The most recent articles from IT Week

Review : Monitor brings large WANs under control

Dave Bailey — 2008-06-12T17:05:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Thursday 12 June 2008 at 17:05:00

Network Instruments’ Link Analyst breaks down large WANs into more manageable chunks

Network Instruments’ Link Analyst 5.1 is a network monitoring system that provides administrators with a range of inventory, reporting, and device and network route mapping capabilities. On top of this, it can perform some basic asset management roles and offers configurable alarms for alerting managers when thresholds have been breached.

Released in March, Link Analyst 5.1 can integrate with other Network Instruments systems, such as its Observer network packet analysis system and its GigaStor appliance for deep packet and forensic analysis of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, wide area network and storage area network connections.

Link Analyst supports Windows XP Professional and Vista, as well as Windows Server 2003 and 2008. We installed the software on several desktop systems running XP Professional and a standard Intel server running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.

According to the vendor, Link Analyst 5.1 is suitable for businesses of all sizes, but it is larger enterprises that stand to benefit most from deploying the system. For example, the most impressive new feature in this version is Business Groups, which allows network managers to map devices according to a range of criteria such as network subnet, geographical location or type of device. This feature is aimed particularly at senior network managers within large enterprises who have to oversee distributed branch offices or even separate business divisions in different countries. Business Groups allows these managers to create groupings that reflect such divisions, and authorise local network managers to have admin rights to their devices and network connectivity.

We created an IT Week group using a wizard to discover and categorise all the devices fitting this group. Initially, the wizard asked whether device discove ry alone was required, or device discovery and an associated topology. The latter is needed to produce a diagram of users’ connectivity, rather than just a list of devices.

Users need to supply the correct Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) credentials for managed devices. Unmanaged switches or routers will not be picked up. Link Analyst supports all versions of SNMP, and also allows administrators to use Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) credentials when performing device inventories or setting up alarms.

As with all network monitoring systems, users can define which IP subnets to check when discovering devices. The software can also be used to discover different services running on the network, such as Domain Name System (DNS) and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). We found it easy to add other services, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP), by specifying which TCP port to check.

As well as device availability, Link Analyst can also provide detailed information about internal LAN connections and any associated WAN connectivity problems.

After a network map has been produced, users can define which devices or network connections they want to poll in order to monitor availability. For network connections, Link Analyst can be configured to monitor a variety of switch and router parameters. Examples include network port utilisation, or the ability to monitor network performance between two devices, which could be used to track quality of service for IP telephony traffic or service level agreements on WAN connections.

Link Analyst can be delivered as a web service for remote users, allowing them to view graphs of network utilisation by device or application. Reports can also be generated over user-definable time steps, to view trends for specific network, device or application parameters.

When it came to configuring alarms, we found it easy to set up the system to check the utilisation of specific network ports and trigger an email warning when traffic exceeded a specified high or low threshold. Link Analyst also allows notification alarms to be delivered to phone pagers.

Link Analyst can also be used as an asset management tool. It provides a simple way for administrators to find out what packages are installed on network-attached systems and the amount of bandwidth each is using. It can also check for availability of network applications such as SQL Server. However, it does not possess the advanced functionality of bespoke IT asset management packages, such as the ability to remotely install software packages.

On the whole, we found the user interface clean and simple to use, and consistent with that used by Network Instruments’ Observer packet analysis and application performance monitoring package. We also installed Network Instruments’ Observer 12 on our test system, which allowed us to define an IP subnet filter and then run a packet capture that collected IP packets only with IP addresses defined by our filter.

Simple system eases remote access

Dave Bailey — 2008-01-25T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Friday 25 January 2008 at 00:00:00

RealVNC’s Enterprise Edition can boost home working and business collaboration

Released in November, version 4.3 of RealVNC’s VNC Enterprise Edition (VNC EE) builds on the capabilities of the open source Virtual Network Computing (VNC) remote access system to cater for corporate environments.

The package is designed to facilitate home working and business collaboration, as well as remote system maintenance and support. The system also comes in a Personal Edition version.

VNC EE uses a peer-to-peer architecture that requires no centralised server. A VNC server component must be installed on clients to allow remote control. This can be done manually or by using a deployment tool available from RealVNC’s web site. Users who require remote access to those systems need to run the VNC Viewer.

We tested version 4.3.2 of VNC EE, which adds support for Mac OS X 10.5, with a variety of desktop and server systems. Installing VNC Server on our Windows Server 2003 system was simple and required about 3.3MB of system memory. We used a Dell Precision M50 laptop with Windows XP Professional to run the VNC Viewer, which took up 900KB of memory.

