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Do you suspect that something is eating up your bandwidth? Or do you simply want to know if a particular application or location generates a lot of traffic? Would you like to know when traffic occurs? PerformanceGuard provides the answers:
Which Applications Generate Most IP Traffic?
In PerformanceGuard an application consists of a server/port combination, for example server.organization.org on TCP port 80 (HTTP).
The IP Traffic by Application time view graph (ANALYZE > Graphs > Time View > IP Traffic by application) shows which applications generated IP traffic, and when they did it. You can view this data for combinations of all servers and ports, groups of servers and ports, and individual servers and ports.
The graph is also available in a trend view variant. It contains the same type of information, but the trend variant is more suitable if you want to view data from more than the last few days.
If you simply want to find out if a particular program (such as Skype) generates a lot of traffic, it is often easier to look for the process (such as skype.exe) instead. See Which Processes Generate Most IP Traffic? in the following.
Which Processes Generate Most IP Traffic?

  1. The quick overview: The Load Overview (ANALYZE > Overview > IP Traffic > Load Overview) is a pie chart that very quickly lets you find the processes that are responsible for the largest amounts of IP traffic. When you generate the pie chart, try to select Type = Processes and Data type = Load (Sent + Received Bytes).

  1. The details: The Process Traffic hotspot (ANALYZE > Overview > HotSpots > Process Traffic) provides detailed data about traffic-generating processes, and you can drill down to view details about which servers the process communicated with as well as details about which computers and user accounts ran a given process.
  2. The timing aspect: The IP Traffic by Process graph (ANALYZE > Graphs > Time View > IP Traffic by process) is ideal when you want to check if certain processes generate traffic at specific times. You can view this for all servers, for groups of servers, or for individual servers.

Which Locations Generate Most IP Traffic?
The IP Traffic by Location time view graph (ANALYZE > Graphs > Time View > IP Traffic by location) shows which locations that generated IP traffic, and when they did it. You can view this for individual servers and ports that the locations have communicated with.
The graph is also available in a trend view variant. It contains the same type of information, but the trend variant is more suitable if you want to view data from more than the last few days.
If you want to compare locations, select all the locations you require in the graph's Agents list. Don't simply select All agents because that won't let you view the traffic generated by individual locations.
Multicast Traffic
Multicast is when someone sends a single set of data packets across a network to multiple selected users at the same time. Multicast is subscription-based: Computers that want to receive multicast traffic use ICMP messages to let routers know which multicast addresses they want to subscribe to. The routers are then able to calculate which multicast messages they need to send to receivers on their different interfaces. A packet is considered a multicast packet if the destination IP address is in the range 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255.
The Multicast time view graph (ANALYZE > Graphs > Time View > Multicast Traffic) lets you view the number of sent and received UDP packets and bytes on multicast IP addresses.
You can view such numbers measured on either the sender or on the receivers of the multicast traffic.
When you view data about multicast traffic, be aware of the fact that senders will not know who receives the outgoing multicast traffic. This is because they send data to a general multicast IP address rather than to specific IP addresses of receivers and because the UDP protocol doesn't support acknowledgment of received data. Receivers, on the other hand, will know who sent the incoming multicast traffic.
This graph is useful because ... it lets you view the amount of multicast traffic on all or individual parts of your network over time. When viewed in isolation this may provide limited value, but if—for example—you know that a particular part of your network suffers from long response times, you can use this graph to quickly verify if large amounts of multicast traffic on that part of the network may contribute to the long response times.
View Multicast Traffic Measured on Sender
Use this view if you want to know about multicast traffic measured on a computer that sends multicast traffic.
In the example illustration (click thumbnail to view image in full size) sent multicast traffic is measured on the computer with the green dot:

In the example illustration sent multicast traffic is measured on the computer with the green dot:

  1. Make sure that Measured on Sender is selected.
  2. Select required multicast sender. You can only select a single sender per graph.
  3. If you want to limit your results to a particular type of multicast traffic, select required multicast group. Otherwise select All Multicast.

What's a multicast group? Multicast groups help you filter your data if you are only interested in a particular type of multicast traffic. PerformanceGuard comes with preconfigured groups for common types of multicast traffic, LLMNR and SSDP, and PerformanceGuard administrators can set up additional groups. See also Manage Multicast Groups.

  1. In the Type menu, select what you want to view on the graph: Number of sent packets per minute or second, or number of sent bytes per minute or second.
  2. In the Interval menu, select the period of time that the graph should cover. If the predefined intervals don't suit you, select Custom to specify your own interval.
  3. Click the Update button.

