I need a piece of software that will monitor traffic throughout a network and be able to identify any corrupt or damaged packets being sent. And if possible a utility / plugin or plugin of the software to be able to report on which desktop / server is sending / receiving the highest percentage or network transmissions. Any recommendations would be great, very urgent - even paid one's if you have to.. (bar Cisco's Network Monitor - $14,999)
Nagios - http://www.nagios.org/ Formerly known as SAINT. OSS, so it's free. Main features: * Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.) * Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk and memory usage, running processes, log files, etc.) * Monitoring of environmental factors such as temperature * Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own host and service checks * Ability to define network host hierarchy, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable * Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager, or other user-defined method) * Optional escalation of host and service notifications to different contact groups * Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution * Support for implementing redundant and distributed monitoring servers * External command interface that allows on-the-fly modifications to be made to the monitoring and notification behavior through the use of event handlers, the web interface, and third-party applications * Retention of host and service status across program restarts * Scheduled downtime for supressing host and service notifications during periods of planned outages * Ability to acknowlege problems via the web interface * Web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem history, log file, etc. * Simple authorization scheme that allows you restrict what users can see and do from the web interface
