Bird's-eye view on the network

Concord Communications may have a cure for administrators looking for relief from the constant headache of trying to pinpoint consumption of network resources.

Network Health-Traffic Accountant is a new software tool for network managers who want to be able to accurately view the effects of certain applications on their network. It also permits review of network usage by user or department; lets administrators schedule reports on network consumption and trends as needed; and monitors the network for unauthorized usage.

Tools that specialize in network analysis are becoming increasingly popular for administrators that need to be able to monitor trends or plan in advance for future network capacity.

The Concord Communications tool works in conjunction with remote monitoring (RMON) hardware probes from Bay Networks, Hewlett-Packard, 3Com, and Frontier Software Development. The Traffic Accountant software utilizes the RMON2 specification for increased performance analysis capabilities.

These hardware probes can rest on any network device--such as a hub, PC, or router--that an administrator would like to get information from. Using software agents residing on the probe, tools such as Traffic Accountant can collect a variety of data on the types of streams and amounts of data coming through the network device.

Traffic Accountant works in conjunction with other Network Health software products from Concord. It can report data collected from devices to a Web server so that an administrator can view a report from their Web browser. Traffic Accountant can also poll up to 5000 devices on a network.

Traffic Accountant is available immediately for $15,000, with software expansion elements available at $250 per RMON2 probe.