LinkRunner Reviews

I have LinkRunner G2, and I use this product for testing and troubleshooting. I am able to test my network connections and cables and do general troubleshooting for network drops, network outlets, etc. 

I do connectivity tests and cable verification, and I use it to do network link tests to check network drops and know whether it's alive or not alive, and if it is alive, which services are available. This tool does that quite well. It tells me if my link is alive, and not just that, if it is a switch, I get the model information of the switch and whether PoE is being delivered on the switch or the wire. I get the DNS server, and I get the IP address. It also checks if there is internet access on that line. If there's a VLAN, it gives me the VLAN number. It does quite a lot of tests in a very quick time. It saves me a lot of time. I don't have to run around and troubleshoot one thing after another.

It's very useful to me. Normally, I have to send a network specialist onto a site to do network tests because it requires a certain amount of expertise to log into a switch and check the services and VLAN information. Now, with this tool, I can send a technician who's already on site and already available, and that technician can simply plug this in and run the tests that are pre-configured on this device. The technician would have a lot of information to work with and know exactly where the problem is, what services are available, and whether the internet is there or not. If it's not there, the technician can give me the IP address that he or she is getting, and I can figure out what I need to do on my end without having to send a network specialist. This has saved me a lot of time. In the healthcare industry, in which work, time is of the essence. Hospitals need to be up and running, and I don't always have a network specialist available because it's a scarce resource, but I always have technicians. It allows me to respond quickly. It has reduced the time to troubleshoot a problem and resolve an issue. I no longer need to send a specialist out. Technicians can get the needed information without having to log into a switch or do any complex work that they are not familiar with.

It's an excellent testing tool for conducting network testing on copper and fiber, and what makes it excellent is the time it takes. It's a lot faster than other tools that I've used. It gives me a very reliable response, and it gives me various parameters for my test, such as the length of the cable, a wire map, etc. There is a colored screen, and it's very easy to read, which makes it very easy to work with. As opposed to some of the tools I've used that just give you a beep or two beeps, it gives me a lot more information which makes it easy to detect exactly where the problem is or how far along a line there may be a problem. That makes it very useful and an excellent tool to work with.

With Link-Live, as soon as I run a test, that test is uploaded to my account online. I don't have to save it, download it, or copy it. It doesn't get lost. So, I can go online and see all the tests that my technicians have run. I can have those tests assigned to a site, so remotely, I know what are the conditions of my sites, how reliable my networks are, and where improvements are needed. It stores all of my results, and those test results are online and available to me whenever I need them. It gives me a rich history, and it helps me to detect trends on my networks and where I need to do extra work. This historical reporting and being able to instantly access reports online is very helpful.

I use LinkRunner's AutoTest feature. It simplifies all the testing because just one click does it all. I hit that button, and it runs a series of tests in one go, without me having to interact with it. I just get my results, and I can get to the bottom of my testing. AutoTest gives me a bunch of results. It gives me very useful information. It tells me whether my link is alive; it tells me the speed I'm getting, whether it's a hundred megabits or one gigabit per second. For a switch, it tells me what port I'm on and what's the model of that switch. It tells me if I got an IP address. It tells me what my IP address is and which DNS server gave me that IP address. It tells me if I have internet service on that link, and if I'm doing PoE, it tells me if I have Power over Ethernet available on that link. It also tells me if there's a VLAN that I'm using and what's that VLAN number. There is a very rich test set that is produced by LinkRunner, and this information is very important to me in troubleshooting. Normally, I have to run a series of different tests to try to locate what the problem is. I have to run one test and then do another test, and another test. With LinkRunner, I can certify that the network connections I give to my clients have all the services they need. It also tells me how my network is configured. It helps me to provide reliable connectivity and also benchmark my network performance.

It's the fastest tool I've used. LinkRunner gives results in seconds, and it does that reliably. It gives me reliable results every time. Something that would normally take me an hour is done in less than a minute. That is very important for me because I'm in the healthcare industry, and time is very critical when I need to provide service to my healthcare professionals.

The technical capabilities of LinkRunner have allowed me to respond to problems a lot quicker. My resolution time has been reduced by 80% in some cases. Normally, I have to get a technician to go out, and on realizing there's a problem on the line, the technician would go to the help desk and report it and ask for a network specialist. I then have to get a network specialist, if he's available, and send him out to the site. He will then run a series of tests, log in to a switch, get to the switch room, and then do another test to find out what's the VLAN and if there's internet access. Now, I can have that technician who reported the problem just use LinkRunner to run one AutoTest, and that AutoTest tells my technician exactly what services are available and not available. If I need to do a fix, I have all the information I need to do that fix, and that could be done remotely because that technician can tell me what VLAN he's on, which switch he is connected to, and which port he is connected to without having to visit the switch room or comms room. In a nutshell, it has allowed me to reduce my ticket time by 80%.

It's very important that test results are automatically saved to NetAlly’s free Link-Live Cloud Service. I no longer have to rely on tests being saved by my technicians. Sometimes, test results are lost inadvertently, and then I have to revisit a site and retest. Being able to go online and get those results in real time and have them saved and compiled by LinkRunner's Link-Live service has been very valuable to me in building out my documentation for my sites. It has also been helpful in building out my documentation on trends on what has been my network performance. I can now look at my network performance and determine where I need to have improvements made. I can now save on my budgets, and I can now assign resources as I need to because LinkRunner gives me the ability to look at historical reports and have them all together in one piece in real-time.

The automatic uploading of test results saves me time. Normally, I have to wait until a test is done. Sometimes, the test is done on multiple floors of a building, and I have to wait till all those tests are done and my technician gets his or her computer, connects the device, and then uploads those test results to me. That could take hours. Now, with LinkRunner, with wireless connectivity, I can have those tests uploaded as soon as they are run. It means I can have the information I need almost immediately. I can now respond a lot quicker, which is very valuable to me.

It has made my network staff a lot more productive. My network staff spends less time troubleshooting little issues that could be fixed by a technician. My network staff has to work with fewer tools to fix a problem because LinkRunner does everything I need in one click. They no longer have to move up and down from a network drop up to a switch room, connect, and then go back down. They no longer have to work with a bunch of cables. They can just plug LinkRunner in and get the information needed, which is uploaded to Link-Live where I can view it, and my other technicians can view it. We can collaborate on results, and we can collaborate on ideas to fix a problem because that information is uploaded immediately and is available live to the entire team. It saves a lot of time, and it has improved my team's performance. They're very happy with it. In fact, I'm ordering more devices now because it saves a lot of time of my team from having to go back and forth. My site visits have decreased.

I've found the VLAN test feature to be most valuable. That's because not many devices do VLAN tests. Normally, I have to send a center technician to check a line and see if it's alive. If it's working, then I have to send a network technician out to log into a switch and see which port it's on and on which VLAN that port is. That's two persons and two separate visits. This device does all of this in a matter of seconds, and that has saved me a lot of time, troubleshooting, and resources.

Its ease of use is very impressive. LinkRunner allows me to have my technicians run tests that are normally too complex and require a network specialist. AutoTest works with just one click. AutoTest does a lot of testing that would normally require a network specialist to log in to a switch and check out VLAN based on a port. My technicians don't have to log in to the switch anymore. They can just do AutoTest and information is provided online. So, I no longer have to send a specialist. I can have my technician run these very complex tests. It saves me on resources, time, and site visits.

When it comes to troubleshooting, based on my experience, it has given very useful and very helpful information, especially for my field technicians. It has reduced my visits and the amount of presence because it gives a very comprehensive report on your network tests. It tests multiple variables and multiple parameters and gives a very informative report that makes it easy to pinpoint what is the root cause. There are many tools in this one solution. It's basically a bunch of toolkits or tool sets in one device, which makes it very powerful testing equipment.

