The Capsa Network Analyzer – a true help for networking professionals
Colasoft’s Network Analyzer named “Capsa” is a software that helps to monitor and troubleshoot the network in internet and intranet. It achieves this by analyzing the information in and out of the network. Capsa monitors the network by identifying the use of bandwidth and traffic of the data being transferred. This is achieved by counting the number of packets and sizes of the packets in the network.
The traffic is monitored by tracking network congestion where data flow is small. The data to be transferred between 2 computers is split into packets and sent from the source system to the destination system. The Capsa Network Analyzer can function as a packet sniffer, capturing and decoding these packets: in layman’s terms, you can say it reads the packet; thus making it easier to isolate the problem. It can also track acknowledgements on receiving the packets and retransmissions between the source and destination systems.
Capsa also analyzes protocols like HTTP abbreviated as hyper text transfer protocol requests, SMTP or mail transfer protocols, file transfers and domain network services that translate the domain of the destination from user friendly data to IP address which a computer can understand and vice versa. It can be used to identify incorrect configurations for gateway, by tracking the connectivity between the source and destination systems. Gateway is the router that connects the system to the internet or intranet and servers. Capsa can also be used to track security breaches. By monitoring the file transfers one can track transfer of unauthorized files.
Filters can also be set using the Capsa Network analyzer in order to locate and identify problems in the network. But unless the user knows where to locate the problem and sets the filter accordingly, Capsa will not identify the problem by itself. The results are provided in a user friendly manner such that any user with some network knowledge can understand. It displays the packet decoding information in Hex, ASCII and EBCDIC codes and of course one can choose the mode of his results. Results are also displayed in graphs helping one to read the results easily.
Though internet is used by nearly everyone, Capsa requires the user to have some technical knowledge of networking. It can be best suited for business than individual users. It is definitely of great use to networking professionals.
