Network monitoring is a complex task that generally requires the use of different tools for specific purposes.

That’s why there is a specific tool that has been crafted with flexibility in mind. Called PaQueT, it is designed to meet a wide range of monitoring needs.

 PaQueT’s strengths and weaknesses are delved into throughout an extensive white paper, entitled “A Flexible Network Monitoring Tool Based on a Data Stream Management System” by Natascha Petry Ligocki of the Carmem S. Hara Departamento de Informatica, Universidade Federal do Parana, Curitiba-PR, Brazil.

By using PaQueT, someone can define metrics as queries in a process similar to writing queries on a database management system, according to the author: “This approach provides an easy mechanism to adapt the tool as system requirements evolve. PaQueT allows one to monitor values ranging from packet level metrics to those usually provided only by tools based on Net- flow or SNMP.”

PaQueT has been developed as an extension of Borealis Data Stream Management System, as the paper’s author explains: “The first advantage of our approach is the ability to generate measurements in real time, minimizing the volume of data stored; second, the tool can be easily extended to consider several types of network protocols.”

As Ligocki says, one advantage of their approach is that it is “generic and extensible to support a number of protocols. Measurements are defined by constructing queries over a predefined input schema, which describes the structure of packets in the incoming traffic.”

As a consequence, then the network administrator does not have to master several monitoring tools to obtain the desired metrics, but may be able to define them using a single query language. Moreover, data can be analyzed in real time, as opposed to the majority of other network monitoring tools.