Whether you are a server administrator, a network administrator, or a combination of the two, there are a number of tools that are useful for testing and monitoring network connections within the Windows Server world. Some of these tools are baked right into the operating system and can be used from the Command Prompt or PowerShell, and others are more expansive graphical interfaces that require installation before running. The following are the network tools that we are going to look at:
- ping
- tracert
- pathping
- Test-Connection
- telnet
- Test-NetConnection
All the these tools are free, though, so you have no excuse to delay getting acquainted with these helpful utilities.