One of the things I'd like to see in future versions of LinkRunner is a wireless dongle embedded into the product so that I don't need to have a separate wireless dongle. It should be built into that.

In the future, I'd also love to see a GPS module built into it so that I can have my results and my sites linked via a GPS location. I would then know exactly where my guys are deployed and link my test results to my GPS mappings. That'll be a great tool for me.

I've been using NetAlly LinkRunner G2 for just over two years.

In the two years that I've been using this, it has been very stable. I've used it at multiple sites, and I've used it with multiple users. They've not had any complaints about it. It has fallen a few times, inadvertently. It's a very stable device. It has proved to be rugged.

I work in the public sector. I work in a company with about 1,000 employees to 1,500 employees. I have about seven people using this solution, and they are technicians because they are now able to use this. It's so simple to use. I also have network specialists. I have a senior network specialist, and I have a network engineer.

We did contact NetAlly's technical support because we wanted to get a better understanding of the WiFi dongle and how it works. We didn't buy it the first time. We read about it afterward, and we thought it would add more value and capabilities. So, we contacted them to get an idea of how it works. They gave us a very good overview of how it works, and we went ahead and purchased it. I would rate their support a 10 out of 10.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward. My team had this tool up and running in a matter of minutes. There weren't any challenges. We didn't have to call tech support, and it was very easy to get it going.

It was all done in-house. We got this device from the supplier, unboxed it, plugged it in, and checked the updates and made sure we were running the latest firmware. I created my account on Link-Live, and I was up and running in less than an hour.

It's reasonably priced in my market. It provides good value for money. The device is competitively priced as compared to other solutions. It gives you a lot of functionality and saves you a lot of time and resources. I see it as a good buy and good value for money. I stand for it.

I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

We have a lot of the normal LinkRunners, and we have the 10Gig ones called LinkRunner 10G Professional Kit that we use to determine connectivity for plug-and-play. We use the Cisco DNA Center. So, the polarity needs to be right and the link needs to be up. We usually test it with LinkRunner, and then we bring the switch up, and it automatically discovers it.

It provides a way to test 10Gig connectivity. Previously, we had to hook up a switch. That was our only way. Now, with LinkRunner, we can test on the fly if an SFP is bad or if the switch has the right configuration on it.

It makes the network validation and configuration of copper and fiber Ethernet networks drastically easier. It definitely cuts down a lot of time. We can also use the old LinkRunners, but the 10Gig one definitely cuts down a lot of time to verify VLANs and connectivity and do a cable test. 

We use it all the time. It is one tool that you can bring with you that will most likely do whatever you need. If you need to tone a cable that's not plugged in, it'll tone it. Once you find it, if you need to know when the switchboard is on, it will do that for you. It will tell you the VLAN it is on. We use it to briefly test and make sure a cable is getting a 1 Gbps link, and it is not a 100 Mbps or half duplex or anything like that. We even use it for labeling to tone out ports. It is definitely the only tool you would need to do most of what you can do. Some of the tools do it better, but for the all-in-one, we have definitely found nothing that comes close to it.

We use the AutoTest feature the most. That's the one that lets you know whether a VLAN doesn't have an IP address at a gateway. We use that feature all the time. A computer would only get you half of that information. You could get the IP address and the gateway, and that's about it. You would still need some other way to get the switch information. You'd have to go on the switch and trace down the switch to get that. So, having just one central point to grab everything really cuts down on time.

We have a lot of key members who use it. We have a lot of VLANs throughout our network, and usually, we have issues such as the port not being on the VLAN on which the client needs it. With the LinkRunner AutoTest, in about five seconds, we can get the information about the port, what VLAN it is on now, and what VLAN it should be on. It can be done in seconds, whereas previously, you'd have to rely on documentation or look for the MAC address, but this makes it insanely faster.

It has absolutely reduced our troubleshooting time. The amount of information that you can quickly grab with this device is amazing. It has saved two to three hours a day on average.

It has made our networking staff more productive. It takes less time to get the simple information, and you can move on to other things. It definitely impacts our staff's productivity.

It is really easy to use. We have a bunch of new people, and it has been very simple. We've never had any problems or confusion using it. It is very well laid out.

It is hugely helpful for troubleshooting. It is one of the main tools we use to troubleshoot. We use it all the time to see which cable is on what switch, the VLAN name, and the switch name. To AutoTest, you can use DCP or static to see what kind of IP you're getting and if you're getting one.

The 10G one is fine in terms of the speed of the results, but it takes a long time to boot up, whereas you could instantly turn on the old ones. They would be on in a second.

It doesn't turn off automatically, but the toning function goes to sleep. It seems to stop toning after five or six minutes if you don't find the cable. It could be up to ten minutes, but if you don't find the cable that you're trying to tone quick enough, you'll have to go back and restart the tone. So, it doesn't turn itself off, but while toning, it turns itself off.

The polarity on the 10 gigabit SFP port is reversed.

We have had two of the 10Gig ones for about eight months.

I haven't noticed crashing or anything else. It has been very stable. One unit had stopped charging, and we sent it out for repairs. They sent us a new one in four or five days. That was the only problem we ever had.

It is very good for everything we use it for. It has been able to do what we need and more. We've had no issues with scalability. We've never needed more out of a device.

We only have two 10Gig ones. Anyone who works on the networking team uses it at one point or another. We use it for everything. We mostly reserve the 10Gig one for dealing with any 10Gig link issues because it is more helpful, but for any ticket, problem, or anything to do with making sure we're looking at the right switch, we just plug it in to get the name or the IP address of the switch. We use it for everything we do.

We don't have any plans to increase the usage of the 10Gig ones. They are quite expensive, and we have only two of them. Down the road, when we move over to more 10Gig infrastructure, we might get more, but right now, the two 10Gig ones are fine.

We only had to use their support once when one unit had stopped charging, and their support was a five out of five. I sent them a video of it not charging, and they said that they will send us a replacement. We put the old one in the box and shipped it back. They were quick, and in four or five days, they sent us a new one.

Positive

We've had LinkRunners when they were owned by Fluke, and we've had LinkRunner 1000 by NetAlly and LinkRunner 2000 as well. We switched because we needed something to test 10Gig links. Before this, we had to hook up the switch to it. That was the only way to verify connectivity across. We had to bring a small switch in a bag.

It was straightforward. It was a while ago, but I don't remember it being complex at all.

We had a reseller called Graybar, and our experience with them was very good.

Based on the number of times we've troubleshot 10Gig links, we have absolutely seen an ROI. It cuts down time drastically.

The 10Gig ones are quite expensive, and we have only two of them, but I know that this option was cheaper than the other 10Gig option we looked at, and we're very happy with it.

We did evaluate other options, but we couldn't find anything else that did 10Gig. Based on the research we did, this was the only option. We found a few LinkRunner-like alternatives, but none of them did 10Gig. There was one we looked at that had a touchscreen like a tablet, but it would have cost more money. That was the other one we found, but LinkRunner was the only one we looked at.

It is very beneficial. We had a trial of it, and what sold us on it was just being able to use it in person. Before trying it, we didn't really know if we needed it. We had it for about two weeks, and then when we gave it back, we realized how much it improved our workflow and simplified installation and troubleshooting.

We don't use LinkRunner for documenting ad hoc additions, moves, and changes of wired ethernet connections. I know that you can plug it into all your ports and you can go back and view it online, but we've never used it for that. We don't use the Cloud service. When we first got them, we had turned on the emails, but it sent too many emails, and we turned it off. We haven't used it since.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. A few annoyances stop it from being a great product, but it is definitely extremely handy.

