How-To – In this article, we will be talking about how to troubleshoot your analyzer and the right tools that can help you.
Overview
Network administrators must always be ready to troubleshoot a vast range of issues that will arise across organizations’ infrastructure. Administrators might find themselves troubleshooting the cause for failure in PC wireless authentication. The next split second finds themselves figuring out the cause of the flapping nature of a BGP neighbor. Given that network professionals have for a long while depended upon essential tools for troubleshooting such as DNS lookups and traceroute, more technically advanced tools can speed up the process with efficiency.
Tools to troubleshoot your analyzer
Some of the tools that simplify and increase the efficiency of network troubleshooting include:
- Protocol analyzer: troubleshooting network difficulties require the investigation of data flow on the packet level; a protocol analyzer is best suited for situations like this. A protocol analyzer is a software designed to intercept and log packets to grant the user an opportunity to carefully assess and view interactions between clients and servers in a graphic format. For instance, when a computer network connection to an application mounted on a server is unusually slow, with the use of protocol analyzer, the user can figure out communication problems, the issue of latency, and other problems the cause of this problem. Wireshark is a simple and easily operated application that can be installed on a laptop computer, utilizing port mirroring to collect detailed data that suit the purpose in each case. Alternatively, commercial network-wide protocol analyzers can be deployed, ones with the ability to capture a wide range of information.
- Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP): the SNMP comes in handy when there is a need to monitor infrastructure equipment. Solar winds Network Performance Monitor and CA Spectrum are SNMP tools that are used in tracking the state of network devices as well as the health of specific interfaces. Alerts can be set to go off to notify network engineers in the event of a device malfunction. This makes it easier for the administrator to figure out the root causes of network outages almost instantly. Traffic baseline is also created with the help and utilization of SNMP collection tools. So, when data flows get altered outside the baseline, it becomes a clear indication of a problem in this area.
- Wi-Fi analyzers: because of the organic nature of the wireless network as the primary connectivity means for end-users network access, administrators are pressured to maintain Wi-Fi presence securely and reliably. Professional wifi analyzers give network administrators the power to identify interference that may negatively influence wifi operations for immediate elimination.
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