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Networking is
now an integral part of the computing experience that most users
enjoy, or not, on a daily basis. Ranging in size and complexity
from a few PCs in most homes and offices and going up to
hundreds and even thousands of workstations when it comes to
corporate and enterprise environments, networks are now the
highways of data transfers and they link computers all over the
world together.
Sometimes, and maybe all too often,
things are not as they should be and it's up to the network
administrator to deal with the problem as swiftly and
efficiently as possible. This is where software applications
like Ping Tester come into action as they enable a network
administrator to quickly find non-responsive and disconnected
computers as well as detect a host of other things, like network
speed and load.
Just as its name suggests, Ping Tester
is mainly concerned with pinging a range of network IP addresses
and displaying relevant information about the interrogated
computer systems, but it can also perform a host of other
functions like viewing the network topology, creating reports as
well as enabling or disabling some basic network settings.
Ping Tester presents to its users a
main application window that is split in two distinct areas, one
dedicated to user interaction and one mainly concerned with
displaying relevant data about the performed tasks and their
results. The menu system is cleanly cut and it offers just the
needed components and options, being very easy to use and
understand even for a novice. Five entries are marked in the
menu system: File, Operate, IP, Utility and Help. While "Help"
is pretty self explanatory and sends the user to a well
structured documentation system, the other menus are more
important so we will insist on them.
The "File" menu offers the possibility
to both import and export a list of IP addresses, which can be
stored in either text or CSV formats. These options are most
useful for network administration, when scanning the network
from different machines is necessary and it saves the user the
need to manually enter all addresses. As this application can
display a DOS-style command window, for those network
administrators that are fond of the console, the export and
import options for command histories come naturally.
Since Windows provides users with the
possibility to ping a specific IP address, one might ask himself
why would there be necessary to install a different application
for the same purpose. The answer is quite simple: Ping Tester
includes a host of advanced features that are not available in
the basic Windows implementation of ping. First of all, users
have the possibility to select more than one IP address and
store the created list, thus increasing the efficiency when
interrogating the network by not having to type the same IP over
and over again. Secondly, users can configure the ping command
according to their own needs by setting the parameters to values
they find most appropriate. Ping Tester enables users to modify
the test interval, send buffer size and number of packets,
allowing a custom interrogation of the network. Both the Windows
and the Linux implementations of the "ping" program are quite
customizable, but instead of working from the much "dreaded"
command line, users that choose a software application like Ping
Tester are greeted by a graphical user interface that
significantly simplifies things, as much of the work is done
with just a few mouse clicks.
After all the network parameters are
set to their proper values, clicking on the Ping button located
right underneath instructs Ping Tester to immediately send an
ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) "echo request" to the
target host and listen for ICMP "echo response" replies. The
application displays a statistical summary including the
estimated round-trip time in milliseconds and any packet loss by
comparing the number of packets sent with those received. After
finishing the test, Ping Tester allows the user to read a
detailed report of the entire procedure. The statistical data
can be grouped by time period as well as by sent buffer size,
thus allowing an accurate and real-time analysis of the network.
The report can be exported as text or CSV format, allowing
network administrators to build up in time a list of potential
trouble spots.
Another useful feature of Ping Tester
is that it supports scheduled network testing, useful especially
in situations when the network needs to be constantly monitored
for disconnected computers or when the network is expected to
meet a high uptime level.
Moving along further we find the Scan
IP feature, which enables users to locate hosts that are no
longer active in the network, as a ping command will fail when
sent to those machines. For large number of hosts that need to
be scanned and for networks that stretch over several layers of
routers and switches, Ping Tester's users can also interrupt an
ongoing scan. This option is most useful for networks where most
of the computer systems are running with integrated firewalls
that might block all ICMP traffic, thus "absorbing" ping packets
and making traditional ping programs enter an infinite( or long)
cycle of queries.
Last but not least, we find the Utility
menu, which includes an extremely useful feature implemented by
Ping Tester, named DOS Commands. As the name itself suggests,
Ping Tester allows you to run all network-related DOS commands,
including tracert, netstat, ipconfig, attrib and others. Simply
select the desired command and IP, click on the Run button and
Ping Tester will immediately perform the specified action.
Another nice to have feature that is included in this software
utility is the fact that it comes by default with a list of well
known Internet hosts like google.com and yahoo.com and thus
making easier to determine if the problem with a particular
networking environment is linked to the upstream or with the
downstream traffic.
The Good
Ping Tester comes together with all the
basic functions that administrators need to monitor a given
network. It is also easy to use and highly customizable. The
generated reports provide users with a detailed and real-time
state of the entire network, down to every machine.
The Bad
The almost $200 that need to be paid
for the license might seem a little too much, especially if we
take into consideration other applications that provide the same
basic functionality. When pinging a certain IP address, there
are other important parameters which are not even "mentioned" in
Ping Tester , such as offset, flag and packet checksum. Allowing
users to customize them will certainly increase the
application's usefulness.
The Truth
Ping Tester does a pretty good job when
it comes to interrogating a certain network and includes more
than the basic functionality needed by an administrator. While
it lacks some more advanced functions that are needed to perform
in-depth scans and analyses over a network environment, Ping
Tester comes with enough functionality under its hood to make a
good job in the hands of a casual network administrator, even if
the "pros" might dismiss it as incomplete and switch back to the
dedicated tools that come with just any Linux distro. |