We are a system integrator, and we do lots of infra projects. It is a handheld device, and we are using it in a couple of scenarios. We use it for onsite troubleshooting and implementation. We also use it for performance testing. These are two major use cases. There are also other scenarios where some of its minor features are helpful.

I'm the owner of the company, and for me, my workflow is most valuable. Without such a tool, I have to spend time training engineers. If there are junior engineers, I have to tell them what are the necessary steps to do onsite testing, but doing that doesn't guarantee a standard workflow because different people interpret information and instructions in different ways, and also the way each engineer works is different. To check that something is working, some engineers might take extra steps to verify all the way to the application, web servers, and so on, whereas some engineers would just do the ping test. When I'm not on the site, I cannot see everything. With such a tool, we are able to have an SOP for troubleshooting. If any engineer goes outside to do troubleshooting or anything else, everything is standardized. All the reports are clear, and everyone follows the same steps. This makes everything very easy for us. If an engineer makes a mistake, the cost or damage is quite significant for us because we are dealing with the production network or live network. It is not a lab network where if you're not happy, you can shut down the server or network. In an actual customer environment, we have to be very careful. This is where LinkRunner proves helpful. It helps with SOPs and also saves a lot of time. With this tool, we can easily get a standardized process. With a single click, our engineers can get all the testing done. It also makes things easier for the management with the onsite activity reports, performance reports, and test results. It is easier to understand what they did and ensure that they really did their job, which saves time. It improves the quality of our jobs and provides a more efficient way of doing them.

It is helpful for performance testing. I have another tool called Cisco NSG, which is a wire and a Wi-Fi version compared to LinkRunner 10G. Recently I was helping one of the customers in Singapore, but their remote office is in Malaysia. When they ran the telco circuits between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, they complained about the users experiencing slowness, but nobody knew what was going on and why it was slow. I set up a point-to-point link, and what we experienced was really awesome. The Singapore site was using StarHub as the carrier, and the Malaysia site was using Telekom Malaysia as the local carrier. When the traffic crossed two different carriers, a carrier only did the testing for its own boundaries. In other words, if you want to do an end-to-end test function to Malaysia or vice versa, there is no proof of testing to tell if I have a private line with full megabits per second and what the performance looks like. Is there any packet loss or delay? There is no such report. Initially, as a typical user, if I feel something is slow, I would most probably think that the network is slow, and the telco is not good, but when we launched the test from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, everything was working fine in terms of the format. There was no packet loss, and this clearly gave a very good indication to the customer that it is not really due to the network, and they have to look into the application layer problems. This is the kind of issue we identify. The old-school style of doing a continuous ping from end-to-end is not really good enough, especially for such bidirectional traffic verification. It is very helpful there.

Similarly, we have another client, which is a US company, and they have a very big presence in Singapore. They have a big campus, a big office, and a colo data center. They have 10G end-to-end from all different campuses to the data center, office to the colo, and office to the campus. It came to the same question of how to ensure that the telco gives the 10G connectivity between different sites. This is another scenario where we used LinkRunner 10G with Cisco NSG. We do the end-to-end performance test, which gives a customer a lot of confidence to say that based on the testing results, they are convinced that the circuit is really up to the standard. From there, they can do more benchmarking for the QoS strategy. Traditional QoS testing is based on certain assumptions, but with such end-to-end testing, as an engineer, it is much easier for me to do the design based on traffic utilization. It helps customers a lot, and as their consultant or as their professional service partner, we are showcasing how we leverage the technology and tools to easily troubleshoot and make it faster for them to go live with their projects. In both these scenarios, it has been really helpful for customers. It saves their time. Even though things have opened up a bit after the COVID lockdown, it has not been easy to travel everywhere to do the outside work. We can ship LinkRunner 10G to the site and the customer can just hook it up on the network. We can then do remote control and all the necessary tests. It has made life much easier.

We do different types of projects. For instance, nowadays, we do lots of WiFi projects. From the WiFi vendor perspective, they are pushing WiFi 6 technology with m-gig switches, UPOE switches, and so on. Customers often ask why it is necessary to invest in a high-cost switch with m-gig and UPOE, and if they do invest, how can they validate this. Every cent spent by an IT department is scrutinized by the finance department. So, they want to make sure that whatever they have invested in the infra can do the job. This is where we use the tool and connect to the switch to validate whether they are really running as expected. Especially when they hook up with WiFi access AP and m-gig technologies, we need to validate the aggregated speed at which the AP can go. This is one of the scenarios where we have helped quite a number of customers.

We have also been supporting some banking customers, especially the server teams, for the link-level testing. They need to have a 10G connectivity from the server to the switch, but sometimes, due to certain limitations, they aren't able to get the speed that they want. It commonly leads to a situation where the server team starts to point the finger at the networking team thinking that their network switch is not really able to support a certain speed for their server to be able to run all the applications. This is another scenario where LinkRunner is helpful. If the customer has a certain link requirement or connectivity speed requirement, we can use LinkRunner to validate the servers and switches and make sure that everything is working well before they connect to each other. This is how we ensure that everybody is using the same tools to validate, and there are no variations in terms of the different testing standards so that everybody is convinced. This is a good tool to have a standard workflow so that there is no misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Usually, it is used for brownfield or greenfield deployments, but it has also been helpful for mature networks. Recently, I went to one of the major data center operators in Singapore, and their pain point was that they don't know how those infra switches are connected. They used another vendor, and their vendor walked away after a number of years. There were no updated documents. A lot of information was not updated. They engaged us as a consultant to have a better understanding of their environment, inventories, and connectivity. We leveraged the discovery feature of LinkRunner to get the visibility of all the infra in the data center. We could also log into those devices through the LinkRunner device. Instead of carrying the laptop with LinkRunner and multiple tools with different consoles, we could do everything with LinkRunner.

It is a very effective tool. LinkRunner runs on the Android platform. So, I can push a lot of tools or apps on it through the Link-Live cloud. I once went on a customer site to do some troubleshooting, and I could launch Cisco WebEx on LinkRunner and I could share the screen. So, anybody who joined the session remotely could see how I troubleshoot. I have done this twice to train my junior engineers, and at the same time, the customer also sees how I am troubleshooting. It has totally changed the traditional way of troubleshooting in a data center where we had to bring tools to the data center and use a phone to take a photo. Some data centers are very strict, and we are not allowed to bring any cameras in. So, I had to take screenshots. Later on, I had to save those screenshots into proper files and recall what I'd done and which pictures I'd captured. With LinkRunner and its integrated tools, I can just launch Cisco WebEx. I can have a video call, or I can have a voice call over the unit. I can share the screen so that everybody can watch it. Some people can give a better suggestion, which could help in resolving a problem faster. I usually joke that in the old days, it was more like a solo process, and now, it is a collaborative way of troubleshooting, especially in a very complicated environment.

Troubleshooting-wise, it is pretty handy for me. Laptops have many types of software, but there are lots of limitations with laptops. I prefer to use specific tools. For example, when we do the infra project for certain government agencies and banks, there is no way we can log into the device. We are not authorized to log into the device. With LinkRunner, I can connect to the switch without logging. I can easily get information without logging into the device. I can get information about the switch hostname, the VLAN, the port I'm connected to, and the speed mode. I had a customer, which is a US company, and they had two Cisco switches. They wanted me to take a look at their settings, but the local guy didn't have the privileges to log into the equipment. So, I just connected LinkRunner to the unit, and from there, I could get all the information about the switch host, management IP, the port and the VLAN I'm connecting to, etc. I could get information about whether PoE is enabled. I could get all this information without logging in.

