Dartware InterMapper review

Offices are more network-dependent than ever, so it's important to minimise downtime or prevent it completely. Karl Wright takes Dartware's InterMapper networking monitoring software out for a spin to see if it can help.

This shows a standard network map. The Dell Inspiron 6000 is down, but in order to stop the icon flashing we've "acknowledged

This shows a standard network map. The Dell Inspiron 6000 is down, but in order to stop the icon flashing we've

This shows a standard network map. The Dell Inspiron 6000 is down, but in order to stop the icon flashing we've "acknowledged" the problem. The status window tells us, among other things, that the router is dropping more incoming packets than it should be.

New to this version of InterMapper is layer 2 connectivity. For compatible switches and network devices, this allows the program to gather far more detailed information than was previously possible. In particular, it allows you to see exactly which port any given device is connected to. This makes it much easier to trace an error, or simply poor network performance, precisely back to its source.

As well as monitoring devices, InterMapper also keeps an eye on network connections to make sure that they're performing to specification, not carrying more traffic than they should (using a threshold you specify as a benchmark). Taking device and network alerts together, you can very quickly see problems as they arise and identify their source.