Network Monitoring

[Kodiak]

Is there some software to identfy bottlenecks in a small office network such as when someone tries to backup or send data from one workstation to a backup drive or other PC on the network. Maybe the bottleneck may be a router or switch.

[Ahcoraj]

Try http://www.ethereal.com/ It has a bit of a learning curve but is great once you get the hang of it.....Another idea might be to try a Managed switch. we like the SRW2016 from linksys, it's gigabit,web managable and under 400$ We have one in house for our use but pull it and take it onsite when needed. Usually when they see what it can do, they usually want one.....

[Stalemate]

MRTG works, and is free, but may require more analysis to interpret the data.

If you're lucky, your routers or switches (manageable/intelligent models) will have software which allows you to see what is happening in the way of transactions on them at any given time.

If not, then MRTG can help you do exactly that.