One of the strengths of VNC EE is the wide range of operating systems it supports. Windows 95, 98 Me, 2000, XP, CE and Vista are all supported, as are HPUX, Java-based systems, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris. This means VNC EE can be used by Windows users to access Linux applications.

On the security front, the package uses 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard to secure connections and uses 2048bit RSA keys for secure authentication. The Viewer also keeps a log of all VNC EE sessions.

Another corporate focused feature is its ability to integrate with Microsoft Active Directory, which allows users to authenticate remotely with their existing usernames and passwords.

Connecting to a remote system was easy. All we had to do was key in a host name or IP address, followed by a password. To speed up the connection, we set up the Viewer to display just 64 colours while the Server was configured to disable user interface effects, such as wallpaper or background patterns.

The Viewer interface features a title bar that allows users to perform a range of actions with a single click, such as sending ctrl-alt-delete. Transferring files between local and remote Windows systems is also straightforward. All we had to do is highlight the file or files we wanted to move and transfer them using copy and paste commands. It would have been nice to have been able to drag and drop files, but this is only a minor quibble.

Transferring files from Unix and Mac systems requires users to select Share Files from the VNC Server status bar menu and browse to the file or directory they want to copy. The files can then be transferred using the F8 menu. The transfer rate is dependent on the upload data transfer rate of the system from which you are transferring the file.

Monitoring tool takes care of business

Dave Bailey — 2008-01-24T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Thursday 24 January 2008 at 00:00:00

Network Monitor 7.0 is a good choice for firms looking for a no-nonsense troubleshooter

ActiveXperts Network Monitor 7.0 is a no-frills package for server, application and network hardware monitoring that is designed to be quick to set up and easy to use.

We downloaded a 30-day trial version and installed it on our Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition system. A Quick Configuration Wizard helps the user to get the system up and running. It begins by setting up and testing a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server, after which SMS options are set up. It then sets scan frequency and error thresholds, and follows this by adding several sample checks to the configuration that then run automatically so that users get a feel for how the system operates.

Using the samples as templates, we found it easy to set up checks for a wide variety of hardware, software and environmental checks, but IT admins may want to use their Visual Basic Scripting (VBScript) skills to get the best out of the package.

We could check for printer availability, and presence of Microsoft Exchange, ISA and Terminal Servers. Network Monitor can also notify admins when the maximum number of Terminal Services sessions exceeds licence conditions. We could also check systems to make sure that anti-virus software was present, and whether it was running or not. Currently, the system checks for 11 different anti-virus packages, but experts in VBScript programming would find it simple to add a more comprehensive check on anti-virus software running on systems.

There are five ways users can choose to be alerted to problems: email, SMS, pager, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps or popups generated over the local network for specific systems.

Report data is by default stored in a Microsoft Access database, but reports can be easily migrated to a SQL Server database if required. The reports generated by Network Monitor are fairly basic but still contain more information than those produced by many rival packages.

Reports can be run ad hoc, or scheduled via the Windows Task Scheduler. Report results obtained from a scheduled run can also be sent to any number of recipients by email, again on a pre-defined schedule. Format support includes HTML, XML, XML/XSL or comma-separated values (CSV).

Reports can also be viewed using the onboard web interface. ActiveXperts recommends publishing the generated XML pages using Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). The package comes with standard Web Views that provide, among other things, dedicated checks on databases, environmental variables and IP protocols. If a more specific check is needed, for example for monitoring company web sites and portals, a custom Web View will need to be set up. This involves some XML writing and maybe even some XSL coding.

Dashboard steers firms clear of trouble

Dave Bailey — 2008-01-24T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Thursday 24 January 2008 at 00:00:00

IpMonitor 9.0 makes it easy for admins to spot anything untoward occurring on the network

Launched today, SolarWinds ipMonitor version 9.0 is a feature-rich package for monitoring network assets, and alerting administrative staff to glitches in applications running over the network and problems with network hardware. For instance, if a switch goes down or high CPU utilisation is detected on a critically important server, ipMonitor will sound the alarm.

OS support includes Windows 2000 Professional, Vista, XP, and Windows Servers 2000 and 2003. We installed ipMonitor on an XP Professional system to check a home network comprising a broadband router, switch, a wireless network and a mix of desktop and laptop systems. We also installed ipMonitor on a Windows Server 2003 system in IT Weeks labs, where it monitored two servers, a router, a wireless network, two switches, a printer and several desktop and laptop systems.

