I would like to share with everyone a simple network monitoring tool that I have written.
https://pingtracer.codeplex.com/
Its primary goal is to help identify the source of internet connectivity problems. In its most basic usage, it can monitor any network host that responds to echo requests (a.k.a. "pings"). Each ping response time is graphed so you can visually identify the time and severity of any network problems.
But when there is a connectivity problem, ping response graphs from a single internet address can only tell you so much. The real benefit comes when you have it "graph every node leading to the destination". In this mode, it will perform a traceroute operation to discover every pingable router in the path between your PC and the target, and then all these routers are monitored and graphed simultaneously.
For example, consider this screenshot which I captured while monitoring my network path to a random google web server. This is a fairly normal graph showing two problematic events:
The first event is represented by the yellow lines in the third graph. This is one of my ISP's routers that regularly shows elevated ping response times in spikes just like that. The issue is isolated to that one network node, and does not affect any of the following nodes in a measurable way. Therefore it is of no concern to me.
I triggered the second event by running an internet speed test. The first node is my home router on a gigabit LAN, which explains why its response times were not affected. However for every node beyond that, you see elevated ping response times (yellow) and a bit of packet loss (red) all occurring at the same time. This indicates that my internet connection was congested during the speed test. (big surprise!)
From time to time, other internet routers out in the wild will show signs of trouble. This manifests as elevated ping response times and/or packet loss starting at one node and extending to all following nodes. So when you are working remotely with remote desktop, or playing an online game and experience lag or connection loss, it is really handy to have this tool open so you can see if the problem is on your end, at the remote end, or somewhere in between.
https://pingtracer.codeplex.com/
Its primary goal is to help identify the source of internet connectivity problems. In its most basic usage, it can monitor any network host that responds to echo requests (a.k.a. "pings"). Each ping response time is graphed so you can visually identify the time and severity of any network problems.
But when there is a connectivity problem, ping response graphs from a single internet address can only tell you so much. The real benefit comes when you have it "graph every node leading to the destination". In this mode, it will perform a traceroute operation to discover every pingable router in the path between your PC and the target, and then all these routers are monitored and graphed simultaneously.
For example, consider this screenshot which I captured while monitoring my network path to a random google web server. This is a fairly normal graph showing two problematic events:
The first event is represented by the yellow lines in the third graph. This is one of my ISP's routers that regularly shows elevated ping response times in spikes just like that. The issue is isolated to that one network node, and does not affect any of the following nodes in a measurable way. Therefore it is of no concern to me.
I triggered the second event by running an internet speed test. The first node is my home router on a gigabit LAN, which explains why its response times were not affected. However for every node beyond that, you see elevated ping response times (yellow) and a bit of packet loss (red) all occurring at the same time. This indicates that my internet connection was congested during the speed test. (big surprise!)
From time to time, other internet routers out in the wild will show signs of trouble. This manifests as elevated ping response times and/or packet loss starting at one node and extending to all following nodes. So when you are working remotely with remote desktop, or playing an online game and experience lag or connection loss, it is really handy to have this tool open so you can see if the problem is on your end, at the remote end, or somewhere in between.
