NetBrain vs. Wireshark

Great for our large global environment. Works well with our legacy and newer equipment. Ease of install was exciting compared to other products we POC'd. Less of a learning curve when training Teams on how to monitor and troubleshoot while in production. Service desk were able to capture the logs and load into our ticketing system with ease.

I don't know of any other tool that works as well as Wireshark for packet capture an inspection. It's extremely easy to get up and running, and even with little to no knowledge of how to use the tool, you can be looking at all the traffic coming off a network interface.

• Network Issues Troubleshooting
• Visualizing the root cause using color coding
• out of the box runbooks available

• Light-weight software - Does not require high end specifications; also runs smoothly on Legacy systems
• Filter function - Lets you filter you packets from thousands to tens so as to find your target much easily
• Simultaneous capturing on all the network adapters - You can capture packets from all the Network Interface Cards (NIC's) at once.

• Not all devices are integrated with the same quality.
• Not all steps are self-explaining.
• The updates were difficult (but thanks to the help of support no real problem).

• A more user-friendly interface would be nice, but then again it is not really designed for those who are not quite comfortable with this type of software.
• Changes to functionality on updates - this can sometimes happen unexpectedly and can be an annoyance.
• More powerful data processing would be welcomed

I give Wireshark a 10 for usability because it is very usable. Just about anyone can capture packets within a few seconds of opening the program. The analysis is a science but as far as just using Wireshark; it's very easy.

I don't believe Wireshark has "true" support as the software is open source. However, there is an active & friendly community around Wireshark that are more than happy to help answer questions. From a comprehensive Wiki and FAQ section on the site to the Ask a Question forum and bug tracker section, there's plenty of support options to make sure your questions and issues are addressed.

Simple and easy setup.

The others were cumbersome, slow and there is a huge learning curve for the installation, configuration and just daily monitoring. NetBrain was the easiest of all to setup then let it run and build our network and map it out. Once it was complete, we immediately identified several circuit issues that we were unaware of within our network. With the maps and information gained, we were able to present to [management] and prove a case that we needed larger circuits in several areas.

Wireshark is a free tool that came highly recommended by one of our former network security consultants. Using the tool he was able to resolve all of our higher tier network tickets, so we observed first hand why we needed to add Wireshark into our toolset. We received in-depth instruction and training scenarios that demonstrated the effectiveness and power of the product, so we didn't spend any time reviewing competing products.

• Enhanced Network troubleshooting for our Network tea
• Out of the box pre-build runbook reports with all required details
• Additional cost for troubleshooting feature

• Identifying bugs in the network has never been smooth and near-perfect.
• Wireshark has made sure our equipment and software is working properly via analyzing network data.
• Analysis of IP packets and Sip call flaws has saved us a lot of time and confident result.