Simple interface

After the install, ipMonitor goes through a first-time configuration wizard, which runs through basic settings including licensing, user accounts, alert and monitor defaults, and port assignment.

IpMonitor’s web-based management interface has four tabs across the top of the page: dashboard, devices, reports and configuration. Initially users will see the dashboard, designed to give network administrators an overall picture of the state of their network.

With a single click users can drill down from the dashboard page to a range of windows showing, for example, all the devices on their network, devices being monitored that have problems, current network operations and the top 10 devices by ping availability.

From the dashboard, administrators can choose to either manually scan the network for devices or use ipMonitor’s Auto Discovery function. After a scan, the discovered devices are presented and the user can then choose what to monitor. With the manual option, users can choose to scan a specific IP range, a standard Windows Network Neighbourhood, a DNS Zone or systems specified on an imported Hosts File. For the specific IP range scan, we could also specify further subnets if required.

IpMonitor works by having the user assign individual monitors to check specific system parameters, such as memory usage. In other words, monitors perform a single dedicated task, which could be checking whether a particular router is up and running, or at what level web server CPU utilisation is. For other server systems, users could choose to deploy a monitor to check system memory usage or disk space remaining.

To help users decide what monitors to deploy is the role of ipMonitor’s SmartMonitor Recommended Settings feature, which makes recommendations based on the results of the Auto Discovery scan. For instance, if SmartMonitor detects a Lotus Notes server, administrators can set up monitors to check its availability and a client’s ability to connect to the server. There are many monitors defined by default by SolarWinds, which include the ability to monitor Active Directory, Exchange servers and also to check environmental variables on critical servers such as fan speed and temperature. Monitors can be set to alert users through a variety of mechanisms, including email, pager and SMS.

For both the home network and labs tests, we chose to scan an IP subnet and picked up all devices connected to that subnet. In the lab we chose to monitor our Windows Server 2003 install for CPU utilisation, system memory usage and for disk space remaining on all partitions. Shortly after, ipMonitor picked up a drive on the server with only three per cent space remaining. This drive was being used as a temporary storage area for old system log files. After deleting the files, ipMonitor cleared the alert.

Specialist tailoring

A neat feature of ipMonitor is the ability to organise all the network information that it gathers into SmartGroups. By clicking on a SmartGroup button, users can see status information relating to that particular set of de vices. If, for example, your firm is a Cisco-only shop, you could define a group called Cisco-Kit to monitor all your Cisco switches, routers and other appliances such as virtual private network (VPN) concentrators. We set up a SmartGroup called Wireless-Kit to monitor the wireless installation in our labs network a 3Com AP7250 access point connected to a Zyxel ES-3148 10/100Mbit/s switch. We opted to monitor our Zyxel switch using a simple Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ping, and elected for the system to send an alert via email in the event of the switch being down. Another handy feature of the package is that it can be configured to send email alerts to the member of staff best able to fix a particular problem or piece of kit. For instance, ipMonitor could be set up so that when it detects problems with hardware in the Wireless-Kit group, it emails an alert to a wireless specialist.

One feature we would have liked, and which is present in SolarWind’s LANsurveyor package, is the ability to automatically build a comprehensive network map.

The reports tab on the management interface lets administrators compile reports on devices, groups of devices and also the ipMonitor server’s system status. We found it simple to compile and email a report on the network traffic being handled by our Zyxel switch over a specified period. We could also easily schedule reports, over any timescale, and have them emailed to our Lotus Notes account.

Custom Tags are GUI features that can be used to provide administrative staff with additional information to help them fix problems.

Apart from the main GUI, there is also a small standalone one allowing administrators to run the initial configuration of the system, add specific administrator accounts, and also license the software. Users can also set up Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security to allow protected data exchange across non-secure networks and set up SSL certificates, without which not all monitor credentials can be accessed.

Review : Network monitor sets Gold standard

Dave Bailey — 2007-11-20T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Tuesday 20 November 2007 at 00:00:00

Whatsup Gold 11 makes checking and reporting on network hardware quick and easy

Ipswitch’s Whatsup Gold 11 network monitoring package is an easy-to-set-up system aimed at firms with single network sites. There are two versions: the Standard version and the Premium Version, the difference being that the Premium version includes the Windows management instrumentation (WMI) application and performance management facilities.

