Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for PRTG

• More devices and more ports/interfaces can be monitored
• Cisco Netflow Collectors can be set up

PRTG Network Monitor (version 7) is a powerful network monitoring solution that monitors your network using a whole range of technologies and assures the availability of network components and measures traffic and usage. PRTG Traffic Grapher (version 6) is the perfect small tool for quick and easy bandwidth monitoring via SNMP, NetFlow and packet sniffing.

Please note that you will receive a download for both products, regardless which one you purchase. One license key will unlock both version 6 and version 7.

The following comparison will help you decide, if PRTG Network Monitor 7 or PRTG Traffic Grapher 6 is suitable for your needs.

Product Comparison Matrix

• It can log the amount of data flowing in and out of SNMP enabled network components using the "Internet MIB-2" standard
• It can inspect all data packets passing a computer's network card ("packet sniffing")
• It can use bandwidth usage data sent by Cisco routers using the Netflow protocol (V5)

The licenses only differ by the number of supported sensors (25, 100, 500, 1000 and unlimited). Which license you need, depends on how many sensors you want to monitor. If you want to monitor e.g. all ports of a 24 port switch you will need 24 sensors. Please refer to the next FAQ to learn, what counts as a sensor.

• SNMP monitoring of traffic/bandwidth on one port of any device (e.g. switch, firewall, server) using the MIB2 standard (incoming and outgoing traffic count as one sensor)
• Monitoring errors/min, unicast packets/s, non-unicast packets/s on one port of a device via SNMP using the MIB2 standard (incoming and outgoing readings count as one sensor)
• Monitoring one other system parameter via SNMP (e.g. CPU, diskspace etc.) that is accessible via one OID value
• Monitoring traffic going through one local network card (NIC) via Packet Sniffing. If you use filtering then each set of filters counts as one sensor.
• Monitoring of one stream of data traffic via Netflow Monitoring. If you use filtering then each filterset counts as one sensor.

The number of actual hardware devices is not taken into account at all, only the number of sensors. For the "unlimited licenses" the number of sensors that can be monitored is not programmatically limited by the software itself, but may be limited by your software, hardware and network. See Planning large installations of PRTG Traffic Grapher.

Upgrade for PRTG Traffic Grapher
The smallest license of PRTG 6 - the PRTG Pro 25 - will no longer be offered for PRTG Network Monitor. In exchange the freeware license was expanded to 10 sensors. PRTG Traffic Grapher Pro 25 licenses will be upgraded to the Pro 100 license for free.

Upgrade from IPCheck Server Monitor

As an user of IPCheck Server Monitor with active maintenance contract you can upgrade your installation to PRTG Network Monitor for free. As of the final release of PRTG Network Monitor you can download the new software at your personal service center. Here, you can also renew the maintenance for your IPCheck license. Since the licensing model of PRTG Network Monitor differs from the licensing model of IPCheck Server Monitor, we implemented an upgrade path. Many customers will benefit from the upgrade not only by having more features but also by having more sensors. For details see the table below:

PRTG Network Monitor has no user limitations, as such you can set up as many users as you need.