By using this tool, I could identify a customer issue within just five minutes. One of their switches was a one gig box, but it was hard coded with 100 Mbps. When I asked them, the customer recalled reducing the speed to avoid an issue that they were facing. This is the beauty of the tool. I have been in the IT industry long enough. In the old days, we had to log into the switch, and we had to use a lot of show command filters to get the information we wanted, which took time, whereas this tool significantly saves time. When we are dealing with customers, it is not about whether you can or cannot fix a problem like in the old days. It is about how quickly you can fix the problems. People have less and less patience. We can fix the issues without such tools, and lots of experienced engineers still can do it, but using such a tool significantly accelerates the troubleshooting process.

It has reduced the troubleshooting time, especially in a campus network and data center network, by 30%. It has made our networking staff more productive.

From a testing point of view, it is good enough. A lot of enhanced features can be applied. Sometimes, when we do greenfield installation, we need to do all the necessary testing and reporting. We are not doing the cabling work, but after the cabling contractors finish the work, we need to verify the connectivity to the switch. We have to go to every individual port, do the test, and document all the port IDs, location information, testing date, etc. This is where we leverage LinkRunner. It is much easier than in the old days when we had two engineers: one carrying the laptop and the other one carrying an A4 paper for writing. After that, we would put everything into Excel and print it out, which is not effective. LinkRunner integrates with Link-Live. So, the information about everything you are testing is available online on the cloud. You can generate a very nice report for the end-users, which is a really significant improvement. It saves a lot of time and prevents human errors. Sometimes, the engineer is in a rush, and a handwritten document is not that easy to interpret. After a while, they might not recognize a number written down, and they have to go back to check again. With such a tool, all this rework can be eliminated.

The test results can be automatically uploaded to the Link-Live Cloud Service. I prefer to save everything on Link-Live, but sometimes, because of customer restrictions, we need to have a local copy. With Link-Live, even if you don't have internet connectivity, you can save the results locally, and the next time you have internet connectivity, it will push all the results to Link-Live. It is helpful for me because after my engineers finish a job and upload the result to Link-Live, I can log in to the portal from anywhere to take a look at the result and understand the problems. Sometimes, I also put some comments when I upload the data to Link-Live. It optimizes my time. We have so many projects running concurrently, and I cannot follow engineers everywhere to do the work. Link-Live is a way to help me to understand my staff's productivity in the field. I can see the real-time results and understand the environment. It gives me a lot of visibility and productivity improvement. 

LinkRunner 10G is very handy for onsite troubleshooting and implementations. We can quickly identify the links in terms of 1G, 2.5G, 5G, and 10G on the copper side, and also from 1G up to 10G on the fiber side. It is very handy for me because we deal with a lot of banks. Especially for the provisioning of new services, we use this tool to identify the link capacity and do the necessary testing to ensure all the circuits are ready before the handover to the next team to operate the technology. This is something that saves a lot of time as compared to the old days.

It is easy to use. I'm quite experienced in the industry, and I find it easy to use, but even when I passed the unit to my engineer or the intern students from the college, they spent less than half an hour figuring out how to use it. It is pretty easy to use. They didn't have any training. I just gave them the unit that we were going to use for the project, and I gave the user manual to them. Just by flipping through the user manual, they learned how to use it for basic functions and what features it has.

It is a great tool, but in the long-term, they can make its processor more powerful to do more functions. They can upgrade the hardware to make it run faster and more efficiently from the process point of view. That'll be beneficial because the technology is evolving and the network traffic is going higher and higher. We have to leverage better spec products to handle the traffic load.

It has been a year. I have been using it since June of last year.

It is quite stable. I have never seen any issues with this one.

It is able to meet our needs. It is being used extensively in our organization.

They are very efficient and skilled. They respond very fast. I get a response for any technical issue in about an hour and sometimes, even within an hour. Their support is really impressive. I also deal with Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto, and other major vendors' tech support. They're nice. Even though NetAlly is not a major brand, their support engineers are really good. I have been impressed with them every time. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

I used LinkRunner AT and LinkRunner G2. LinkRunner AT is a bit older model. LinkRunner G2 is not that old, but it only goes up to 1G. It cannot do 10G or higher speed.

It is easy.

We are a system integrator, and we have seen an ROI in terms of giving lots of services.

In terms of the cost of the solution versus its ability to save time or solve problems faster, I am satisfied with what I am getting. This product is a part of my service offering. Every time I go to a customer, I take it with me in my bag. It is very important. I have a few projects that I can't do with other tools. For instance, I had a data center customer. They had four switches that were just too old, and nobody had information about these switches. I brought LinkRunner 10G to the site, and I just connected the equipment to the switch. I could get all the information about the model of the switch and its settings in terms of management IP, etc. It is helping a lot. Without it, it could take half a month to get the login credential from the management. With this, there is no need for that. The customer allowed us to connect to the device for viewing information, and in less than half an hour, I could get all the information I needed.

Its pricing is all right. Of course, from the business point of view, the cheaper it is, the better it is, but I prefer to spend a bit more money to get a quick response, which is helpful especially when we are onsite or in a very critical situation. We are not only paying for the product. We are paying for the people behind the product in terms of developers and technical support. When you need some help, they will be behind it, and they'll support you. 

There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fee. 

I didn't really evaluate other products.

It is quite easy to use. It can do much more than what most people think. So, I would suggest having more information, not only about the product itself but also about what you want to achieve with this product. Once you combine your own knowledge and your experience with your or your customer's infrastructure, it will make the work easier.

It provides fast results, but it also depends on the kind of test you are running. It is quite fast for a generic auto test, such as a ping test and pulse scan, but certain tests, such as network discovery, require lots of computing power and resources. When you do the polling of the SNMP-enabled devices, it might take a bit longer, but there is no other tool in the world that can do similar things. So, I'm quite okay with the speed.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. I'm very satisfied with it. It is handy, easy to use, and very comprehensive. It has helped me in standardizing my team's workflow. It is now a part of our troubleshooting workflow. Without it, we will still be doing things in the traditional ways where we need two people onsite: one person doing the test, and the other person just doing the recording.

My primary use case is validating jacks:  typically, fiber connecting to desktop jacks. We cross-connect in the IDF, install a patch cord running to the end station and, before I plug that patch cord into the PC with its 10-gig NIC, I want to verify that the path is working correctly.

Sometimes we have connected the patch cord in the IDF to the wrong strands:  LinkRunner tells us (doesn't display link). Ditto if we have polarity incorrect.  [The Fluke FiberLert is another useful tool in this situation -- it tells you which strand(s) are transmitting light.]  Once we have location and polarity done correctly, the LinkRunner 10G will report 'link up' as part of its AutoTest.  Then, just like all the models of LinkRunner, it will report on the negotiated speed & duplex, listen for CDP/LLDP announcements in order to offer details about the attached switch, report in any VLAN tagging, acquire a DHCP address, ping the resulting default router and DNS servers, and finally ping a remote target, for us, typically www.google.com, all of which validates the higher level network path & services.

We can, and have, done all this with the PC itself, of course, but when things aren't working, you aren't sure whether the issue lies inside the PC, with its NIC, driver, and its configuration, or inside the the network infrastructure.  Furthermore, your colleague in desktop support, or the end-user themselves, aren't always available to contribute the PC portion.  With the LinkRunner, once you have a successful AutoTest, you can walk away knowing that you have successfully delivered the network infrastructure, and that remaining issues are concentrated in the end-station.