We installed the Premium version on both a Windows XP Professional SP2 system and a Windows Server 2003 Standard system, and within five minutes of scanning our Labs IP subnet, we picked up the firewall, workstations, servers, modems and printers.

There are four methods for discovering the network devices present: a simple network management protocol (SNMP) scan; scanning an IP address range; a check of the “network neighbourhood” as can be performed with any Windows system; or directly importing a “hosts” file, which maps hostnames to IP addresses. Although it discovered all devices on our network, Whatsup does not show which devices have connectivity to switches, firewalls or routers.

Once the scan has run and the devices been discovered, users can then choose which devices they wish to monitor and then apply what Ipswitch calls an “action policy”. This is basically a set of alarms that can be triggered individually if the specifically monitored device is not in compliance with the defined policy. We could set up an action policy that would email specific personnel if a firm’s web server went down. Users can also set up beepers, pagers, or SMS to automatically communicate status information to specific network personnel, or even choose to restart the server.

We could also choose to check specific devices using an Active Monitor, which queries network services running in a server or workstation. For example, we could use the Domain Name Service (DNS) monitor to check for a DNS service on port 53, and set up an action policy whereby a “no response” from the monitor would trigger an email alert. Whatsup can also monitor devices passively using SNMP traps, a syslog monitor for checking syslog messages and a Windows Event Log monitor for examining Windows events.

As well as being able to monitor hardware for failure events, Whatsup lets users monitor performance indicators, too. Processor, memory, disk and network interface utilisation can all be monitored and “actioned” for incorporation into specific policies.

Review : Scanner ensures defences are intact

Dave Bailey — 2007-11-15T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Thursday 15 November 2007 at 00:00:00

The latest LANguard scanner is a good tool for maintaining an up-to-date security profile

Version 8 of GFI’s popular LANguard Network Security Scanner (NSS 8) is a feature-rich and easy-to-use package for keeping Windows and Linux system defences up to date.

This latest edition has a host of new features designed to counter security threats to mainstream software packages such as Windows Vista, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007. There is also a rejigged user interface, Unicode support and a new graphical threat level indicator that displays vulnerability levels for particular computers or defined groups of computers.

Another major addition is support for the Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (Oval), a security standard developed by the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Cert) for promoting publicly available security information. Support for Oval means NSS 8 can trawl the security threats listed on Cert’s Oval web site in order to pinpoint potential system vulnerabilities.

We tested NSS 8 on both Windows XP Professional and Vista systems and found it easy to install and manage. It provided up-to-date and useful security information that would help system administrators to maintain any Windows and Linux systems and also to refine desktop operating system images, especially Windows Vista, before deployment.

The database used for storing scan results can be either Microsoft Access or SQL Server 2000, or the freely distributable Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine, (MSDE 2000).

We could scan any system or groups of systems that could be contacted through our Extreme Summit X150 switch. In our test, we targeted a system on the same subnet as the system running NSS 8, and than specified a number of scan profiles. We could let NSS 8 scan for missing service packs and critical patches or we could just get it to scan for any open ports present on the target system.

Details of detected flaws and problems on scanned systems are displayed clearly, but the NSS 8 requires an add-on reporting package to produce reports.

A scan of a Dell Precision M50 notebook revealing all vulnerabilities and patching status took just three and a half minutes. The scan revealed the latest patch from Microsoft, MS07-042, was missing and also warned us that NTLM authentication should be used rather than LM Hash for logging onto the system. The fact that CD/DVD autorun was enabled was flagged up as a high security flaw, because of the potential for CDs and DVDs to install hidden software that could compromise firms’ systems. The flaws revealed by the scan were all documented neatly, with links and helpful information on why NSS 8 had flagged the problem.

Review : Protocol analysis for the masses

Dave Bailey — 2007-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 00:00:00

Wireshark 0.99.6 is a free, flexible and feature-packed network protocol analyser

Wireshark version 0.99.6 is a free, flexible program for protocol capture and analysis that is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Unix systems.

We installed the Windows version, and within five minutes we were able to capture network traffic on our Windows XP Professional Dell Precision M50 notebook. For comparison, we also installed the software on Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Server 2003, Vista Enterprise, and Mandriva and Red Hat Linux, and again experienced no problems.

On firing up Wireshark, the user is presented with a menu bar underneath which is a blank grey pane. Choosing a network interface under the “Capture” tab and pressing “Start” sets off the packet capture process. The screen then divides into three panes, with the main one on top displaying a range of useful information, including the frame number of the packet, time, packet source, packet destination and protocol type.

