These software tools give you details about the network like latency values and the hostname of the device. Many such applications can also help to identify routing issues when you have more than one WiFi network connection. Following is a handpicked list of Top Network Diagnostics Tools, with their website links. The list contains both open source (free) and commercial (paid) software.
Best Network Diagnostic & Troubleshooting Tools & Software
1) Network Diagnostic Tool
Network Diagnostic Tool is a tool that quickly analyzes and troubleshoots wireless network faults, performance, and availability issues remotely. This application provides you real-time alerts that help you to reduce network downtime.
It helps you to find the root cause of the issue and determine whether it is in the application or network. SolarWinds is one of the best remote monitoring software to perform network analysis and evaluate critical paths. Visit Network Diagnostic
2) ManageEngine OpManager
ManageEngine OpManager is a unified network systems monitoring and management solution for efficient and seamless IT Operations Management. This tool is suitable for enterprises, distributed networks, SMBs, etc.
Features:
Dashboards, heat maps, business views, network device grouping, for better network overview. Unified network performance monitoring, server and VM monitoring, switch monitoring, router monitoring, WLC monitoring, hardware monitoring. With the ManageEngine Applications Manager plug-in for OpManager, you can monitor critical performance metrics of your business applications both on premise & cloud.
Visit ManageEngine »
3) Auvik
Auvik’s award-winning, cloud-based network management, and monitoring software lets IT professionals experience the fastest way to manage distributed networks and devices, automate routine tasks, and resolve critical technology issues proactively. Auvik streamlines and simplifies network troubleshooting and helps to keep users connected to business-critical resources, stay on top of network issues with alerting, get real-time metrics about the network, monitor VPN, automate and maintain up-to-date device configuration backups, instantly find if internet connectivity issues are caused by network or ISP, and more.
Features:
Performance monitoring & troubleshooting IT asset management Network visibility & mapping Configuration backup & recovery Network traffic analysis Remote network management
Visit Auvik »
4) Paessler
Paessler is a diagnostics software that can scan network segments by pinging defined IP ranges. This tool monitors IT infrastructure using technologies like SNMP, WMI, Sniffing, REST APIs, SQL and others. This network testing tool can scan network segments by pinging defined IP ranges.
It can help you to create web pages with up-to-date monitoring data in the desired format. This network testing tool alerts you when it sees warnings or unusual metrics in your network infrastructure. It provides a web interface that is suitable for real-time network troubleshooting issues. Visit Paessler »
5) Datadoghq
Datadoghq is a tool that can monitor end-to-end visibility into the WiFi network. It allows you to monitor your network architecture alongside the application, DNS performance, and infrastructure for faster troubleshooting. This application provides you insights into the performance of bare metal devices like firewalls, switches, and routers.
It enables you to view communication between services, cloud regions, and resources. This network troubleshooting tool can also track WiFi network metrics like latency and TCP retransmits. It can assess DNS server health with request volume, error code metrics, and response time. Download Link: https://www.datadoghq.com/product/network-monitoring/
6) Dynatrace
Dynatrace is a tool that enables you to monitor WiFi network performance without any hassle. This application makes sure that you get high-quality process communications over the network. It can analyze your WiFi network traffic on the host and process.
Dynatrace provides you a clear picture of metrics for CPU, disk, memory, and WiFi network health. It can be used to see how your components interact with each other. Download Link: https://www.dynatrace.com/platform/network-monitoring/
7) Wireshark
Wireshark is a tool that analyzes WiFi network protocol with minimal effort. It has a rich feature set that enables you to find network performance issues live and perform offline analysis. This application can capture files compressed with gzip.
Wireshark can be used to read live data from Ethernet, Bluetooth, USB, etc. The output of this WiFi network troubleshooting tool can be exported to CSV, plain text, or XML formats. This network testing tool can run on Windows, macOS, Solaris, Linux, and many other operating systems. Download Link: https://www.wireshark.org/
8) Nexthink
Nexthink is a script that helps you to obtain information about the current network configuration and connection. It enables you to perform connectivity tests using ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) protocol.
It can clear the DNS cache and helps you to resolve some potential network infrastructure problems. This application can restart the Nexthink service on a device that is recently connected to VPN to get up-to-date information. Download Link: https://www.nexthink.com/library/network-management/
9) PerfSONAR
PerfSONAR is a network measurement toolkit designed to provide federated coverage of paths and establish end-to-end usage expectations. You can identify and isolate problems as they happen, making the role of supporting network users. It provides an interface that helps you to schedule measurements of the network and storage of data in uniform formats. This application offers scalable methods to retrieve data and generate visualizations.
