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nsx106052Flag for United States of America

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Best ways to monitor network traffic

At times my network becomes bogged down.  In the past I would just use ethereal to capture and examine traffic.  From there I would try to find ways to cut down on broadcast traffic.  For example increasing  the heartbeat rate for Ghost 9.0.  However there still seems to be a lot of traffic.

What are some good ways to get an idea for what is using up most of the lan bandwidth.   All together there is about 120 computers on one subnet.  
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victornegri

I haven't found a better solution than a sniffer like Ethereal.

(Sorry, not much help. I want to see what others come up with too).

I use NetFlow Analyzer on my Cisco switch.  It breaks traffic down by type AND who's doing it.

The best way to cut down on broadcast traffic is to reduce the size of your broadcast domain. Layer 3 switching is key to this. Move the servers onto their own subnet and start to break down areas in the network to their own subnets. This is going to be the path the network has to follow as it grows or else it can get out of control.
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I currently don't have any layer 3 switches or extra routers so creating another subnet really isn't an option right now.  Any other ideas?
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victornegri

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