We have a bunch of fiber optic to desktop connections, and getting all those pieces right:  installing the cross-connect in the IDF, cleaning the glass ends, polarity, the correct switch in the IDF, VLAN assignment, can take a couple hours. A tool like this can drop that down to 20 minutes. Saving that kind of time once a week makes it worth its cost to my management.

LinkRunner 10G reduces troubleshooting time by a factor of 10. I don't know what I would do without it, particularly the 10-Gbps capability. I suppose I would have to carry around a small-form factor PC equipped with a 10-gig NIC. That would be laborious, when compared to carrying the hand-held LinkRunner.

We also use the LinkRunner 10G when building fiber pathways between network infrastructure elements -- between switches located on different floors or between buildings:  again, it verifies Layers 1-2:  that we have installed patch cords in the appropriate places all the way through the various fiber patch panels, have polarity correct, have the appropriate optics installed in the appropriate switch ports.

It makes our networking staff more productive because then they can do other things, rather than spending their time on low-level validation.

The AutoTest feature allows you to validate an Ethernet connection, whether it's a vanilla copper connection—10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, or 10 Gbps—or fiber via the SFP Plus port. That's the feature that I have found most useful.

AutoTest provides me with validation that a network path is working for the first four levels of the OSI model. It gives me an Ethernet link — and if you can't get that, then none of the rest of it matters. It also tells me what the tool has been able to auto-negotiate to: 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, or 10 Gbps. That helps me validate the Ethernet layer. It gives me information about VLAN tagging. If you're plugged into a jack that you believe should be tagged and it isn't, or vice versa, then this is giving you critical information.

Another useful feature:  for optical connections, the tool reports Tx and Rx power ... and allows you to 'Set Reference'.  In this way, it functions as a low-end optical power meter:  you can run at AutoTest at the transceiver, Set Reference on the Rx power, move the tool to the far end of the attached cable, run another AutoTest, and see your power loss (I mean, you could record Rx power at the switch on a piece of paper, walk to the far end, record Rx power there, and perform the arithmetic yourself, but this Set Reference feature automates the process for you).  Anyway, I tend to use this approach when I want a quick estimate of optical loss, so that I can rule this in or out as a possible cause of link problems:  saves me the time of breaking out the Fluke SimpliFiber Pro or Versiv-based optical power meters.

It continues at what I would call Layer 2, and tells you the name and other characteristics of the Ethernet device it’s plugged into. That's helpful because it tells me if I’m plugged into the switch that I think I'm plugged into. It goes and gets an IP address, which tells me if the DHCP servers are working. It pings stuff, such as the default gateway that the DHCP server has given me, and the DNS servers. And finally, I have it configured to reach out to Google. If I can ping all the way out to Google, then I've verified that the network path between here and Google is working. [That network path may not be as performant as I would like, but at least the basic functionality is there.]

The second useful feature is the performance test, formally called an ITU (international telecommunications union) Y.1564 test. That is a standards-based internet protocol test that measures five parameters. You stick this device on one end and a similar device on the other end of the pathway that you want to test, and it will measure for you, in a sophisticated way, the five following characteristics:

• throughput - how many bits per second you're getting between the two tools
• latency
• jitter - the variation on latency
• packet loss/frame loss
• availability (what percentage of the time was the link available for transmitting / receiving)

From a certain perspective, these are the canonical five parameters which describe a network:  any network. This device, and any one of a number of different devices that can act as its partner on the other end, will allow you to validate that path using this standardized test suite.

It’s useful in a couple of cases, such as where you're paying for a circuit from a carrier from, say, city A to city B, or between two locations inside a city, and you want to validate that the carrier has in fact delivered the circuit that you're contracted for.

The second scenario where I use it is the case we regularly get in support tickets, that "the network is slow". There are a lot of approaches to troubleshooting such a ticket, but one approach is to unplug the two machines from which we’re getting the “slow” report and run one of these performance tests between them.  [Alternatively, plug one tool "next to" the client and the other tool "next to" the server.]  If the tools are able to achieve whatever the designed network performance is, you've narrowed the fault domain. You can say, "Okay, great. It's something to do with my client or my server:  I have demonstrated that the network path will deliver the desired behavior." If the two tools are unable to reach the desired performance, then you've also narrowed the fault domain and you can focus on your network infrastructure.

Another valuable feature is that it is really easy to use. NetAlly has really done a good job on the user interface. This is particular impressive because the device has a small screen, obviously, not 19" monitor here:  they manage to pack a lot of information into a small space and make it obvious what the tool is telling you.

The solution's ability to simplify network validation and configuration of copper and fiber Ethernet networks is very useful to me. Otherwise, I’m guessing. Having a tool that I can trust doesn't solve all problems, but for the problems it solves, I can trust that it has told me “yes” or “no.” I would rate it highly for that.

Also, for the things that it troubleshoots, it does it very well because it is so reliable. It gives me a "green light" or a "red light." Is this particular function working or not?  I have yet to run into a bug affecting the results it reports

And it is quick:  the UI is highly responsive, the tests it runs complete rapidly.

I find it quite helpful that test results are saved on NetAlly’s Link-Live Cloud Service because I'm forever staring at the screen saying, "Hey, this is great, can I move on to my next jack?" and then I've forgotten some little detail about the previous test. I can jump on LinkLive and there are the results of the test.  Or, just consult my email:  I have it LinkLive configured to send test results to me via email.

There is one other feature that I use occasionally, and that's the Packet Capture feature. I find that useful at some points when troubleshooting. The fact that this has a built-in capture function makes it all the more useful, rather than having to pull out a second tool to do the packet capture.

I wish it would boot a little faster, but then, I'm an impatient kind of person. It takes 20 seconds to boot and if they could cut that, it would be better. Other than that, I struggle to come up with some notable feature that I wish it had

I have been using LinkRunner 10G since 2020

It is very stable: it doesn't crash, the applications run as expected time and time again. That being said, there is one feature that is not quite as stable as the rest of the product:  the remote control function. You can leave it plugged into a location where you're doing some work and connect to it remotely by a program called VNC, which is popular at our site. And sometimes that function breaks down, particularly if you've been running for a couple of days, i.e. sometimes the VNC server running inside the tool quits working and you have to reboot it. Of course, if you're physically next to it, rebooting is not a big deal. But if you're remotely controlling it, you're probably not physically next to it. That can be modestly annoying. I don't know that there's a lot NetAlly can do about that, as VNC is an open-source, third-party product. But the rest of the product is rock-solid.

Scalability isn’t really applicable to a handheld device, but the Link-Live feature, which can aggregate all of your personal tools or all of your department's tools or all the company's tools, is reasonably scalable. There are lots of ways to organize tools and results and folders. We don't really do a lot of that. We just have a handful of tools that all report to one account, and that works well enough for our purposes.

NetAlly’s technical support is excellent. You send them an email and they respond rapidly and accurately and helpfully. I've been using them for a number of years and it's lovely. Many sites have a fancy web portal where you fill in a lot of information and you open your ticket, and that's fine. NetAlly just has an email address, which is kind of low-end, but it works great because they're so responsive.

Positive

This company was Fluke Networks decades ago; this chunk was bought by NetScout, which sold the group to the current owner:  NetAlly. But it is essentially the same crew of people.  I have been using their gear since the late 90s.  I have not used a competitor's product, so I cannot comment on whether anything out there is better or not.

They have automated the setup. It's quite nice. The only thing you have to do is register it on Link-Live, the free website, and that process is handled in a clear fashion.

The first time I set-up a NetAlly tool it probably took about 30 minutes:  creating my account on LinkLive, figuring out where the 'register my tool button is' and so forth. Now that I'm familiar with the strategy, it takes about five minutes.

