Networks can sometimes be like closets; they start out completely organized, but then over time as items are added and stuff gets moved around, pretty soon you end up with a bit of a mess, with items that may or may not be working – or needed. This is why network management applications can be so useful — they help you inventory and track all the devices on your network while watching out for network problems that may occur.
This kind of software typically costs several hundred dollars or more, but Latvian networking hardware and software maker MikroTik'sThe Dude is considerably less expensive than that. In fact, it's free, and while the oddly-named utility ("Dude, Where's My Network?") doesn't have even close to the same level of polish as network monitoring tools you have to pay for, it can do a decent job, provided you're willing to spend time figuring out its idiosyncratic interface and experimenting with its features.
The Dude runs on Windows (Vista, XP, or 2000), MacOS X, or Linux using a client/server design, which means the server component runs in the background on a PC while you interact with the server using a separate client utility. Since The Dude supports both local and remote connections, you can run the client on the same system as the server or any other system on the network. The Secure connections are also possible when connecting remotely.
Network Mapping. Monitoring, and Notification
When you fire up The Dude network monitor for the first time, it automatically detects any existing subnets and begins scanning them. Detected devices are then probed to determine which of more than a dozen IP-based services they support (like NetBIOS, HTTP, FTP, etc.), but you can add your own probes for any services that aren't already pre-configured.
After The Dude completes its discovery process, the results are plotted as icons on a map grid. Mousing over a device's icon brings up a pop-up dialog which provides a lot of useful information at a glance, including which of its services are up, down, or unstable, as well as a graph that displays the device's network activity for the past hour.
The Dude's network maps are highly adjustable, and you easily can change their layouts and the orientation of devices. If you have a mouse with a wheel you can use it to zoom in or out of the map, and for crowded networks an adjacent birds-eye view lets you navigate large maps by quickly navigating to a particular section.
Right-clicking a device on the map brings up a tools menu that allows you to make contact with the device in a number of ways, ranging from ping to FTP or telnet connections. For devices that run RouterOS (MikroTik's proprietary network operating system), you can also do things like check bandwidth to a device or monitor its traffic in real-time.
When a monitored device goes offline, its network map icon turns red. The Dude can issue notifications when this occurs, but it doesn't do so by default (other than to post entries to an event log). Other supported notification methods include sending e-mails, playing sounds, or presenting pop-up warnings (no pager or SMS support). The notification option must be individually enabled and configured on a per-device basis; it would have been nice to have an automatic default alert if any network device went incommunicado, but we couldn't find a way to configure that.
