Experiences of designing a sophisticated network monitor

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a network monitor that captures connections information in a network. The real-time performance requirement makes the design significantly more challenging than that of a simple monitor that only counts packet types. Although we developed the monitor for DECnet, most of the lessons we learned are protocol-independent and are thus applicable to designing such a monitor for a different protocol. In addition to reviewing the functionality, we report a first-cut performance evaluation of the monitor software. We also describe some of our early experiences in using the monitor and review some current applications of the monitor in the areas of network configuration planning and performance management.