An overview of off-the-shelf tools and their applications to telecom and enterprise networking

The Internet is radically changing the field of networking. A wide variety of technologies, protocols and internetworking techniques are now available and continuously changing with the rapid developments in the Internet scenario. For example, whereas ATM was heretofore viewed as the solution for all networking problems, today increasingly there is a debate whether IP will dominate or ATM and the general consensus is that IP over ATM will be the long term networking scenario. With the rapid increase of Internet service providers worldwide and the introduction of Internet telephony, an exponential increase in networking traffic is taking place. Furthermore, cost is increasingly becoming a criterion along with mathematical performance. In spite of this reality, networking experts surprisingly continue to use rules of thumb to design networks based upon outdated systems engineering practice methodologies. This necessitates the use of networking tools in order to evaluate and study different architectures, technologies and what-if internetworking strategies. This paper is intended to be an overview and application of more than forty leading tools being used in the field of networking. The purpose of this paper is to update and inform potential users of trends in the industry by providing an overview of some of the capabilities of each tool.