How can we monitor data transfer speed on Windows server?
Q: We need to know what network throughput (data transfer speed) our Windows server can use. How that can be done?
A: IPHost Network Monitor, since version 3.5, offers WMI Traffic Speed monitor. Here is the sequence of its setup:
WMI Traffic Speed monitor description
Start New Monitor wizard and select Traffic category -> WMI Traffic Speed monitor:
On the next screen select host name and, if necessary, mark the checkbox on whether to start monitor upon creation.
On the third screen set the monitor’s parameters. Note that we only will explain monitor type-specific settings; all the rest are common settings for monitors, explained in online help.
First, select network interface to measure traffic volume for. Click Select button to the right of Interface Name value to see the entire list of interfaces reported by WMI:
The list usually contain several interfaces. You need to select one with an IP address assigned. Run ‘ipconfig /all’ command in cmd.exe on the target host to be sure you selected the appropriate interface.
Program will prefill Interface Bandwidth (network interface speed capacity). However, you can change that value if required. If this is set to zero, a value of 1 will be used.
Show as drop-down list allows you to choose how to display the measured traffic speed: as percentage of Interface Bandwidth (default), in kilobit/s or megabit/s.
Measure traffic drop-down list allows you to measure all (incoming and outgoing) traffic speed (by default), incoming or outgoing only.
An administrative credentials should be used to access WMI data.
WMI and SNMP monitoring
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is de facto standard protocol used to request information from network devices and/or control their certain functions. In case of Windows you can use either WMI or SNMP traffic volume monitors. The choice is entirely up to you; if you have a heterogeneous network, SNMP method can be used for uniformity, since WMI is Windows-only means.
Note: you need to explicitly enable SNMP Services on Windows computer you need to monitor (via Add/Remove Windows Components). Don’t forget to right-click on the services to set up required parameters such as community names. Please refer to Net-SNMP documentation on the meaning of those settings.
The two methods to monitor traffic volume can return slightly different results, due to many a difference of measurement approaches.
