There are a number of reasons a network can run slow, some of them more obvious than others. Depending on which of these issues you are suffering from, different tools will be required to investigate further.
Bandwidth
The most common question asked in networking is probably “are we running out of bandwidth/capacity”. Click here to read more.
Errors
Also a common question, but due to the way modern switches (are meant to) filter some errors, this is not as straight forward as it sounds. Click here to read more.
Dropped Packets
This is becoming more common due to the use of technologies such as Wireless and DSL and the fact that applications have different tolerances to the issue. Click here to read more.
Latency
Another growing concern due to the rise in low cost, high speed WAN links and increase in people working further away from their servers. Click here to read more.
Layer 3 design
Our final cause comes as more complex network configurations introduce additional routes or hops into the network paths. Click here to read more.
Summary
As we have seen there are many factors across multiple layers that can affect the performance of a network, each requiring different technologies to see the detail.
Although there are many tools that claim to do all the things you need, realistically most of them don’t. Therefore having a range of network management tools is more practical, the trick is to try and make sure they are looking at different layers and then know which one you need to use to solve the problem at hand.
Last Updated: 08/12/2009