Once packet data has been captured, it was easy to set up a display filter to only show packets of a certain protocol, to check, for example, whether any system on the network was using IPv6. Filters are also useful when connecting to mirror or span ports of routers and switches because they make it easy for users to pull out the specific protocol or protocols that they are looking for. Wireshark also allows users to set up expressions using Boolean-type operators, making it easy to check for packets containing certain MAC addresses.

Captured data can be analysed while still connected to the interface or saved offline for later analysis. Most packet capture formats are supported, including tcpdump (libpcap), Network General (now NetScout) Sniffer, Network Instruments Observer, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, and the WildPackets Peek family.

Clicking on the “Statistics” tab brings a wealth of analysis tools, such as flow graphs, I/O data transfer rate graphed over time and many others. Wireshark also has voice over IP (VoIP) call capture features for troubleshooting IP telephony problems.

Overall, this is an impressive package. The GUI is not as polished as others we have seen, but is still pretty good for a free application.

Review : Admin package is free and easy

Dave Bailey — 2007-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 00:00:00

Spiceworks IT Desktop is an attractive auditing and monitoring solution for smaller LANs

Spiceworks IT Desktop is a free program for monitoring and auditing hardware and software running over firms’ networks. Version 1.7 boasts extended software compliance features, the ability to send helpdesk support emails through Exchange servers, an upgraded user interface and enhanced device information.

The software’s web-based GUI has a separate pane displaying technology adverts, the proceeds from which are used to fund the software’s development.

We installed the 6MB application on a Windows XP Professional workstation. After the initial setup, it took us about five minutes to compile a detailed network inventory. Two servers were picked up during the initial scan a Windows Server 2003 (WS 2003) Standard Edition system and a Wi-Fi security server running AirTight Networks’ SpectraGuard Enterprise package.

Spiceworks also gave details on the WS 2003 software configuration, picking up 24 applications, 96 services and 32 hot fixes. It also picked up all the storage devices on the network and detected our anti-virus package. IT Desktop runs on Windows only but can audit non-Windows systems.

The package let us set up an SMTP server that could then forward email alerts, and we also had the option to configure a POP3 email server so that users could send helpdesk requests. We could set up various monitoring conditions that if triggered would send an email to the defined address.

There are seven tabs on the GUI: My Spiceworks, Inventory, Help Desk, Reports, Community, Store and Settings. The My Spiceworks tab gives network admins an overview of their network, and features two particularly useful alerts “New hardware this week” and “New software this week” that enable admins to easily locate and check any unauthorised hardware and/or software appearing on the network.

The Help Desk tab lets admins assign “trouble tickets” to specific assets and then assign staff to deal with the tickets. Help Desk sorts out the workflow and new in 1.7 is the ability to attach Word, Excel and .PDF documents to the tickets.

Another attractive feature is the ability to submit questions to Spiceworks’ online community and also trawl the community question archives for information about any issues thrown up during day-to-day running of the package. Users can also request new features.

An acute observer of LAN behaviour

Dave Bailey — 2007-10-08T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Monday 8 October 2007 at 00:00:00

The latest version of the Observer packet analyser can now troubleshoot MPLS systems

Network Instruments’ Observer family of application performance troubleshooters was updated earlier this year to give enterprises the capability to troubleshoot multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) streams. Other new features in Observer 12 include improved multi-hop analysis, which can check performance issues, such as high router and switch latency, and can be used to lessen excessive jitter on IP telephony deployments, improving call quality.

Observer 12 is available in three versions offering different levels of functionality: Standard, Expert and Suite. The Standard version is designed for run-of-the-mill protocol analysis and troubleshooting. The Expert version includes the multi-hop analysis feature as well as the capability to analyse the performance of large enterprise applications, such as SQL databases, and integrate with HP’s OpenView enterprise management package.

Observer Expert can also process information from NetFlow- and sFlow-enabled switches. NetFlow is a Cisco protocol for collecting IP traffic, while sFlow has been used for similar IP traffic collection on other vendors’ network hardware, including Alcatel, Extreme, Foundry and HP ProCurve.

The full Observer Suite adds Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) device management, network trending and reporting, and a web publishing service that can give IT managers and other technical executives network health reports on their firm’s intranets or extranets.

The working install on a fresh Windows XP Professional system was simple, although it required two reboots: one after the program was installed; and another after Observer 12 allocated a user-specifiable amount of system memory as a buffer in which to store network packet data.

