Monitoring WAN Latency

As a WAN (wide area network) is distributed over a large geographical region - normally across countries or even continents - the data packets need more time to travel through the network: this is why WAN latency tends to be higher than latency in local area networks. In many cases WAN latency affects WAN performance: many applications are slow or do not work at all for users far away from the data centers.

Check WAN Latency Using PRTG Network Monitor

With PRTG Network Monitor (a real time network traffic monitor), you can stay on top of all your WAN connections and check WAN latency, as well as check bandwidth usage and identify network traffic across your WAN network. This helps you to allocate resources correspondingly, to prioritize certain types of traffic (e.g. for applications that are critical for your business processes), and to react proactively to any issues affecting your WAN network.

PRTG uses remote probes, which allow you to monitor your entire WAN with just one installation of the software. The only condition is that there needs to be a permanent connection between your probes (the software agents doing the monitoring in the different locations) and the PRTG core server (only short offline-periods are supported).

PRTG's flexible alerting system lets you configure an unlimited number of alarms that warn you if WAN latency is getting too high, if net bandwidth congestion is likely to occur, or if anything else in your LAN or WAN needs your attention. This way, you can rest assured that everything is running smoothly as long as PRTG does not send you any messages. Moreover, you will be able to troubleshoot many WAN network issues before users even notice them.

The PRTG WAN Monitoring Software also offers advanced reporting features and a versatile maps feature which enables you to graphically visualize your entire WAN network.

Paessler also offers software for load tests: WebServer Stress Tool.