March 01, 2000
Taking a Network Snapshot
Every protocol analyzer has a statistics function, and there's an amazing amount of information contained within those dials and displays. Packets per second, number of broadcasts, protocol distributions, packet size distributions, and other values help to form a baseline of a network's inner workings.
When I analyze a network segment for the first time, I like to take a 60-second 'snapshot' of a network to help build a baseline view. A series of one-minute captures taken at different times of the day can provide an interesting study of traffic patterns over time.
These slices of network traffic also contain a manageable subset of packets that make it easy to quickly understand the 'heartbeat' of a network. Many network problems can be identified in the first minute of a trace!
Posted by james_messer at March 1, 2000 10:27 AM
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