A test access point (TAP) was also required to properly take network packets from our test network. A TAP is a piece of hardware that copies traffic from full-duplex network ports and connects to a console to give a real-time display of all the network traffic traversing that link. Network Instruments supplied one of its aggregator TAPs, which can be connected to a PC or operate as a standalone system.

TAPs are taking over from Switched Port Analysers as they are much better at dealing with Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) systems, and Network Instruments can even supply a TAP with optical fibre connections.

Although we could check performance of a local-area network (LAN) with several servers and client systems, firms with large enterprise systems with fast wide-area network (WAN) connections, 10GbE connections and optical fibre-connected storage area networks (SANs) will require extra hardware. Network Instruments can supply gigabit and 10GbE probe appliances, as well as the GigaStor, an appliance that can capture up to 48TBs of gigabit-speed network traffic.

After we had set up the system memory buffer, the drivers for our network interface cards (NICs) and wireless PC cards had to be updated. The reason for this is that although the drivers normally shipped with NICs or wireless cards so-called network driver interface specification (NDIS) can tell you how many error packets are seen on the network, these error packets are not processed or passed. Observer ships with drivers that can be easily installed to pass these error packets to the main Observer console. Observer 12 supports 802.11a/ b/g networks, but not pre-draft 802.11n networks.

Easy troubleshooting

Starting the Observer console up, we could run a SQL query against the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database we set up on our Windows Server 2003 and check the response times we obtained. As expected, these were normal, but firms using a centralised headquarters database with branch offices downloading large chunks over WAN connections with less than optimal bandwidth and latency should easily be able to see problems.

The Observer 12 graphical user interface (GUI) has evolved gracefully over time and we found it an easy and powerful system with which to record and save packet data and then use the Observer Expert probe to analyse the file retrospectively, if required.

Observer 12 can show standard “top talkers” statistics, the network protocol distribution seen by the system, network packet size distribution, as well as virtual LAN (VLAN) statistics. It can also be used to generate network traffic to test network hardware performance and traffic flow through companies’ network infrastructure.

Observer 12 comes with a full set of alarms and triggers that can alert users to problems in real time or, alternatively, can be sent to admins via a paging service that can use Ethernet or dial-up through an onboard modem. It was easy to set up an alarm for duplicate IP addresses or unknown IP addresses. We also set up an alarm to trigger a pager message if network utilisation averaged 50 per cent over a prescribed interval.

Overall, Observer 12 is suitable for any size or enterprise that is looking for a comprehensive system for monitoring and troubleshooting network-attached hardware and applications. One of the few complaints that can be levelled at it is that a high level of technical expertise is required to set up and run the system properly, but this also applies to all comparable systems on the market.

The systems competing with Observer 12 include WildPacket’s OmniAnalysis platform, NetScout’s nGenius system, and Network General’s Sniffer and NetVigil products. The proposed takeover of Network General by NetScout could provide even tougher competition for Network Instruments, and Fluke Networks’ acquisition of Crannog software earlier this year will mean further competition in the enterprise performance management arena.

For smaller enterprises, there is also the open source Wireshark package, which, although less polished, offers enough features for experts to perform an excellent job of troubleshooting less complex networks. Wireshark also runs on Linux and Unix systems.

Tested: Be 24Mbit/s broadband services

Dave Bailey — 2006-09-18T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Monday 18 September 2006 at 00:00:00

ISP Be is offering an uncontended service of up to 24Mbit/s in some parts of the UK

ISP Be offers one of the fastest residential broadband services in the UK, with a theoretical maximum of 24Mbit/s. By comparison BT’s fastest residential service is 8Mbit/s. However, the Be service is not available in all parts of the UK.

Be is one of the more recent ISP startups, set up in October 2004 by Boris Ivanovic and Dana Pressman. In June this year, mobile operator O2 acquired Be for £50m.

Currently Be offers three broadband services. The two residential variants are Be Unlimited and Be Lite. Be Unlimited costs £24 per month with unlimited downloads, and a maximum download speed of 24Mbit/s. Be Lite offers the same download speed but costs £14 per month with usage capped at 1GB. However, an extra 5GB can be purchased for an additional £5. Be also offers a small-business option called Be Office, which includes eight static IP addresses, for £75 + VAT.

To switch from one broadband provider to another, customers need to obtain a Migration Access Code (MAC) from their current supplier. In the past, telecoms providers have often been slow to provide the MAC, but following pressure from regulator Ofcom the process now seems much faster. We asked our original ISP Wanadoo for our MAC and were sent it by email in under a week. We then ordered Be Unlimited online, keying in the MAC code and our financial details.

