Friday, August 31, 2007

Network Detection Methods

Been awhile since my last post, been caught up with a million things here and there.

Recently I have been trying to figure out a way to detect on a network when certain devices are actively connected to the network. Reason for this is when users need to know when a certain devices is sending and receiving data (especially when we are talking about mission-critical devices - such as metal detection, programmable ovens, etc). Nothing is worse when a user "thinks" that the device is sending data only to find out that it didn't and must redo the entire job again. This not only wastes time, but obviously wastes money.

All this is assuming that the device being used has an internal ethernet adapter or is using wireless.

FREEping is a free software that pings any IP and keeps track of it through time. By pinging a certain device at regular intervals you will know whether or not the device is connected or not. Users can simply view the monitor and know right away. I'm sure there is other ping software out there, but this one does the job well enough.

Another solution which is better is to have some sort of LED light on the outside of the device indicating the connection is good, but of course this usually has to be custom implemented if it wasn't already built-in to the device to begin with, which equals more money. But is a better indicator.

Either way, both solutions work fine and I can finally get this little issue out of the way.

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