What is PRTG?

PRTG is network-monitoring software that can run on a Windows machine within your network and it can collect statistics from designated hosts such as routers, servers, switches and other important devices or applications. The benefit of network-management software is that it can detect problems before they deteriorate into faults and by alerting these problems to a network administrator, many costly service outages can be avoided. Furthermore, RPTG is free for small businesses tracking less than 25 devices.

prtg

Many small business networks do not install network-monitoring applications, as they are sometimes considered complicated, unnecessary and/or expensive. However, network monitoring can prevent expensive loss of service, such as company email or failure of the company e-commerce website. Furthermore, network monitoring is no longer expensive, complex and complicated to install and configure. PRTG in particular is easy to deploy and operate, hence its popularity in SMB environments.

What makes PRTG particularly user-friendly is that it will auto-discover the devices on the network and auto-configure them. PRTG will then poll these devices via your choice of SNMP, WMI, packet sniffing , Net flow, jflow, sflow, or IPFIX. PRTG’s easy to use web-interface and point-and-click configuration make it suitable for both real time troubleshooting or for sharing data with non-technical staff via online graphs and custom reports.

The way PRTG works is by using sensors, which are individual monitoring entities configured for a specific purpose. For example, there are HTTP, SMTP/POP3 (email) application sensors as well as hardware specific sensors for switches, routers and servers. PRTG has over 200 pre-configured sensor types that poll statistics from the monitored entities, such as response times, processor/memory/bandwidth usage.

Network-monitoring software is an important administrative tool when it comes to operating and maintaining a network, regardless of the size as often there are few symptoms or warnings prior to a network outage. PRTG can track system anomalies and provide early warnings to potentially calamitous network events thereby giving the administrator sufficient time to take corrective action.

2 thoughts on “What is PRTG?”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top