Data Communication and Networks: Freeware Tool Evaluation Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of freeware tools suitable for network monitoring and performance evaluation. It begins by examining SolarWinds, a tool that aids in comprehensive network monitoring, device discovery, and real-time traffic analysis, especially beneficial for a new business with 20 computers and limited IP addresses. The report then shifts its focus to Acrylic Wi-Fi scanner, a freeware tool designed for scanning Wi-Fi networks, detailing its capabilities in identifying access points, security mechanisms, and signal quality. The final section evaluates Zabbix, a freeware tool used for evaluating network performance and QoS, highlighting its ability to monitor network and system status through a web-based console, its agent-based and agent-less monitoring capabilities, and its support for custom checks. The report concludes by emphasizing the efficiency of these tools in addressing specific network requirements, such as those of a multi-floor building, ensuring optimal performance and issue resolution.

Data Communication and
Networks

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Scenario 1.........................................................................................................................................1
Freeware tool for monitoring entire network .............................................................................1
Scenario 2.........................................................................................................................................3
Freeware tool for scanning Wi-Fi...............................................................................................3
Scenario 3.........................................................................................................................................7
Freeware tool for evaluation performance and QoS...................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Scenario 1
Freeware tool for monitoring entire network
Freeware tools are considered as the tools that can help in performing various objectives
but are available for free. Although, there are various freeware tools that can help in monitoring
the entire network, but Solar-winds can be considered as relevant enough. It can help in
monitoring the entire network and also help in representing the status of every system over the
network.
It has various special features that can help in various operations of the new business which is
going to be established. Some specialities of this tool are described as follows:
 The set up is very easy and the whole installation can be done in a small period. As the
new business has the requirement of 20 computers, involving solar winds can help as it
automatically discovers all the devices. It can very easily find all the devices over the
network and can monitor it (Falaki, Mahajan and Estrin, 2011).
 The interface of the tool is very flexible as it is very simply to make any modifications in
this. It depends on the user whether they want any changes or not. IF the user wants,
making changes is very simple and an easy task.
 The tool also provides an alerting system for the users and it has various options on it as
it provides different options for simple triggers and different for complex ones.
 Also, Solar-winds help in analysing all the available WiFi networks that belong within
the dashboard. So, it can be considered as an efficient tool to be implemented in the new
business where the requirement of the company is connecting 20 computers.
 Also, as the internet service provider only provides two IP addresses, i.e. from
172.16.1.1/16 to 172.16.1.125/16, so the solar-winds act compatible with the same.
 Solar-winds can also represent the status of each computer connected over the network
and as there are 20 computers connected in the network while implementing the new
business, the tool can help in depicting the status of each system (Reddy and et.al., 2010).
 Along with these features, solar winds also help in analysing the real time network and
the overall flow that how much traffic is coming on the application. Also, it has in built
features to control the traffic so that there may be fewer chances of the system to hang.
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 Also, solar winds monitors the internal health of the hardware's involved such as the
servers, cables, routers, switches, systems and all the components of them.
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Scenario 2
Freeware tool for scanning Wi-Fi
Acrylic Wi-Fi scanner is a free Wi-Fi scanner which helps in scanning the Wi-Fi and can
help in reporting all the activities that are going over the network. It displays all the access points
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of the network and represents all the data and information regarding the security mechanisms.
Also, it consists of plug in systems and helps in getting generic password for the Wi-Fi. A very
special feature in this is that this scanner can collect information from 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac
networks. So, the complete information is being gathered by these networks in this Wi-Fi
scanner. It also represents various signal quality charts as it involves various signal quality charts
for all the channels of the Wi-Fi through channels in 5GHz and 2.4GHz (Arora, Vatti and
Somkuwar, 2010). Also, it provides high security features as no external body can be able to
steal the data and information over the network. It has various types of security features available
in Acrylic Wi-Fi scanner such as WEP, WPA, WPA2 etc. This makes its use from the present
software and hardware only, so no external hardware is required to operate this tool to scan the
Wi-Fi. It is considered as an essential tool for scanning the Wi-Fi because it consists of all the
required features such as it provides well security and fulfils all the necessary operations that are
to be done while scanning the network. It is important because many times, there are pop ups or
other advertises which are about to attack the network, so it does a complete scanning of the
network and then blocks all the types of viruses so that the network can stay free of any errors
and viruses, so that all the operations on the system can run smooth (Liu, Liu and Li, 2010).
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Scenario 3
Freeware tool for evaluation performance and QoS
Although there are various freeware tools that can help in evaluating and analysing the
performance of the entire network and QoS, but Zabbix can considered as one of the efficient
tools that can act quite more appropriate and efficient than others. Zabbix is a freeware tool that
helps in monitoring the status of the whole network along with that of system. This is being done
by combining it all in a single console that is web based. It is them being configured so that all
the monitoring of the network can take place easily. It gathers the information and data from
various servers and network gear. Also, it offers various basic services as well that helps in
making the whole process of monitoring easy and smooth. There are agents that run on some
monitoring systems, so Zabbix works on those monitoring systems only and makes a better and
efficient evaluation of the performance and the QoS. Although it can also run on agent less
systems but the power and efficiency of monitoring it is being reduced. There are various agent
less systems as well on which Zabbix can run with taking help of the HTTP and SMTP severs.
Zabbix is being supported by various programs such as VM ware and other hyper visors. A
special type of attention is being provided by the Zabbix in order to make the evaluation of the
QoS and overall network performance much better, efficient and appropriate. Some others
special features of Zabbix are described as follows:
 The hosts on the system can be added manually as well, which means that the user can
themselves add hosts on the system or by taking help from an auto discovery method.
There are some default templates in the system, so they make use of the some very basic
use cases and it can be either window's server etc. by taking help of services like SMTP,
ICMP and HTTP. These are being used for making an in depth evaluation of the
hardware that is being used in the system and it gives more productive and efficient
quality of results (Bellavista and et.al., 2012).
 There are custom checks and it can be written in any language such as it can be written in
Python, Perl or any other language as well, so these custom checks can be integrated well
in Zabbix, no matter they are been written in which language. So, Zabbix can be
considered as an efficient tool that can help in evaluating the performance of the all the
activities that are going over the network along with the QoS.
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 As the building will be having three floors, so according to this structure, Zabbix can
perform better as it can evaluate the whole performance by dividing it in steps as it will
divide the process of monitoring as initially, it will make evaluation of the ground floor,
then first and the third one at last. It is being done so that the whole analysis of the QoS
and performance can be analysed well and in a way that if the system contains any issues,
they can come out so that they can be resolved as soon as possible.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arora, S., Vatti, R. and Somkuwar, V., 2010. REMOVAL OF DEAD ZONES IN WIFI
NETWORK.
Bellavista, P. and et.al., 2012, July. QoS-aware elastic cloud brokering for IMS infrastructures.
In Computers and Communications (ISCC), 2012 IEEE Symposium on (pp. 000157-
000160). IEEE.
Falaki, H., Mahajan, R. and Estrin, D., 2011, June. SystemSens: a tool for monitoring usage in
smartphone research deployments. In Proceedings of the sixth international workshop on
MobiArch (pp. 25-30). ACM.
Reddy, S. V. And et.al., 2010, June. Wireless hacking-a WiFi hack by cracking WEP.
In Education Technology and Computer (ICETC), 2010 2nd International Conference
on (Vol. 1, pp. V1-189). IEEE.
Liu, Y., Liu, K. and Li, M., 2010. Passive diagnosis for wireless sensor networks. IEEE/ACM
Transactions on Networking (TON). 18(4). pp.1132-1144.
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