Visualizing network traffic is a complex and difficult process. There are a variety of tools available to help network administrators and engineers see and understand what is happening on their networks. This article will discuss some of the most popular and useful tools for visualizing network traffic.
Flow data visualization is a relatively new tool that is becoming increasingly popular for visualizing network traffic. Flow data provides a wealth of information about how traffic is flowing through a network. It can be used to identify bottlenecks, optimize traffic flow, and troubleshoot networking problems.
Mint is an open source flow data visualization tool that was developed by the University of Michigan. It supports a variety of protocols including Netflow, sFlow, jFlow, and IPFIX. Mint can be used to visualize flows from routers, switches, firewalls, and other devices.
Ntopng is an open source network traffic monitoring tool that was developed by the makers of the popular open source networking tool Nmap. Ntopng provides a web-based interface for viewing real-time or historical traffic data. It supports a variety of protocols including IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, and ICMP.
Flowalyzer is a commercial flow data visualization tool from ManageEngine. It supports a variety of protocols including Netflow, sFlow, jFlow, IPFIX, and RSPAN. Flowalyzer can be used to visualize flows from routers, switches, firewalls, and other devices.
SolarWinds is a commercial network monitoring tool from SolarWinds. It includes a module for visualizing flow data from Netflow-compatible devices such as Cisco routers and switches. SolarWinds also has a free trial available for download.
Cacti is an open source network graphing tool that can be used to plot flow data from SNMP-enabled devices such as routers and switches. Cacti also has support for other types of data such as CPU utilization and memory usage.
Nagios is an open source server monitoring tool that can be used to monitor networks for problems such as excessive bandwidth usage or high packet loss rates. Nagios can also be used to monitor flow data from Netflow-compatible devices.
Wireshark is a free and open source packet analyzer that can be used to capture and analyze packets from networks. Wireshark can be used to troubleshoot networking problems or analyze suspicious activity on networks.
