<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: Welcome to PRTG Network Monitor

Welcome to PRTG Network Monitor! You have chosen an easy-to-use software product that comes with a powerful set of features to monitor your entire network.

A PRTG Network Monitor Standard Installation

A PRTG Network Monitor Standard Installation

Why Network Monitoring is Important

Today, nearly every business relies on a computer and network infrastructure for internet, internal management, telephone, and email. A complex set of servers and network equipment is required to ensure that business data flows seamlessly between employees, offices, and customers. The economic success of an organization is tightly connected to a hitch-free flow of data.

That's why your computer network has to work successfully: reliability, speed, and efficiency are crucial. But, like all other technical objects, network devices may fail from time to time—potentially causing trouble and loss of sales, no matter what migration efforts have been made up-front.

So network administrators need to take three key steps to maintain network uptime, reliability, and speed:

  1. Set up a well-planned network with reliable components.
  2. Create recovery plans for the event of device failure.
  3. Monitor the network to get informed about failures when they build up or actually happen.

PRTG Network Monitor, the software described in this document, is a complete solution for monitoring small, medium, and large networks.

Monitoring Networks with PRTG Network Monitor

PRTG Network Monitor is a powerful network monitoring application for Windows-based systems. It is suitable for small, medium, and large networks and capable of LAN, WAN, WLAN, and VPN monitoring. You can also monitor physical or virtual web, mail, and file servers, Linux systems, Windows clients, routers, and many more.

PRTG monitors network availability and bandwidth usage, as well as various other network parameters such as quality of service, memory load, and CPU usages, even on remote machines. PRTG provides system administrators with live readings and periodical usage trends to optimize the efficiency, layout, and setup of leased lines, routers, firewalls, servers, and other network components.

The software is easy to set up and use and monitors a network using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), packet sniffer, Cisco NetFlow (as well as IPFIX, sFlow, and jFlow), and many other industry standard protocols. It runs on a Windows-based machine in your network for 24 hours every day. PRTG Network Monitor constantly records the network usage parameters and the availability of network systems. The recorded data is stored in an internal database for later analysis.


icon-playDo you want to get an overview of PRTG in 90 seconds? See this video on our website: PRTG Network Monitor in 90 Seconds


Video Demo: PRTG Network Monitor in 90 Seconds

Video Demo: What is Unified Monitoring?


Introduction Topics