View Multicast Traffic Measured on Receivers
Use this view if you want to know about multicast traffic measured on selected computers that receive multicast traffic.
In the example illustration (click thumbnail to view image in full size) received multicast traffic is measured on the computers with the green dots:

In the example illustration received multicast traffic is measured on the computers with the green dots:

  1. Select Measured on Receiver.
  2. Select required multicast receivers. The receivers are grouped into locations and/or groups based on which network they belong to. If you want to know about multicast traffic received on any computer, select All agents.
  3. If required, you can use the Multicast Servers menu to limit your results by selecting a specific multicast server from which the received traffic must have been sent. The server that sent the multicast traffic doesn't have to be a server on your own network, it can also be an external one. If you want to know about multicast traffic received from any server, select All servers.

I can't select the multicast server that I want. What's wrong?  Only monitored multicast servers are listed. See Server Lists for details about monitored servers.

  1. If you want to limit your results to a particular type of multicast traffic, select required multicast group. Otherwise select All Multicast.

What's a multicast group?  Multicast groups help you filter your multicast data if you are only interested in a particular type of multicast traffic. PerformanceGuard comes with preconfigured groups for common types of multicast traffic, LLMNR and SSDP, and your PerformanceGuard administrator may have set up additional groups. See also Manage Multicast Groups.

  1. In the Type menu, select what you want to view on the graph: The number of received packets per minute or second, or the number of received bytes per minute or second.
  2. In the Interval menu, select the period of time that the graph should cover. If the predefined intervals don't suit you, select Custom to specify your own interval.
  3. Click the Update button.

Why can't I view response times for multicast traffic?  Multicast messages are unacknowledged (that is receivers don't confirm that they have received the messages). Therefore, you can't be sure of exactly when the messages were received, and therefore PerformanceGuard doesn't monitor multicast response times or multicast network transmission times.
You can also view multicast activity in a table format by selecting ANALYZE > Overview > IP Traffic > Multicast Activity. See Multicast Activity Overview.
Multicast Activity Overview
Multicast is when someone sends a single set of data packets across a network to multiple selected users at the same time. Multicast is subscription-based: Computers that want to receive multicast traffic use ICMP messages to let routers know which multicast addresses they want to subscribe to. The routers are then able to calculate which multicast messages they need to send to receivers on their different interfaces. A packet is considered a multicast packet if the destination IP address is in the range 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255.
The Multicast Activity overview (ANALYZE > Overview > IP Traffic > Multicast Activity) lets you view multicast activity in a list format.

  1. If you want to limit your results to a particular type of multicast traffic, select required multicast group. Otherwise select All Multicast.

What's a multicast group? Multicast groups help you filter your data if you are only interested in a particular type of multicast traffic. PerformanceGuard comes with preconfigured groups for common types of multicast traffic, LLMNR and SSDP, and PerformanceGuard administrators can set up additional groups. See also Manage Multicast Groups.

  1. Select required direction:
    1. Sent: Outgoing multicast traffic measured on servers that send multicast traffic.

In the example illustration (click thumbnail to view image in full size) sent multicast traffic is measured on the computer with the green dot:

    1. Received: Incoming multicast traffic measured computers that receive such data.

In the example illustration (click thumbnail to view image in full size) received multicast traffic is measured on the computers with the green dots:

  1. If required, you can limit your overview to a particular group of computers with the Agent menu:
    1. If you selected Sent in the previous step, use the menu to limit your overview to multicast traffic sent from a particular location/network
    2. If you selected Received in the previous step, use the menu to limit your overview to multicast traffic received at a particular location/network

If you don't want to limit your overview this way, select All agents.

  1. Select the required Interval (that is the period of time that you want to cover). If the predefined intervals don't suit you, select Custom to specify your own interval.
  2. If required, you can enter all or part of a server IP address to limit the search to multicast servers with that IP address.

Examples: To limit your search to a server with the IP address 192.168.40.72, specify that IP address. To limit your search to servers with an IP address that begins with 192.168.40, specify those IP address segments in the first three fields, and leave the last field blank.

  1. Click the Update button.

It may take some time to generate the list, especially if you have selected all multicast groups and all computers.
You can also view multicast activity in a graph format by selecting ANALYZE > Graphs > Time View > Multicast Traffic. See Multicast Traffic.

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