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How to Reduce Network Congestion with Ping Alarm Capability at the RTU Level - Instead of from Your Alarm Master

A simple ping alarm capability is a handy tool to have in any alarm remote or alarm master. Ping alarm traffic does, however, add up as you ping more and more of your devices. Pings from the master have to travel all the way from your master to the site and back again, making matters worse. A ping alarm sent by an RTU (Remote Telemetry Unit) in the field to a nearby device, however, creates dramatically less network traffic.

An RTU Ping Alarm is Forwarded to the Master as Part of a Large Group.
Advanced masters can send a ping from the master station all the way down to an single piece of equipment on your network, but this is a large amount of network traffic to achieve visibility. There's a much more efficient way to handle ping alarms.

To avoid frequent pings from the center of your network to the outskirts and back, you should find an RTU (Remote Telemetry Unit) that is capable of automatically pinging site devices itself. This way, the only time the master must be notified is when a ping repeatedly fails, indicating a device failure of some kind. This greatly reduces your network load.

Reduce Your Network Traffic by Deploying a Ping Alarm Capable RTU (Remote Telemetry Unit).
When an RTU (Remote Telemetry Unit) sends a ping to a network device on-site, the ping has a significantly shorter distance to travel, as does a ping alarm response. Because this ping or ping alarm will not have to travel all the way from the master to the device, those areas of your network will benefit from significantly reduced traffic.

Collecting a ping alarm via RTU is also much more efficient. While an advanced master can technically ping hundreds of devices, it is more effective for that master to simply poll the network of remotes. This way, when a device generates a ping alarm, it will simply be forwarded to the remote, which will then pass the ping alarm up to the master during a remote poll (or as an autonomous trap in the case of SNMP).

A Ping Alarm Won't Slow Your Network When You Deploy an Advanced RTU.
With less ping alarm travel occurring within your network, you won't have to worry about reduced connectivity speeds due to an excessive number of ping alarms. You won't need to take network speed into consideration when conducting pings, either.

The NetGuardian 832A Features 32 Ping Alarm Capability.
The NetGuardian 832A is a fully featured, ping alarm capable remote that supports automatic pinging of 32 single IP addresses. This enables you to ping every device at your site without having to do it directly from your alarm master. If a device repeatedly fails to respond, your master will be promptly notified, enabling you to view a ping alarm right in your master browser window along with all of your other important alarms.