We currently have three LinkRunner users. One of them works in desktop support, out in the field, connecting end stations to the network and troubleshooting. The second person is a network technician who receives tickets that are escalated from desktop support. And there's a network engineer who gets tickets that are escalated from the network technician.

We have implemented ourselves.  That being said, we have regularly hired Network Protocol Specialists LLC for coaching on network trouble-shooting in general, and during those coaching sessions, we often use LinkRunner or other NetAlly tools.  We bring current tickets to the coaching session, NPS coaches us through ways to resolve those tickets.  Historically, we have brought NPS on-site; these days, we use Zoom et al to do this remotely, with one of us in the field, another person at their desk, and NPS coordinating us remotely.

We pay for support:  we appreciate the surety of hardware replacment should a device fail (we have not experienced hardware failure on any of these tools), plus the regular software updates, which add features.

We haven’t looked at other options. We are willing to do that but haven't invested the time it takes.  The tools from Fluke Networks, and now NetAlly, meet our needs.

My advice is to try it out and, if it works for you, buy it. Anybody who's in the business of managing networks needs this or a similar tool. It saves you a lot of time.

The biggest lesson I've learned from using LinkRunner is the usefulness of narrowing down the fault domain. When there is a problem, it's not clear whether it's the client, the network, or the server. What this and similar products allow me to do is narrow the fault domain, and to either say, "It's definitely not the network,” or “It definitely is the network." It doesn't necessarily solve the problem for me, but helps me focus my attention on the component which is causing the problem.

Typically, I use it for identifying fiber connections to make sure that we have solid links in both directions. I like the bandwidth (iperf) built in testing. If only carrying the LR10G, you can use the JuiceSSH to access switches.

It is a good tool for what we are using it for. We're probably not using its full capability. We just use it for testing fiber connections when we're setting up new switches. It does that very well, with indicators. We typically do trunking, and it does not give much information on the trunk. It just lets us know that it's making a valid connection, and for my portion of my job, that's all that is required.

I use the AutoTest feature. If you are in a Cisco environment, it can give you information all the way to the port level, such as if it is a trunk port and which VLAN it is. It can test all the way out to the internet if that port allows DHCP. This information is absolutely important to us.

It reduces troubleshooting time. It saves about four hours on the job.

It makes our networking staff more productive. It has saved about 15 hours per month.

It is fast in providing results. It is pretty accurate. 

I do like that the test results are automatically saved to NetAlly's free Link-Live cloud service. It is pretty slick.

There is a cool feature with it where if you purchased the separate probe, you could do a tone test of cables, but you do have to purchase that probe separately.

They should allow firmware updates even if you don't have an AllyCare contract.

The AutoTest feature has got a bug in previous software. Make sure to run version 2.0.1.3 release-keys, should be available from LinkLive. When you're in the middle of auto testing, if you need to stop it and restart it, you have to swipe down and refresh the screen before you can hit the start or stop again. Update to 2.0.1.3 release-keys.

If you have a Cisco environment or Cisco ecosystem, it does CDP very well. It will tell you the exact port you're plugged into on a Cisco switch. However, if you're using something else, such as Ubiquiti switching, it does not pull the LLDP information. It does not give you any information other than the MAC address of the switch.

It is relatively easy to use, but in terms of the physical form, it is bulky. Being a field engineer, it is not something that you want to carry along with the charger. The charger is almost the same size as the device. They could have done a better job with the form factor and the battery life. They could have made one charger for all of their devices so that you only have to carry one charger, or they should have provided the ability to use a USB or USB-C on all the devices so that you could plug a device up to a laptop for charging.

I have been working with LinkRunner for about six to eight months. It is being used extensively. I use it on every job.

It seems to be pretty solid. I haven't had any issues with its screen, buttons, and things of that nature.

I didn't interact with them for LinkRunner. It was for another device. I was having trouble with the battery, and they did replace the battery. I didn't have to have an AllyCare contract. It was under warranty, and they did replace the battery. The customer interaction was great, but I am not pleased with not being able to update firmware without an AllyCare contract. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Since I have been working with this company, they have been purchasing LinkRunner. We were using Fluke previously, and the price was the reason for switching. It is still a high cost but nothing compared to what Fluke costs.

It is simple. You just take it out of the box and go with it.

I am not sure if we have seen an ROI.

I didn't have to buy it, but if I was going to have my choice, I wouldn't buy it just because of the price point. It works pretty well to do one thing. For the cost, it is definitely not worth it. There are other products out there that can do the same thing for probably 70% less. 

I am not aware of any additional costs.

My advice would be to be aware of AllyCare. There are no firmware updates unless you have that contract.

I can't say that I absolutely love it, but I find a feature here and there that is growing on me. It works pretty well to do one thing. I haven't really done much else with it. I did an iPerf test or a bandwidth test, and it did work quite well.

It works for troubleshooting. It does work well with the apps that are on the Android platform, but there are bugs and quirks to it.

The automatic uploading of test results to the Link-Live cloud service saves us some time but not on LinkRunner 10G. I've got Air Link that does it automatically anytime the device is connected, but for LinkRunner 10G, I believe you have to have a NetAlly or an AllyCare contract, which we do not have.

I would rate it a six out of ten.

I use LinkRunner for new deployment testing environments to validate solutions and to prove to us and our clients that we're delivering what they're looking for. LinkRunner provides us with all the relevant information we need, test results, and validates everything that we've done.

The tools are shared across our team, which is about eight people.

The number of bulk test tools that we carried is reduced from three bags to one tiny bag. That's an improvement. We manage only one or two devices in theory versus 10 different pieces of test equipment for 10 different results and variables. It's helped our company a lot.

LinkRunner generates a report that summarizes everything, so we don't have to pull all the results from different tests, put it together, make sense of it, and then talk to the client about it. We can customize a single report with a company's value-adds, which saves a lot of time.

NetAlly's free Link-Live Cloud Service is a highlight of our use case, especially because most of the other tools that we use don't have a cloud platform. It allows us to save test results. We've had situations where a client requested to see those test results because we didn't provide them originally. It was definitely a face-saving stage because we were able to pull the report easily from the cloud platform.

The solution's ability to simplify network validation and configuration of copper and fiber Ethernet networks is absolutely brilliant. It would have taken us an hour to run those tests on individual test tools with a dedicated toolkit. LinkRunner has one tool to achieve all this, so we can do everything within 10-15 minutes for the same amount of tests. There has been a huge time reduction. Running tests multiple times across different individual pieces of the network reduces time as well.

It helps us streamline workflows. There are specific tools for test reasons or validations, so if we did this with any other tool, we would've spent many hours doing individual tests. Because we're doing it in one go with LinkRunner, we save a lot of time. We have a one-panel view, which allows us to see everything, cleanly summarizes it, and points out where the problems are. It's highly relevant and highly useful, especially for a network engineer.

We use LinkRunner's AutoTest feature a lot. The AutoTest feature shows us the connectivity status. It picks up the DHCP IP. It saves us a lot of time because we don't have to manually configure things.

The AutoTest feature on its own is just a part of the puzzle. It's one piece that allows us to make sure we have physical connectivity. It's more time-saving than anything else. The AutoTest feature alone doesn't meet all of our needs, but together with the AutoTest performances, iPerf, etc., it works very well.

LinkRunner is easy to use and saves a lot of time. It's programmed so that all the usual tasks are automated, which means we don't have to select variables, values, etc.

LinkRunner's speed in providing results is very good.

The solution automatically uploads test results to Link-Live Cloud Service, which definitely saves us time. The only downside is that we have to manually select "Upload It." I wish that piece was automated more than anything else, including graphs. I couldn't find that feature, but it's been pretty straightforward to use other than that.