It helps you to identify and isolate network problems to make the role of supporting engineer easier. This network testing software contains a set of tools that can be used to perform network analysis and measure packet loss and delay. Download Link: https://www.perfsonar.net/
10) Ping
Ping is a Windows operating system utility that helps you to determine latency, round trip time, and network packet loss. It provides you network problem that needs to be addressed.
This command can also be used to check the network connection speed. Ping is the basic utility when you begin your troubleshooting process.
11) Traceroute
Traceroute is a network troubleshooting command that enables you to know about network devices between one point to another. It gives you extra data like latency values and the hostname of the gadgets. This network troubleshooting tool can also help to identify routing issues when you have more than one network connectivity.
Traceroute network troubleshooting command enables you to view the route and measure the delay of network packets. It will give you the details of hops between both the source and destination devices.
12) Ipconfig
Ipconfig (Internet Protocol Configuration) is a utility that can report IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, default gateways, and subnets for all gateways on a computer.
This functionality can also be used to manage IP addresses assigned to PCs that are currently running. You can write commands without additional parameters to identify your current Internet protocol address.
13) Nslookup
Nslookup is a good utility for locating the IP associated with a domain name and checking to see that DNS resolution is working for a host. When you enter www.google.com into the browser, your computer queries the DNS server to find the IP attached to that hostname as shown in the following figure.
Nslookup helps you to find these queries and other Domain Name System servers as per your desire. This network testing tool helps you to test the DNS server for the client or your own ISP (Internet Service Provider).
14) Netstat
Netstat is a utility that is helpful on hosts or servers that run their own firewalls like Apache or SQL servers. This network troubleshooting command is very helpful to know the people who are connected to your hosts with a port number.
It shows the total number of active connections on your PC and delivers basic statistics on all network activities.
FAQ
These software tools give you details of the network, like latency values and the hostname of the device. Many such applications can also help to identify routing issues when you have more than one network connection.
Network Diagnostic Tool ManageEngine OpManager Auvik Paessler Datadoghq Dynatrace Wireshark Nexthink PerfSONAR
The only thing here you can do is to wait for the Internet or cloud service to get back on track. At this time, network troubleshooting tools help you to identify the potential cause of the network failure and helps to fix the network issues. Therefore, it is good to have knowledge of such network diagnostics tools that are used by engineers and network admins.
These applications help users to find the root cause of the network issue and determine whether it is in the application, network, or WiFi connection. It can scan large business wireless network segments by pinging defined IP ranges. Network Diagnostic Software provides users insights into the performance of bare metal devices like firewalls, switches, and routers. These software tools are widely used by network performance testers to see how network components interact with each other within the infrastructure. Enables users to perform connection tests using ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) protocol. Network diagnostic software can clear the DNS cache and helps you to resolve some potential network problems. Users can identify and solve network performance issues with ease. Allows Network performance tester to check the Internet connection speed and bandwidth. It helps to identify routing issues when users have more than one Wi-Fi network connection.
Some common warnings of high latency include:
Your data takes a long time to send. For example, an email with a large attachment. Servers or web-based applications are slow. Websites do not load.
Ping Ipconfig Nslookup Netstat Traceroute
The data sources (IoT, web apps, and others) to be analyzed. Find out the common problems in the network. Check the changes that are anticipated and created new issues. Find the tools that are already in use and aspects of data analytics these applications cannot handle. Know whether vendors added new capabilities to the software you are using, for example, machine learning and AI.
Consider the following factors before selecting a network diagnostic tool:
Network troubleshooting software should be able to provide real-time performance monitoring and visualization. The cost involved in training employees on the tool Network troubleshooting software should be customizable to each user’s specific roles Consider the network security options offered by the software You need to check the product price matches your budget or not Product features meet your requirements or not Network performance testing software should provide integration with other software tools You need to select a tool that fulfills the requirements of small size as well large size IT infrastructures
Step 1) Identify the problem Step 2) Guess the possible cause of the issue Step 3) Explore the system to cross-check your idea Step 4) Find the error, make a plan, and implement a solution Step 5) Check the solution that worked and change procedures to prevent the problem from occurring again Step 6) Document the problem, the solution, and recommendations for procedural changes
Network device faults Power source problems Defective cable connectors System overloading Security software QoS (Quality of Service) prioritization Network cable faults Incompatible network settings on the device Addressing issues Intruder or hacker activity Occurrence of malware
