As we live in the era of Information technology, network administration plays a crucial part in IT decisions for any scale of business. In this busy sector of network administration, Internet traffic monitoring is an indispensable segment of the organization’s network. Keeping your network secure and coherent is the most vital task of networking and this is done through a rigorous analysis of internet traffic. Managing the network infrastructure, monitoring, and keeping a close watch on them is of the utmost importance to any organization.
However, in this information age, there are many tools available for internet traffic analysis. A close eye of the internet traffic can help in troubleshooting the issues in the network like a worm or virus software that may be consuming the major bandwidth. Also, the network traffic tools are preeminent in the growing network organization, wherein users can have a big picture on the future network upgrades by analyzing the current bandwidth capacity.
Network & Internet Traffic Monitor Tools for Windows PC
Overall the tool helps the administrator in managing and monitoring the network infrastructure. While methods like SNMP and NetFlow technology were used to monitor network traffic earlier, today’s techno scene demands the most skillful way of monitoring the internet that deploys details provided by firewall logs and deep packet inspection technology. With advances in technology innovation, there are many tools available that are cost-effective in monitoring internet traffic. The tool gives you a detailed report about proxied web activity, records on users who are streaming content like games and movies, reports on exploiting and squandering the internet at remote locations, and many such features that are needed for the network to run securely. We bring you some tools that are extremely helpful for internet traffic analysis.
1] Wireshark Network Analyzer
Wireshark Network Analyzer is an open-source network analyzer that monitors network traffic. This tool lets the network administrator manage the network infrastructure efficiently. The tool examines the information packets and Raw USB traffic that provides details about transmit time, source, destination, header, and protocol type. The tool lets you read data from a live network connection and also from captured packets. PPP, IEEE 802.11, Ethernet, and loopback are the network that supports this tool to read the live data packets. The tool also lets the user adjust the various settings, set timers, and put filters on the captured data packets.
2] Telerik FiddlerCap
Fiddler is a powerful network analyzer utility that comes with oodles of features. It is available for free download and is compatible in size which is less than 1mb. Also, it can be used for any scale of business be it large or small. The tool lets the user track the bug easily in your web browser or any internet site. With a few clicks, you can set several options like storing binaries, decrypting the HTTPs traffics, or storing cookies before you start the capture session. The tool also lets you set a timer that automatically discards traffics after the set time lapse. A user can capture screenshots for future extrapolation. The main advantage of the fiddler is that the fiddler cap creates the log file of the capture sessions that are loaded automatically to the fiddler to analyze it. Download it here.
3] TCPView
TCPView from Microsoft provides you with a simple interface for internet monitoring that is available for free download and whose size is less than 1MB. The tool provides the user with full details of all the UDP and TCP endpoints wherein you can interact with the specific connections. It lets the user monitor the network activity in real-time when connections are created and hence track for any malicious activity. The interface lets the user modify the options like a filter or setting the speed all in a few clicks. It is definitely a powerful utility that comes with handy context menus and lets the user save the session activity list in the text file. Download it here.
4] Nagios Network Analyzer
Nagios Network Analyzer is an open-source internet traffic monitoring tool. The tool provides an easy way to identify the problems associated with network infrastructure that may be hampering the smooth function of the critical business. Be the applications, services, or business processes, the Nagios Core ensures the proper functioning of your entire IT infrastructure. The tool lets you choose plugins and add-ons for database support, graphs, and load distribution. Download it here
5] OpenNMS
OpenNMS is an open-source network utility that manages and monitors the network in order to have a secure and efficient connection. OpenNMS provides a highly integrated monitoring platform for business, mid-sized enterprises, and new IT ecosystems. While OpenNMS lets you remotely monitor applications, SNMP traps are used to create high-level workflows indicating the signs of danger. It provides a super easy interface to view nodes, set alarms, and check for outages. Download it here.
UPDATE: You can also check out Glasswire Firewall and Network Monitoring Tool.
If you are already using a tool for internet traffic analysis, share your experience in the comment section below.
