Networking Question

[Ayman Altounji]

I'm having some network problems in the warehouse at my office. I've tried going to my boss to get him to buy a sniffer for me, but he has balked at the $5000 price tag. He says he heard somewhere that there is a program on our server which will perform the same functions as a sniffer, all the way down to telling me which lines are broken, where and how. I don't think there's anything that sophisticated on a Compaq ProLiant 6500. Does anyone have any evidence for or against my boss's statement? I have been unable to find any information on this website to prove or disprove his information.

Thanks,
Will

[Ayman Altounji]

I have no idea what he's talking about... That would a be beyond a sniffer program even. There is a "Network Monitor" program but it's only able to do very basic performance monitoring...

You could check with a local service provider and see if they can bring in a sniffer to check the network out. Might cost a bit less than buying the software yourselves.

[Ayman Altounji]

We ended up purchasing a Fluke Network Assistant. I can plug it in and determine pretty much anything I want to know about my network. I did some other investigations and I fully agree with you that there is no reasonable way to track network errors and line problems from the server.

Thanks for the help,
Will

[Ayman Altounji]

There is a product called a compas. It will check all cables all the way back to the switch. It can tell you whether you have a bad cable etc.