So how high-end should you go? As with many other technologies, the more experience you have, the less you'll need to spend.
Get Real--Ethereal, That Is
One of our favorite analyzers is the open-source Ethereal. While lacking some of the features in commercial products, it's free and could meet your needs, especially if you have a small or departmental network or you're just looking to get basic information. And unlike most commercial offerings, which run only on Windows, it's Linux-compatible.
Ethereal will capture and decode many major protocols to reveal what's happening packet by packet and the time in milliseconds between packets. So if a user's client slows down, it will let you see when the user transmitted a request to a server, how long it takes the server to respond, and how long the client is taking to acknowledge a query from the server. If one of these processes is excessively long, Ethereal will clue you in to the source of the problem. For example, if packets are getting dropped and retransmitted from the server, it can point to a problem with the server, or to a problem on the network between the client and the server.
Ethereal does have its limitations, and even low-end (less than $1,000) commercial products, like those from Network Instruments or WildPackets, will add many useful features. For comparison:
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
