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You
haven't provided much in the way of requirements.
What
network speed / utilization will you be working with? (a lightly used 100Mb
segment is way different from a heavily used one, let alone a Gig link) This
will impact your choice of NIC(s) and CPU speed.
How
much traffic will you need to capture prior to analysis? A few minutes or
part/all of a day? Entire network or communications between a small number of
machines? This will impact the amount of RAM you should
install.
In any
case, I would recommend the fastest disks you can get (for capture files as well
as paging when analyzing large traces)
I have
used very minor systems when watching very specific connections to / from a
small number of machines or connections of a very specific type (1GHz or less
and 500MB of RAM) but if you are watching all traffic on a fast & busy link,
even a 3GHz machine with 2+ G of RAM may not be able to keep up for long. And
analyzing trace files can be very slow.
One
tip, you may be able to use tcpdump (windump) to capture what you want in binary
format and then analyze it offline.
Jim
Hello,
I have a question regarding
hardware specifications. What would you consider to be the ideal amount
of memory and processor speed to run an optimal network analysis? I’m
not really sure if processor speed is an absolute requirement, but I’m
assuming that it does play some
role in stability and multitasking. By the way, the sole purpose of this
device would be simply to perform data captures during network
troubleshooting.
Thanks in
advance,
Patrick
Patrick
Krebs
Network
Engineer
Projects &
Services
Netco Gov't
Services
MCB Quantico NOC
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