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What does Network Traffic Monitoring mean?

Network traffic monitoring is the process of reviewing, analyzing and managing network traffic for any abnormality or process that can affect network performance, availability and/or security.

It is a network management process that uses various tools and techniques to study computer network-based communication/data/packet traffic.

The key objective behind network traffic monitoring is to ensure availability and smooth operations on a computer network. Network monitoring incorporates network sniffing and packet capturing techniques in monitoring a network. Network traffic monitoring generally requires reviewing each incoming and outgoing packet.

Some of the technologies that incorporate network traffic monitoring include:

• Firewalls

• Intrusion detection and prevention systems

• Network monitoring, managing and performance software

• Anti-virus/Anti-malware software

Bandwidth Monitoring Software

Bandwidth Monitor tool provides the real-time network traffic of any SNMP device. It provides the bandwidth usage details both on at interface-level and at the device-level. It uses SNMP to fetch the bandwidth utilization details of a network interface. The bandwidth utilization of the device displays a comparison of the individual traffic of its interfaces.

Real-time Network Traffic Monitoring

Bandwidth Monitoring Features

• Agentless bandwidth monitoring

• Multi-vendor network configuration manager

• Historical bandwidth usage trends

• Threshold based alerting

• Monitors bandwidth, volume utilization, speed, and packets trasferred.

• Export bandwidth reports to XLS format

Real-time Bandwidth Monitoring

Bandwidth Monitoring tool provides the current bandwidth usage of each of the SNMP-enabled interfaces that are configured. The graphical representation of the bandwidth usage gives a clear visibility into how much bandwidth was consumed on an specific network interface.

Agentless Bandwidth Monitoring

The tool uses SNMP to retrieve the bandwidth utilization details from the network devices. Hence, it can be used to monitor the bandwidth usage of any network device, such as Routers, Switches, Gateway Servers, and so on, that supports SNMP. The collected data is correlated and presented in the form of graphs and tables. It does not require any hardware probes / agents to be deployed to get the bandwidth usage details.

Historical Bandwidth Usage Trends

Bandwidth utilization trends shows the usage patterns and network traffic trends across a day, month, and a year. With such statistics, the administrators can analyze how bandwidth is used in the network, and decide if an increase in bandwidth is required.

Internet Usage Monitoring

Monitoring the interfaces of the gateway/router will provide the internet bandwidth used across a day, month, and a year. These statistics helps in analyzing the internet usage pattern of the enterprise. This helps to verify whether the Service Level Agreements (SLA) are met.

Bandwidth Monitoring Reports

The Bandwidth Monitoring tool, in addition to the bandwidth utilization reports, also provides the bandwidth usage trends on an hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly basis for the following parameters of a network interface.

Best Bandwidth Monitoring Software for Tracking Network Traffic Usage

Monitoring your Bandwidth in your network is crucial to understanding what is going on in your perimeter. Many times you can even catch malicious behavior and programs that have made their way into your network unbeknownst to you or your network monitoring systems.

Top Bandwidth Monitoring Tools

• Solarwinds Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor

Solarwinds offers Real-Time monitoring utility to track network usage/bandwidth within your network by interface. Easy to setup and manage using SNMP, Solarwinds’ offering is amongst the best in terms of viewing inbound/outbound traffic on an interface level of any system setup with SNMP within your network.

• PRTG

PRTG is a well-known network monitoring solution as well and also provides a nice little utility for monitoring traffic within your network. The tool allows you to monitor up to 100 sensors no extra charge, with the ability to buy more sensors as needed from there.

• Networx

Networx utility is geared towards individual desktop monitoring rather than remote tracking of bandwidth like the others mentioned in this post. If you want to monitor the bandwidth on your own PC or Desktop, then grab this tool and install it locally. It provides nice graphs of Speed, Usage and Quotas per Daily basis, as well as Download speeds.

• Bitmeter II

Similar to the Networx software from above, BitMeter 2 gives you the ability to visually graph and track your internet connection on your own computer. Different colors represent wither Upload or Download speeds which update every second. You also have the ability to view Statistical information based on Hours, Days or Weeks.

• Rokario

Rokario is another desktop solution for your PC that monitors your local ethernet card for inbound/outbound traffic and network usage. It includes a nice themed GUI that is options for viewing remote IP addresses, Port numbers (local and remote), and amount of data received and sent.

• ManageEngine OpUtils

ManageEngine OpUtils has a great add-on for Network/Internet Bandwidth and Traffic monitoring that provides a real-time view into any SNMP device on your network on a device or interface level. Bandwidth utilization is tracked and recorded to view upload/download speeds and overall utilization. Main features of this software include its Agentless design, historical usage trends and graphs, threshold alerting based on predetermined values (that are customizable), the ability to monitor Speed/Packets/Volume and Bandwidth. This tool has the ability to export bandwidth reports to XLS as well.