The Dude Network Monitor

The Dude network monitor is a network management application. It will help you inventory and track all the devices on your network while monitoring the devices for issues. It will scan your network, detect end nodes, auto generate a network map, monitor network devices and alert when problems are found. Most Network Monitoring Software cost several hundred or even thousands of dollars but the Dude is considerably less expensive. It’s actually free! The application doesn’t come close to matching all the features of a Network management application that you would pay for, but it does a decent job.

The Dude runs on Windows XP/2000, per its documentation it is recommended to use Windows 2000 or newer. The Dude uses a client/server design, which means the software needs to be setup on a dedicated server. A client install will then need to be installed on a PC that will interact with the server. You can also just run the client on the same system that the server is setup on. The Dude is a free Network Management Application. It provides Network Administrators with tools to inventory and monitor network devices.  The Dude is a decent network monitoring tool that is worth checking out.

Some of it’s features:

• The Dude is free of charge!
• Auto network discovery and layout
• Discovers any type or brand of device
• Device, Link monitoring, and notifications
• Includes SVG icons for devices, and supports custom icons and backgrounds
• Easy installation and usage
• Allows you to draw your own maps and add custom devices
• Supports SNMP, ICMP, DNS and TCP monitoring for devices that support it
• Individual Link usage monitoring and graphs
• Direct access to remote control tools for device management
• Supports remote Dude server and local client
• Runs in Linux Wine environment, MacOS Darwine, and Windows
• Best price/value ratio compared to other products (free of charge)

Company: MikroTik
Website: http://www.mikrotik.com/thedude.php