They tend to be weaker on collecting tables of statistics about traffic sent by machines on the LAN. Hope you find this useful Richard. Richard McBride rm@spider.co.uk ...!uunet!ukc!spider!rm Spider Systems Spider Systems Inc Edinburgh 12 New England Executive Park UK Burlington MA 01803 031 554 9424 (617) 270 3510
hjs@LINDY.STANFORD.EDU (01/11/89)
Your statement that the SpiderMonitor uses an intelligent board w. microprocessor whereas "the others" (LANalyzer and Sniffer) use "dumb boards" is totally false. All three products use boards that have something at least as powerful as an 80186, 10 Mhz, and 512KB of RAM. The top-of-the-line LANalyzer has even more horsepower on-board. Please try and be more careful about making statements about the products of competitors in a public forum. Here you will get caught. Unfortunately spreading wrong competitive information directly rarely is! Welcome to the U.S.A. Spider!
rm@SPIDER.CO.UK (Richard McBride) (01/12/89)
Thanks for correcting me. It is true that the LANalyser uses an 80186 or 286 on board. As for the Sniffer I have no indication on the spec sheets I have which processor it uses. It was my mistake classifying these boards as dumb. The message I was trying to get over was the benefits of multitasking on the board rather than any comparison of hardware. I apologise for any confusion caused. Richard McBride Software Engineer Spider Systems Disclaimer: These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Spider Systems. I don't need their help to screw up.