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Even the Ghostbusters would have a hard time tracking down all the spooky problems that can plague a complex computer network. When the connection to your World Wide Web site smells like it has been slimed, it's time to call Network Associates Inc.'s Sniffer Pro.
Protocol analyzers such as Sniffer enable network managers to watch all levels of traffic on their networks, ferreting out the problems and showing where performance can be fine-tuned.
Sniffer has long been a market leader among network protocol analyzers, and this new version's ease of use and broader support for networks and network adapters should keep it close to the front of the pack In this rapidly changing arena, competitors are never far behind.
It took less than five minutes to install Sniffer. We installed it to a 450 MHz Dell Computer Corp. OptiPlex GX1 with 128M of memory and running Microsoft Corp. Windows NT 4.0. Does Sniffer really need that much horsepower? Going by the book, Sniffer needs 64M of RAM routinely and 128M for Asynchronous Transfer Mode networks, and experience shows that better hardware means fewer network packets will be dropped.
We were turned off by the unusual two-year license agreement. After that time, Network Associates expects you to destroy the product and all documentation.
Normally, trouble-shooters place Sniffer on a notebook computer so they can take it wherever trouble lurks. But in the test, it made sense to place it on a desktop PC because we have connections to four different network segments conveniently located in my office.
With two PCI network adapters - an...