The solution has definitely reduced troubleshooting time. About 70% of our time and effort has been reduced.

Our networking staff is more productive because of this solution. They have time to focus on other things. 

Performance testing is the most valuable feature. It gives a brief summary of the information we're looking at, such as latency, jitter, and the available throughput.

I wish they had software that could create continuous streams of traffic. I'm not sure if that's possible with LinkRunner, but it would be very helpful in some of the test case scenarios that clients are looking for, in regards to the quality of service.

I would like to see automated cloud updates so we can automatically upload test results instead of manually doing it.

I have been using this solution for less than a year.

We haven't had any issues with stability.

The scalability is questionable, but I'm open to being corrected on that. Right now, we're starting to see 25 Gig and 50 Gig throughputs, and even 100 or 400 Gig throughputs. It would be nice to see testing tools that can do 400 Gigs. 400 Gigs might be pushing it, but I would like to see at least 100 Gigs because that's slowly becoming the norm.

I haven't needed to contact technical support.

Positive

We used various tools and applications to replicate what we were doing. They were all Linux-based tools or specific cable test-run tools. We put them all aside thanks to LinkRunner.

I had to make one call to the partner, but everything else was straightforward. It took less than ten minutes to get the solution up and running. After that, we took it out to client sites and used it for different testing results, AutoTest performances, etc., over a period of days.

The solution hardly requires any maintenance. The firmware updates come from the cloud platform. 

We have absolutely seen ROI with the time and effort that our engineers are saving. 

For one of our projects, we had to do tests on every single individual network device. Doing that without LinkRunner would have taken at least five times the effort. LinkRunner immediately saved us that time by one-fifth. 

We have also saved time because the information is consolidated into a report. The cloud solution formats it into a graph. It's presentable and easily extracted. We got a lot of time back, which we could use for other projects.

It was difficult to sell this to my management because the price is really high compared to other testing tools. However, we've seen a pretty good return on investment considering our outcomes and the time we have saved. The first year has been great.

We approached a lot of vendors in regard to various solutions. We were trying to get a 10 Gig capacity throughput because it was a requirement that the client absolutely wanted to test. Not many solutions delivered that.

We also wanted summarized and collated information instead of needing to use ten different tools to achieve the same result. LinkRunner meets all of those needs.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

It's not a ten because of the scalability piece. If I wanted to step it up with other interface levels, the scalability would be limited. I would like to see the addition of a couple of simple tests and a traffic generator feature.

We do structured cabling and we use the LinkSprinter to do certified cable runs and for throughput testing through switches.

This simplifies the solutions that we offer by being able to have all the tools available in one small form factor that you can carry around just about anywhere. The LinkRunner has improved our IT functions due to the ease of use, portability of the unit, and its ability to do logging and diagnostic troubleshooting.

Among the features that I've found the most valuable with the G2 is that you can have your results uploaded to the cloud and have them emailed directly to you. That way you can look at the results later on during the day.

Having the results sent directly, via email, from the LinkRunner itself makes it really great for logging different things that you're trying to document within your organization. You can have a paper trail of what your organization has as far as infrastructure goes. Also, when we're trying to diagnose and troubleshoot issues further, outside of the site, we can have visual results of what we tested earlier during the day to help us figure out what's going on with the environment. The auto-saving of the information allows us to streamline our processes and save a bunch of time on troubleshooting and diagnostics.

The LinkRunner, as far as troubleshooting goes, provides very quick and useful diagnostic tools. If you're trying to connect to a switch, it tells you all the information at a moment's notice. It has definitely reduced troubleshooting time inside network cabinets and allows us to get our work done efficiently and effectively. The solution has made our IT staff more productive by saving us time within those IT closets and allowing us to get in and out of the scenarios and get the client back up and running.

Having a unit that can perform all the tasks needed makes the life of an IT professional easier. You have a simple device that is easy to use. The user interface is great, and it has all the streamlined power tools to make an IT professional great at whatever tasks they're trying to accomplish. The ease of use of the LinkRunner G2 means that any IT professional or beginner IT professional would be able to pick it up and use it, 100 percent, without any issues.

The speed in providing results is something that they have done very well with this product. I have no comments as to any ways they could improve it.

Being really nitpicky about the LinkRunner G2, I wish the form factor was a little bit smaller. However, I'm sure that the size of the unit is compromised by the fact that the battery is large. If that were to mean having less battery life, I would not change it.

I am our market relationship manager and I have been using the LinkRunner G2 with LinkSprinter for about two and a half years now.

I have not noticed any issues with the stability of this product. Anytime there has been an update for the LinkRunner, we have always applied it, but we have never had any issues with the stability of the product or battery life.

The technical support is something I have not actually had to use with this product. It is a very straightforward product and requires little to no documentation to use or maintain.

Before we used the LinkRunner we did use some Fluke solutions.

The initial setup was straightforward. The most complicated step, which was not bad at all, was setting it up under a NetAlly account where you can receive your emails. Other than that, it was a straightforward process and it wasn't hard at all.

The only deployment and maintenance time that we have spent on the LinkRunner was the initial setup and time for charging of the unit. There is no other maintenance required.

You get what you pay for whenever you're looking for a network troubleshooting tool. And if you're going to be using it to streamline your processes and cut down on time in the field, you need to choose a product that is going to be easy to use, simple, and something that you can rely on. NetAlly has that.

The cost of the LinkRunner is something that I can justify by it being a simple-to-use unit and something that allows us to perform our job functions quicker and more easily than we have ever done before. So the price is well worth it.

I have not incurred any costs using the NetAlly, other than the purchase of the unit.

We did consider different companies but decided to go with NetAlly for the price and the bang for the buck.

For others who may be interested in the LinkRunner product, you may not use all the features that you have on the LinkRunner units. However, technology is growing every day and you may use them in the future in your IT career.

The biggest lesson that I have learned is that these products are specialized for networking administrators and any IT professional. Not having it in the tool shed was a huge, grave mistake.

I mostly use LinkRunner for the auto-test LAN option. We use it to diagnose wall plates, test cable lengths, and perform simple captures and pings. 

I carry the unit in my tool bag, and I am the only person who uses it. One of the other team members has the same title as me, does the same basic tasks, and carries the same tools. The other person who uses this is the department director. He's the supervisor, so he makes decisions, but he also does hands-on repair work.

LinkRunner makes troubleshooting faster. I can get information with LinkRunner that would otherwise require me to log into the switch itself. It allows me to access the information without going through any security hoops to log into the switch or having an actual laptop with me. When it tells me something, it's right, and I trust the information that it gives me. I don't have to question it or double-check anything.

I can't say that it has made us more productive. It's like asking a carpenter if a hammer makes him more productive. He needs the hammer, or he's not going to be useful. I need one of these for my day-to-day activities.

The auto-test feature is vital and does 90 percent of what I need on its own. It's fast and I can get there in just a few clicks. It does a good job and tells me everything I need to know. LinkRunner works pretty quickly and always seems to be accurate. 

I like that the auto-test is customizable, so I can set up different auto-test profiles depending on the scenario I'm going into. I often want to know the port of the switch I'm connected to. I also want to test how fast I get DHCP. I also use the auto test for power requirements, so I know how much power is coming through the line.

I love the Link-Live Cloud Service. I try to make sure that it gets plugged into an actual network from time to time so those updates show up. I often forward results to my team to let someone else look at them and give me their assessment. It's a huge benefit that saves me time by giving information to my colleagues.

It's handy that LinkRunner has the user manual built into it. You often need to use this tool to look up an answer when a network isn't available.

