Network General Sniffer - see what's happening on the network

Submitted by Patrick Grote on Tue, 10/31/2006 - 10:06am.

Network General Sniffer can in at number 21 in the eWeek list of top 25 technologies. A sniffer is a device that sits on your network and allows you to see all the network traffic that is running on the wires. The hardware component of a sniffer actually listens on the network, while the software component classifies the information you see.

Network General was first to market with a complete sniffer product. I first used a Network General sniffer when they shipped on the Compaq 3 lunchbox portables.

The great thing about Network General's product is it would show you all the protocols running on your network and statistics about the delivery of those protocols. This would help diagnose issues on the network or create a baseline for network performance.

The bad thing about the Network General product was the cost. If I remember these things cost over $10,000 for the sniffer part alone.

I can still remember going to a class to learn how to use the device. Nowadays, I can run software on my own PC that can do more than that original Network General Sniffer did on its own.