Topic Options
#3612 - 03/11/20 10:14 AM Hardware on Network
Serg Offline


Registered: 03/10/20
Posts: 2
Hello, I am hoping you guys can help us with a problem that started for us about past 3 months ago. All of sudden all devices would experience major drops in speed that would last maybe a minute or so. People would report how accessing files stored on our cloud storage seemed to take longer then usual at times and others would report a low bandwith error on the VoIP phones at random times.

We have tested all the fiber cables connecting all the switches, replaced switches that we thought were bad, replaced ethernet hubs that seemed outdated, had our ISP come out and test the modem, updated firmware on our switches. Pretty much it feels we have exhausted everything we know we can do.

We have about 12-15 switches, various bridges and wireless access points throughout our company. There's probably about 100 or so computers, and 70 or VoIP phones. There's 2 SQL servers on site and our file storage is in the cloud.

I've started both PingPlotter and Multiping yesterday and it is continuing to run throughout the day. I've looked at the data it got over night and it's hard to tell based on what I am seeing but it seems the problem is internal. How can I pinpoint if there is a single device that is causing this?

Thank you


Edited by Serg (03/11/20 10:28 AM)

Top
#3613 - 03/11/20 12:50 PM Re: Hardware on Network [Re: Serg]
Hayla Offline
Pingman Staff


Registered: 10/16/17
Posts: 90
Hey Serg,

Thanks for getting in touch!

That sounds pretty frustrating, but I bet PingPlotter can help with that! You'll need to know a bit of background first - PingPlotter uses traceroute to provide results. For this reason, you can absolutely perform a PingPlotter trace to a device you're having troubles with, and you should be able to monitor it with no problem. However, if the only thing between you and the problem device are switches, those switches won't decrement TTLs, even if they have IP addresses, because the switches will probably be operating on layer 2 - so the switches won't show up in your traceroute. However, you can pinpoint them directly if they have an IP address (they just won't show up if traffic is going through them because of that multilayer functionality).

So, what does this mean for you? If you're having trouble on your LAN getting to other devices, I would recommend tracing to the device you're having troubles with. See how many hops show up in between you and the device, and then add some direct traces to any multilayer switches that might not have shown up in the PingPlotter trace. This should help you get eyes on every point of your network - and you should be able to narrow down from there where the poorly responding device is. You can also copy this strategy if you're having problems with the Internet - all the way up to your edge device.

Feel free to send us share pages if you wish via File -> Share -> Create Share Page. We're always happy to take a look!
_________________________
Regards,
Hayla

Top
#3614 - 03/11/20 01:30 PM Re: Hardware on Network [Re: Hayla]
Serg Offline


Registered: 03/10/20
Posts: 2
Thanks for the reply. I think we might have gotten the issue resolved. I left Multiping running through the night and when I listed the data by highest packet loss percentage two IP addresses stuck out as the highest one's for some reason. We decided to look those up and saw that they were Mikrotik bridges. As soon as we unplugged them from the switch, it seems that the issue has been resolved.

I am no longer seeing a consistent packet loss like I did last time. Including sample images so others might learn from this. With PingPlotter I pinged google.com and then the other IP address were some of the cisco switches that are scattered around our network.

Only thing I would love to understand is why these bridges caused the whole network to bog down. We have other Mikrotik bridges else where, and they are fine. I do recall a Mikrotik wireless AP that started to reassign IP addresses to computers that were connected to a switch.

I am continuing to let both programs run at the moment so I can't share the data yet.

Thank you guys, both of these tools are exactly what I was looking for networking administration. Powerful yet, user friendly.


Attachments
A-Ping Plotter - Pre-fix - 6 Hour.png (61 downloads)
B-Ping Plotter - Post-fix - 1 Hour.png (97 downloads)


Top

Search

Who's Online
0 registered (), 17 Guests and 1 Spider online.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod