LinkRunner G2 is a favorite of operators and maintenance personnel! See how NETSCOUT creates the "measurement" in the network testing industry

[51CTO.com original article] In recent years, I have clearly felt that office buildings are becoming more and more "intelligent". This does not only mean that buildings provide basic services such as wired and wireless comprehensive coverage, unified communications, and video conferencing for office enterprises, but also that lighting systems, video surveillance systems, and building intercom systems have become intelligent: employees can remotely control the company's lighting equipment to adjust the lights, video surveillance through POE power supply not only enjoys high bandwidth but also saves energy and reduces emissions, building intercom signals are more stable, and information transmission is more convenient... Even in smart parking lots, people can know the parking status of parking spaces in advance, and mobile payment is more convenient.

Of course, from another perspective, as a platform for information aggregation, resource sharing, and comprehensive data management, the complexity of the network environment operation of smart buildings can be imagined. Once the network operation of smart buildings fails, how to locate and eliminate network faults in the first place becomes particularly critical. In fact, there are many industries that have the same confusion as smart buildings, such as public living facilities, energy, transportation, smart cities, education, medical care, and finance, which all need support for network testing work on a daily basis.

As the saying goes, "If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools." To fully and efficiently test the network, of course, you must first have a sufficiently powerful network testing tool. As a professional IT media, I will not spend a lot of space here to discuss with you the large number of free and low-threshold network testing apps on the market. What I got is the new product of NETSCOUT, known as the "network testing standard" - LinkRunner G2. With it, network testing in a complex environment with multiple connections such as smart buildings becomes easy, efficient, and simple.

Let me first show you the LinkRunner G2’s “small size but great intelligence”, and then I’ll show you how LinkRunner G2 performs in complex network environments!

After acquiring Fluke in 2015, the LinkRunner G2 was redesigned to a more friendly green shell based on Fluke's original style. This made many people feel familiar.

The network testing industry has both strength and appearance

NETSCOUT's newly launched LinkRunner G2 is a PoE, copper cable, and fiber optic Ethernet tester based on the Android operating system. It can not only test 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet, but also test 100/1000Base-X fiber optic Ethernet, and perform PoE real load testing based on the TruePower patent. It is worth mentioning that this test supports 4-pair power supply detection of 51-watt UPOE under load.

Through the familiar Android operating interface, LinkRunner G2 simplifies installation and troubleshooting workflows, significantly improving network operation efficiency.

In my opinion, the biggest feature of LinkRunner G2 Smart Network Tester is that it uses the Android operating system (this is the first in the world!). Because it uses the Android operating system, users can install different apps on the G2 as auxiliary tools, support WiFi and Bluetooth expansion, and automatically upload test results to the Link-Live cloud service, which greatly improves work efficiency. Of course, another advantage of using the Android operating system is that it is easy to get started! Even a non-testing professional like me can quickly get started after a short period of study.

In LinkRunner G2, you can install various Android applications and widgets as needed to improve work efficiency.

The photo taking function is very practical. If you encounter a network problem that the inspector is not sure about, you can send the photo to the remote engineer in real time to help solve it. You can also record video!

LinkRunner G2 has abundant interfaces, including optical fiber, POR, and USB interfaces on the top, MICRO SD card and MICRO USB interfaces on the right, and an RJ45 cable interface on the right. WiFi, Bluetooth, and low-power Bluetooth BLE functions are also optional.

Three criteria for evaluating network testing tools: fast, accurate, and efficient

Now that we have learned about the test tools, let's see what LinkRunner G2 can do! I first used my office network cable to do a preliminary test. After plugging in the network cable, I clicked the green icon on the main interface of LinkRunner G2. In just ten seconds, information about my office network appeared on the main screen.

As you can see, the main test page consists of three parts: switch, automatic test, and cable.

Let's take a look at the switch first. LinkRunner G2 can determine the brand and model of the switch closest to the network cable based on the network information, as well as the chassis, slots and ports, IP address, duplex and speed (actual and designed), communication mode for sending and receiving operations, such as HDx or FDx, etc. If there is POE power supply, it will also display the PoE voltage and power (actual and tested limit).

Now let's look at the most important automatic test function of LinkRunner G2. Since the office building where I work has not yet fully implemented POE power supply, the first item of the automatic test shows that POE is not detected (if POE power supply is supported, this item can quickly find the problem). The information below shows the link rate of the network, DHIP IP address allocation, DNS verification, gateway router verification and other information.

The editor also reminds everyone that if the link parameters to be tested change, the tester can also define the configuration test file by himself. It is very easy to modify the configuration. For multi-branch offices with relatively scattered network sites, this function is very practical. It ensures that the tester performs different tests for different network environments.

Another point worth mentioning is that the one at the bottom of the screen is a very practical feature provided by LinkRunner G2. Link-Live Cloud Service is a free online system for everyone to upload reports. It is used to collect, track, organize and report connection test results. After registering and configuring the user's LinkRunner G2, the test results can be automatically uploaded. If you are interested, you can visit Link-Live.com to create a user account and log in for the first time. At that time, a pop-up window will appear, prompting the user to register the device and select LinkRunner G2.

Small body but great wisdom!

It is not enough to just do these basic functional tests. The editor found a building in Maliandao Tea City through a friend and wanted to try whether LinkRunner G2 can solve the problems in actual applications.

The building that the editor contacted has been built for more than ten years, and began to carry out intelligent building transformation in September 2017. The building has only one information department with three employees, who are responsible for the operation and management of all the building's network, monitoring, and lighting systems. The usual operation and maintenance work is very heavy. What is even more laborious is that once a network failure occurs, due to the lack of suitable detection tools, it can only be speculated based on experience. This requires the operation and maintenance personnel of the information room to coordinate with multiple departments such as the power distribution room, water supply room and even the property management office to troubleshoot the fault bit by bit. As a result, it is conceivable that each department will inevitably shirk responsibility when encountering problems, and they have great doubts about the ability of the information department, believing that they did not solve the problem quickly, which makes the information department very aggrieved.

The editor handed LinkRunner G2 to the maintenance personnel and started the network testing journey. The office companies on the 7th floor of the building often complained about the slow network speed, but in actual inspection, the switches, switches and other equipment were all normal. When the maintenance personnel connected the network cable in the problem area to LinkRunner G2, they found the problem in just a few seconds. According to the plan, the network speed of this network segment of the building should be 1000 Mbps, but in fact it is only 100 Mbps. In the cable section, it is clearly shown that there is an open circuit at 15 cm between the 4th and 5th line pairs, and it can be solved by simply replacing a new network cable.

The maintenance staff just breathed a sigh of relief, and then received another call from the front desk on the 3rd floor saying that they could not connect to the Internet. So the editor and the maintenance staff rushed to the 3rd floor again. When the maintenance staff plugged the Ethernet cable into the LinkRunner G2 at the front desk and selected the automatic test, in less than 10 seconds, all the test results were displayed, and a warning was issued - the front desk was in the wrong virtual LAN. The experienced maintenance staff looked around and immediately found the reason. It turned out that the company had renovated some time ago, and the original network layout and the front desk position had changed. Because the company's network management did not adjust the network grouping in time according to the actual situation, the front desk could not log in to the network.

Although the operator has only used LinkRunner G2 for a few hours, he is full of praise for it. He told me that with the popularization of intelligence and the deepening of the Internet of Things, the network environment of industry users has become more complex. Having a testing "magic tool" like LinkRunner G2 can make their work simple and efficient, which can be called a "god assist". More importantly, with such an intelligent and efficient network tester, it can bring better service experience to corporate customers and increase user stickiness, which really makes him "love it".

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]