Recommendation for network traffic monitoring?

Hi, all! I'm looking for some suggestions on free software that I can use to monitor internet traffic usage with here at the office. We have fairly limited bandwidth (T1) and it often gets saturated by users streaming audio, video, YouTube, and stuff like automatic update tools (Roxio comes to mind) that insist on downloading updates. Packet level would be good to determine which services are being utilized the most, but no real packet sniffing per se.

Can't pay for enterprise-level applications, so free is better.

Thanks!

 

Hmm.

What I would suggest is Wireshark to start.
Also, have you tried possibly setting up blocking for those sites with streaming media instead of trying to monitor the bandwidth?

Just a thought.

 

Thanks for replying!

I've considered WireShark, and plan to set it up on a laptop and connect it on the VLAN that our firewall is on.

The way the corp structure works here I have to supply hard evidence of the usage levels by service before upper management will allow blocking. I also need to be able to look at the traffic as a whole to see if there's something like a updated taking the bandwidth versus someone's stream. We currently have an ISA Server 2k6 w/WebSense, but the freakin' thing is basically down and WebSense can't figure it out, so I want to get back to basics with something that is proven and works until I can get the ISA Server working.

 

Hmm,

I understand what ya mean now Solo. Um, I don't know specifically of any applications to do that, but i'm sure that there's someone in here that may.

Best of luck.

 

do you have a firewall in place?

 

solar winds