protocol analyser

protocol analyser

(communications, hardware, networking, testing, tool)Anydevice that captures and interprets the network trafficbetween two or more connected computer systems. The trafficcan then be decoded so that it is possible to see whatprocesses are occurring.

By examining the flow of traffic, protocol analysers can beused to find out where problems (such as bottlenecks or thefailure of a network device) are on a LAN.

Advanced protocol analysers can also provide statistics onthe traffic that can help to identify trends that may infuture lead to further problems with the network.