Network Bandwidth
Monitoring of Network Bandwidth
If you want to avoid slow response times of your applications and websites, then you must provide sufficent network bandwidth. But finding the reasons for network bandwidth bottlenecks is often more difficult than generally assumed. Is it the core router or the department switch, are the disks slow or does the server need more CPU power? Are the leased lines the bottleneck? Or are there applications you would not expect eating up your bandwidth such as file-sharing, streaming or skype? Bandwidth monitoring software provides the answers.
Network Bandwidth Impacts Your Business
Understanding network bandwidth and resource consumption is the key to better network management:
- Avoid bandwidth and server performance bottlenecks
- Find out what applications or what servers are using up your bandwidth
- Deliver better quality of service to your users by being proactive
- Reduce costs by buying bandwidth and hardware according to actual load
For a quick and accurate analysis you need a network bandwidth monitoring software / bandwidth calculator such as PRTG Network Monitor.
Methods to Monitor Network Bandwidth
The most common methods to analyse network bandwidth are:
- SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol is the basic method of gathering network bandwidth and network usage data. It can be used to monitor bandwidth usage of routers and switches port-by-port as well as device readings such as memory, CPU load, etc.
- Packet Sniffing: With its built-in packet and port sniffer PRTG can inspect all network data packets travelling in your LAN or WLAN to calculate the bandwidth usage.
- NetFlow: The NetFlow protocol is supported by most Cisco routers to measure network bandwidth usage. It is the most powerful of the three methods, suitable for high traffic networks.
Test your network bandwidth with the fully functional, free 30 day trial version of PRTG Network Monitor that supports these three methods with unlimited sensors.
