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SolarWinds offers several performance tools, from a simple availability monitor, WatchIT, which sits on the edge of the desktop reporting via color changes and WAV files dropped packets and response failures, to the Network Performance utility, a full-blown historical performance collection engine with a Microsoft Access database.

The Router CPU Load feature tracks router and switch CPU load, reporting average, minimum, maximum and real-time values. Devices can be saved in groups, and the group can be reloaded so you can quickly check on an entire set of devices. The one thing we didn't like is that, though the peaks are saved, the actual value of the peak is not displayed.

At the high end of the performance application spectrum is the Network Performance tool. This is more like an application than a utility. It tracks interface performance, sends alerts on out-of-threshold violations and lets you create a baseline. Network Performance is the monitoring star of SolarWinds. There are summary charts for response time, load, utilization and errors. These are available separately, specifically for each monitored interface.

With brute force and a slap, SolarWinds makes quick security checks. A dictionary-driven brute-force function tries every password in the dictionary, checking router and switch SNMP communities and CLI (command-line interface) passwords. We ran a check on our simple, Alzheimer's-inspired passwords (at least I think we did), and SolarWinds let us pass. So we threw it a bone and created a "public" password, but no catch by SolarWinds. So we laid down in the middle of the road with the community "public," and voilˆ, SolarWinds picked it off. Hey, it's about the dictionary--the bigger the better.

Another security tool, the Router Password Decrypt, decrypted Cisco Type 7 passwords successfully, though other types were not decrypted. Finally, with the Remote TCP Session Reset utility, we took great pleasure in jerking the rug out from under the troglodyte who continually leaves telnet sessions up in our lab (well, we enjoyed it until we fell on our asses ourselves).

SolarWinds has more address-related tools than any of the other products we tested, ranging from ping sweep to MAC (Media Access Control), IP and TCP/UDP services. In addition to device discovery, SolarWinds has DNS Audit, IP Address Management, Subnet Calculator and DHCP Scope Monitor utilities. All in all, it offers a great set of tools to find what's on the network and related addresses and names.

The IP Address Management tool tracks addresses and determines whether they are being used, when they were last used, if they are available and response time to pings. For devices supporting SNMP, machine, type, name and location are also displayed.

The Subnet Calculator, besides doing the obvious, queries a host to determine its running mask. Guess what the MIB Browser does? Right: It performs table and specific OID (object identifier) gets, with textual explanations. MIB queries can be loaded into separate windows, making comparison easier. But, alas, there's no set access and no MIB compiler. Actually, a separate and included tool, Update System MIB, will change system name, location and contact fields. SolarWinds plans on adding a compiler in a future release.

The MIB Walker is nice, performing get nexts until the MIBs supported by a device are completely discovered. Be careful though--not only can this take more than a couple of minutes, we have seen it drive up CPU utilization. SolarWinds offers a good, not great, MIB browser (Castle Rock's SNMPc has the best MIB browser).

SolarWinds is the only product we tested to include router and switch configuration management; we downloaded and stored Cisco configurations. Also included is a differing application that will check what's stored against what is running. A TFTP server is also provided, to allow for upload of router and switch images and configurations.

The Traffic Generator, as its name suggests, generates random traffic, with variable packet size and either automatic interframe gap or user-selectable interframe gap. From your laptop you aren't going to bring the network down, but you'll do some damage (not that we ever have).

We don't like that SolarWinds lacks a centralized database. We know, we know: We said the products had to be quick and easy to be included in our tests, but after adding the same addresses in two of three places, a little data sharing is in order. SolarWinds claims it will create a single database with a new discovery engine later this year.

SolarWinds Engineers Edition version 1.1.329, $995. SolarWinds.Net, (918) 307-8100; fax (918) 307-8080. www.solarwinds.net