What is PRTG?

The PRTG monitoring software runs on Windows machines within a network and it can collect statistics from devices or applications like routers, servers, switches, and other important devices. The benefit of network-management software is that it can detect problems before they develop into faults, and by alerting a network administrator, many costly service outages can be prevented. For small businesses tracking fewer than 25 devices, RPTG is free.

Many small business networks do not install monitoring software because it is considered difficult, unnecessary and/or expensive. Monitoring can prevent expensive service losses, such as a failure of the company's e-commerce website or email. As a result, network monitoring is no longer expensive, complex, or complicated to install and configure. Its popularity in SMB environments is due to the ease of deployment and operation of PRTG.

A key feature that makes PRTG particularly user-friendly is that it automatically discovers and configures network devices. PRTG will then poll these devices using your choice of SNMP, WMI, packet sniffing, Net flow, jflow, sflow, or IPFIX. PRTG's easy-to-use web interface and point-and-click configuration make it suitable both for real-time troubleshooting and to share data with non-technical staff via online graphs and custom reports.

PRTG is based on sensors, which are monitoring entities configured for a specific purpose. HTTP, SMTP/POP3 (email) application sensors and hardware specific sensors are available, for example, for switches, routers and servers. Over 200 pre-configured sensor types collect statistics from monitored entities, such as response times, processor/memory/bandwidth utilization.

When it comes to operating and maintaining a network, network monitoring software is an important administrative tool, regardless of its size, since many times there are no warning signs or symptoms prior to a network outage. Using PRTG, administrators can track system anomalies and receive early warnings to potentially catastrophic network events, giving them sufficient time to correct the problem.