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How to monitor computer/devices on a business network for abuse of Bandwidth and IP Registrations?

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I am working in an office building running on T1 through a Cisco Router.
We have many computers and even more VOIP telephones.

On a few occasions, there were clients that were sharing resources and abusing bandwidth. Eventually they crashed the router and knocked down the internet for the entire building.

The router we are using is leased by the service provider and access was not granted to us to manage it. I know i’ts ip but I cannot access it’s settings page through my browser. I am not an IT but acting as one on this project.

I need to find a program or service that can simply and easily list all the devices on the network and display their usage of IP connections and total bandwidth.

A big plus would be something that can limit both to a reasonable number / amount per client.

I have looked through a few here and there. I tried Spiceworks but that only gives you the IP, MAC, and Name of a device at the most. Depending on the device it may show more such as manufacturer, serial number, OS, etc. Sadly it does not show any usage information about bandwidth and IP addresses its connecting to.

I heard about websense and may consider using it. The only issue with this program is that it requires a host machine running on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008.
I basically have a computer running on everything but those two.

Please any suggestions? I need something that I can eveluate right now.
I do NOT have access to other computer’s or devices on the network because again, this is an office building with tennants using their own computers.

Thanks in advance!

2 Answers



  1. Grimace on Dec 24, 2011

    You should look into Fluke Networks Visual UpTime Select System. They use an appliance (called an ASE) that sits on your LAN. It looks at all the traffic passing through (you can put it between your enterprise switch and the leased router or you can use port mirroring). You use their software to capture and/or look at your LAN traffic any way you can imagine.

    Here is a shortcut to their products page:
    http://www.visualnetworksystems.com/ASE



  2. adaviel on Dec 24, 2011

    I’m not sure it’s possible, without access to the individual machines. You can discover connected devices with e.g. nmap and arpping.
    You could put another device inline downstream or upstream of the Cisco, if you are allowed to. There may be such a simple device sold as a network tap.


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