What sorts of things can Dr. Watson do?
Dr. Watson is an integrated collection of tools. Some of these tools are enhanced versions of those which TCP/IP experts have found useful through the years. Other tools in Dr. Watson are new, not found anywhere else. Dr. Watson’s “detective” module locates other devices on the network and builds a database of their addresses, names, protocol characteristics, and operational mis-behaviour. All of this information is visible on the screen and is recorded for subsequent review in flat text files. One of Dr. Watson’s most basic functions gives the user a means to view the traffic passing on the network. The purpose of this function is not to eliminate the need for a packet monitor (see question 4), but rather, to allow the user to quickly find out whether the LAN is carrying traffic at all and to do a quick “by eye” characterization of the traffic. Dr. Watson gives the user a suite of “reachability” tests.
