Summary

This watch type is for sending a small and receiving amount of information, a packet, to a specified URL or IP address with results analyzed by WebWatchBot.  This watch type also provides details on the Response Time, success and failure of the ping.

How does it work?

• The Ping Watch Type will send a small amount of data (32 bytes), a packet, to the specific IP address or URL once.  The Watch Type collects the response time and/or failure from this test. 
• The Watch Type can be configured to send a specific number of echo requests.  By default, 3 echo requests are sent.
• The response time recorded is an average of the all of the echo requests.
• If one echo request fails, then the entire run is considered to have failed.

Functionality

• Response Time – the amount of time that it takes for a packet to make a round-trip
• Reports errors
• Packet loss or other failure
• Destination unreachable.
• Timeout

Why Use this Watch Type?

The Ping Watch Type is often used to determine if a bottleneck or network problem exists by sending small packets of information to the specified location.  The two measurements are Response Time - the amount of time that it takes for the packet to make a round-trip - and Packet Loss - the amount of data lost in that round trip.  A sustained increase in Response Time or an increase in Packet Loss indicates a problem with the network connection including the hardware in-between.   A periodic increase in response time and packet loss, for example during business hours, may suggest that there is network congestion.

What to monitor

Use the Ping Watch Type to test several points in the network:  First, ping your internal connection to the network, e.g. your router that connects to your network provider.  Second, ping the router on your network provider’s network.  Third, ping your provider’s network connection to the Internet backbone.  You may also want to set up a Ping Watch Type to check other service providers.  It won’t indicate a problem with the other service providers, but it will alert you to your network provider having a problem reaching them.

Ping Settings

Fields and Buttons

Number of echo requests to send

Specifies the number of echo requests (packet requests) to send to the remote host.  Similar to the command line Windows "ping", WebWatchBot will send the number of specified requests.  The default value is 3.

If one echo request fails all considered to have failed

If one of the echo requests fails, then the Watch Item will fail.  This option is not recommended for Watch Items that are monitoring remote hosts outside of your local network because network congestion can cause some false failures.