We moved from a 512kbit/s service to Be Unlimited’s 24Mbit/s in well under a month with no problems. The downtime between services was a few days. Online, we could track the shipment of the required Thomson SpeedTouch 716g wireless router (pictured), known as the Be Box. The installation of the router was a matter of plugging in a power supply – a LAN cable – to the PC NIC, and a modem connection to the telephone socket. No other configuration was necessary. The 716g has four 10/100Mbit/s LAN ports and two “voice over IP (VoIP)” ports, which Be intends to use for a further service launch, yet to be announced. The 716g also has a firewall and intrusion-detection functions.

We checked download data rates using Paessler’s PRTG Traffic Grapher bandwidth monitoring and management software. Immediately after the Thomson wireless router was installed we saw a peak download rate of 7.9Mbit/s when downloading Windows XP Service Pack 2 from Microsoft. We also checked the rate using online tools available at the ADSLGuide.org.uk web site. This showed downloads within five percent of our earlier figure and rated the uploads at 1.2Mbit/s.

We then contacted Be, which carried out some remote administration to the onboard “profile” of the router, which subsequently gave download rates nearer to 14Mbit/s using the same test file.

As the crow flies, the distance of our test site from the nearest exchange is 0.8km. Apart from the distance from the exchange, another big influence on download speeds is the condition of wiring on premises. The distances from premises to the nearest broadband exchanges can be checked via tools at the SamKnows web site.

Sproqit Personal Edition

Daniel Robinson — 2004-11-04T18:32:19.000Z

Daniel Robinson, IT Week, Thursday 4 November 2004 at 18:32:19

Remote access to Outlook email and desktop documents from a wireless handheld

Sproqit Technologies' mobile platform lets workers access their email, contacts and calendar remotely via a wireless device. But instead of forwarding information from the corporate server, as RIM's BlackBerry system does, Sproqit gives staff a remote view of their Outlook inbox and local files as long as their PC is switched on and connected to the net.

We looked at Sproqit Personal Edition, a single-user version of the product shipping this month. A workgroup release for up to 25 users is expected before January, and a full enterprise version supporting up to 10,000 users per server will ship in the first quarter of 2005.

The Sproqit architecture requires a Desktop Agent on the user's PC and a thin client Companion on the mobile device. The Agent uses a number of plug-ins to link to specific applications on the user's computer. The first release has plug-ins for the email, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes functions of Microsoft Outlook, plus a Desktop Explorer to access files and folders. Support for Lotus Notes is due by the end of this year.

What differentiates Sproqit from other mobile email tools is that it can be extended to mobilise other applications by adding other plug-ins. The firm plans to offer developer services to customers, and said it will also ship a developers' kit in January.

In tests, we found we could use a PalmOne Treo 600 handheld to remotely access emails in Outlook Express running on a Windows 2000 PC. We could read and reply to incoming emails as they arrived in the PC's inbox, and view attachments.

The Desktop Explorer allowed us to browse through files and folders on the remote PC, including network shares, and we could view the contents of many documents (Sproqit supports about 200 file types). This would let a user remotely search for a specific document on their system and email it to a client or colleague, for example.

However, we found that there was often a delay of several seconds when we tried to access information not already on-screen, such as when switching views or scrolling down the inbox. The Sproqit Companion also lost its connection with the Desktop Agent quite frequently.

The Sproqit Companion works asynchronously, meaning that users can carry on working if the connection is lost. Any actions, such as deleting an email, are enacted by the Desktop Agent once the connection is re-established. The Sproqit Companion can be set to require a password before it will connect to the Desktop Agent, but the Companion itself is not password protected; we found we could open the Companion and access previously read emails without a password.

Installing Sproqit required updates to our test system, which the install wizard downloaded automatically. The major update was Microsoft's Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.8. However, we had to configure the Desktop Agent with our email settings, instead of it capturing this information from Outlook. A HotSync transferred the Sproqit Companion, fully configured, to our test Treo handset.

Sproqit Personal Edition runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, or Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3. PalmOne's Treo 600 or Pocket PC Phone Edition clients are currently supported. A Companion for Windows laptops is due by the end of this year, as is support for Symbian OS and Windows smartphones.

