As noted in section 2.1 above, there are very real technological issues that make it difficult for packet-sniffing solutions to scale for high traffic sites. 3.5 Support for Distributed Networks and Outsourced Web Sites One of the latest trends in the IT environment is to manage systems remotely or have them hosted by a service provider. The use of log files allows easy traffic analysis of remote or hosted sites. A corporation s traffic analysis and eBusiness Intelligence solution should be able to automatically transfer data to a separate system and perform the analysis from there with no impact on the production server. No Additional Impact on Network Resources Network traffic is rarely even and frequently occurs in bursts.
Traffic haphazardly bursting past the network is more difficult to catch than a smooth stream.
Streaming media and graphic files are some of the worst hogs of network traffic, quickly gobbling up resources so each page can be served quickly and efficiently. Packet-sniffers grab and copy specified packets, and then forward the copies to the database. In some cases they may also copy all network packets before forwarding them across the network to a central storage area, forcing the LAN to carry excess amounts of data. As traffic bursts past a sniffer may be unable to grab all of the packets, or may successfully capture all the data but turn around and burden the strapped network further by re-sending gather packets across the LAN for storage. By contrast, a packet collection client must be compatible with the OS of the web server.