Price: £8 per month for a single user

Contact: Sproqit 01892 891521

WildPackets AiroPeek NX

Alan Stevens — 2004-09-06T15:55:32.000Z

Alan Stevens, IT Week, Monday 6 September 2004 at 15:55:32

A wireless LAN analyser that helps administrators interpret collected data

Like old-fashioned shared Ethernet networks, wireless LANs (WLANs) can be hard to troubleshoot without a customised analyser. Designed exclusively for wireless networks, Airopeek NX from WildPackets will grab and decode packets while the integrated expert analysis tools will help decipher what they all mean.

AiroPeek NX is designed to be used with a notebook PC fitted with a suitable wireless adapter. While it does not matter whether this is 802.11b/g/a, it must support RF Monitor mode. This, unfortunately, rules out Centrino adapters integrated in notebook PCs and a number of other popular cards.

As with conventional analysers, the application starts by capturing packets that can then be viewed in a variety of ways. Data can be broken down by node or protocol, for example, so administrators can see what channels are being used and display summary graphs. They can also drill down to see particular data streams in more detail.

The number of devices shown can be set and filters applied to limit the data captured, which on any network will be extensive. Captured data can also be analysed using the built-in expert system to identify common networking, security and other problems. A wide range of common faults can be identified here along with their causes and fixes.

The result is a comprehensive troubleshooting tool that can help solve real wireless problems. However, despite being straightforward to operate, interpreting the results and asking the right questions calls for some expertise. As such this is only for IT professionals, and companies will need a large wireless network to justify the cost.

Price: £2,410 + VAT

Contact: WildPackets +33 4 6778 2944

For the latest news for IT professionals, visit ITWeek.co.uk

NetSupport DNA

Alan Stevens — 2004-08-02T14:42:26.000Z

Alan Stevens, IT Week, Monday 2 August 2004 at 14:42:26

A good first stab at a network management suite from a remote control specialist

Best known for remote control software, NetSupport recently broadened its product portfolio with the addition of an integrated suite of network management tools called NetSupport DNA (Dynamic Network Administration).

Aimed at the small to medium-sized enterprise, the product provides hardware and software inventory facilities with local application and internet access metering. Software distribution is another option, along with remote control and an optional web-based helpdesk.

The NetSupport package is limited to managing Windows PCs and servers on TCP/IP networks, so companies with Linux/Unix systems will need to look elsewhere. A Windows NT/2000/2003 host is also required, as is access to a SQL Server 7 or SQL Server 2000 database. The cut-down MSDE (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine) implementation can be used, but is not included with the software and must be sourced from elsewhere.

Installation is pretty painless, with the option of installing the server software and management console on the same system or separately.

Client software needs to be installed on each PC and server to be managed, but the server is able to search for and identify suitable targets using TCP/IP and Windows Netbios scans. Client software can then be distributed and installed remotely, except on older Windows 95/98 clients, which have to be set up from the CD-ROM or via a network share and login script.

The collection of hardware and software inventory information is a core feature, and very well implemented. The data collected is not as comprehensive as with some systems, but key hardware components such as CPU, memory and disks are correctly identified with Bios details. Software recognition was also good, with the ability to identify service pack updates and hot fixes.

On the downside, the console interface takes a little getting used to, though administrators should quickly master how to drill down from summary information to detail. It is also possible to organise systems into groups to manage both collection parameters (chiefly collection frequency) and the way information is displayed.

A query tool is included, with the ability to define dynamic groups based on specific parameters. Using this we were quickly able to identify systems that required hot fixes and memory updates.

Inventory information can be summarised and graphed on screen, with a Crystal Reports engine to generate reports for printing or export in a variety of formats, including pdf. It is not possible to customise reports or define new ones (apart from with ad hoc database queries), though, and only a limited number of predefined reports are provided.

Software distribution options are similarly disappointing, allowing only the ability to create packages of files and folders with manually entered setup commands. Administrators can always add tools to copy an existing installation or automate a new one, but other management suites include these as standard.

Elsewhere the application metering works fine, as does the internet metering tool, which is unusual for a management suite of this kind. Using this we were able to allow or block access to specific URL lists, redirecting browsers to a specific address when blocked and controlling access via a proxy server.

Remote control is an optional extra and comes in two guises: the full NetSupport Manager tool, and a cut-down implementation that offers just core functionality. Neither is integrated into NetSupport DNA - both are added as required, and can be replaced by other third-party applications.

A web-based helpdesk application completes the package. This is optional and not fully integrated, but it can access inventory information stored on the SQL server and has all the basic features expected of such an application.

Price: £25.20 + VAT per user

Contact: NetSupport 01778 382 270