LinkRunner is moderately challenging to use. The auto test is excellent, but all the other features require you to spend time reading the manual. It's not as intuitive as it could be. What you need to do or what it's trying to tell you is not very obvious.

It runs tests quickly, but it takes a while to boot up. It's somewhat disappointing that LinkRunner takes some time to turn on. When I arrive in the space, I usually spend the first two minutes waiting.

My older LinkRunner unit was faster, but it broke, and that's why I got this new one. I prefer the old one. This one starts pretty slowly, and you always have to turn it off because the battery drains quickly. You can never leave it on for any length of time. You always need to turn it off. Otherwise, it'll be dead in a few hours.

It has a USB you can use to add a WIFI card, but the WIFI card that NetAlly recommends causes it to crash constantly. I can't use it often because it just crashes. It also seems to make the product hot when I try to use it. The USB port doesn't allow you to fully insert the USB WIFI adapter either. It's sticking out in a way that makes me worry I'm going to break it if I don't remove the adapter constantly.

The USB port needs to be roomier so you can fully seat something into it. It would be nice if it actually had a small WIFI adapter built into it because the one they recommend installing is problematic.

I've been using LinkRunner for two years.

It's never crashed on me except for when I used the recommended WIFI adapter. It doesn't seem buggy or has any freak-outs. It's relatively stable.

I appreciate that it has an SFP. The closest thing to scalability is that it does normal copper RJ45, but it also takes an SFP to do a 10G connection. One reason we chose this model is that it has the SFP that can do 10G.

I've never contacted NetAlly support before, but I appreciate that they send me an email when there's a software update. The manual is pretty well done, so I've never needed to call support or check support web pages.

I used LinkRunner AT 1000 before. I switched because the old one stopped functioning. I believe the ethernet port on it was physically broken. 

Setting up LinkRunner was straightforward, and it only takes a few minutes. There isn't much to set up. You pretty much just turn it on. I took it out of the box and turned it on. I didn't need to talk to anyone or call support. I turned it on, read the manual a little bit, and that was it.

I don't know if ROI really applies here. It's just a tool that I need to have, so I'm going to have some version of it no matter what.

The price was fine. You pay for the unit, and there are no licensing or maintenance fees. 

I shopped for it and chose the model. I mostly looked at other NetAlly products because I don't think there was a comparable product from any other vendor. 
I selected this model because of the 10G connection, but I also considered a more wireless-focused LinkRunner product. It was something in the AT 1000 or AT 2000 series. I don't remember the differences between them, but I picked this one specifically because of the 10G functionality.

I rate LinkRunner a seven out of ten. It has good value for the price. The battery is disappointing, so I can't rank it higher. Before buying LinkRunner, I recommend thinking about how long you need to go without being able to charge it. 

You will be disappointed if you're in the field for eight hours daily, expecting this product to be on six or seven of those hours. It's not going to last. If you want to use WIFI at all, choose a different model. Don't try to install a WIFI card in this one.

You also need to read the manual. They're not all the same. So even if you own multiple LinkRunner products, they're not very identical, and you should learn the differences between them.

I work for one of the biggest port operators in the United Kingdom. I'm a network analyst/engineer, and I use the LinkRunner on a daily basis to check network connectivity from areas around where I work or from the switches in the LAN room, whether it's to check VLAN info to determine if the port is live, or end-to-end testing of the cables.

The end-to-end testing of cables [is a benefit] when you're working on a campus-wide network and you want to detect if there's a fault. If you're working on the OSI layers, and you're starting right down at the bottom on the physical layer, it can rule out if there's an issue with that quite fast, and save a lot of time being wasted trying to troubleshoot things with IP addresses et cetera, when it's detected a problem with the cables being crossed or unterminated.

The most valuable feature is the end-to-end testing with the "dart," as they call it, where you can test for faults in the cable or if they've been terminated properly.

Its ability to simplify network validation and configuration of copper and fiber Ethernet networks is good. The checking of the termination on copper is good. I haven't used it much for fiber, to be honest, but I use it to locate physical problems with a cable. It's very good because it also gives you the distance, which wires are crossed, and which ones are damaged.

Troubleshooting with it is also good, with physical faults on a cable. It is good as well for VLAN information and IP information.

The AutoTest feature is the one I use the most. It will provide me with the VLAN that's being presented, the switch hostname. It didn't use to provide the actual port number, which sometimes is imperative if you're trying to troubleshoot something. It will do an IP test, so it will tell you the default gateway address and the IP address it's getting. And it will do a few tests where it goes out to Google, so you can see if it can get to the actual outside public network. And that all gets uploaded to the portal, which you can access through a PC when you get back to your main office.

That Auto Test information is essential because I go to a lot of remote sites. You want to leave knowing that all that info, the comprehensive information, is uploaded back to the portal. You don't want to get back and find there are bits missing.

The fact that results are automatically saved to NetAlly's Link-Live cloud service is very important because if there are a few of us with LinkRunners, and we're assessing the network connectivity at different areas within the campus, we can have them all uploaded and it's all stored centrally. And we can access other people's results as well. Definitely [it's important] instead of trying to get that info at a later date, it's all there within minutes. The automatic uploading of test results definitely saves time and helps with the management of test results.

It's reduced troubleshooting time by about 20 percent because of the features I've mentioned [like] the centrally uploaded data, and because of the scope of things, it can look into like DHCP, IP connectivity, VLANs being presented, and physical issues on a port.

Where it does fall short, though, is getting the port numbers off the switch.

Also, for ad hoc additions, moves, and changes of wired connections, it was a bit hard to pick up at first because it's not straightforward how to label each test you are doing on it. There is a section on there where you can add notes to each test, which I discovered later. Having said that, once you get your head around that, it is good.

It's quite easy to use but the interface for the web portal could be made easier.

Also, the battery life is not very good on a LinkRunner G2 at all.

I've used it for the last five or six years.

Performance-wise it is good, apart from the battery. The battery indicator icon might say there's a third of a battery-full on there, but then you do an AutoTest, it looks good, you're trying to upload it, and bang, it disappears.

It is limited because of the battery life. And in fact, at Networkshop in 2017, I spoke to a LinkRunner member of staff and I explained the issue with the battery. They said that I needed to buy a better LinkRunner, a more advanced model, which I thought was a bit strange because even after having it for a few weeks, the battery would just die on you.

I don't use it extensively. There are a lot of features on it that I don't use, like the web browser. I usually just use the port testing, the AutoTest, and the dart with the end-to-end cable testing. I'm satisfied with the way things are.

The company decided to go with LinkRunner's NETSCOUT, as opposed to Fluke, for some reason. It might have been the price. I don't know because I'm not involved with the purchase of them.

Setup of the LinkRunner G2 is quite straightforward and it's also straightforward if you have one transferred over to you from another department, or another user leaves and you take that on. It was just [a matter of] taking the device off that name and putting it under your own. You got a code sent through and then it was just a case of putting your email address in and then accessing the portal again.

It takes half an hour, if that.

LinkRunner G2 has made our networking staff more productive, but we were using Flukes before that and Flukes had higher battery life. I'd be lying if I didn't say that hasn't caused issues.

Once it's on, it's fast at providing results, but it does take a while to power up and get established.

Make sure you learn how to put notes onto each AutoTest you do so that you can decipher what's what when they're in the uploaded portal. And also keep an eye on the battery as soon as you get it, and if it starts failing, contact their support. I feel that the battery on mine, and on others in the workplace, was substandard.

I give it a five out of 10. If it weren't for the battery, it would probably get a 10 out of 10. But because of the battery, it's infuriating and it's not reliable.

My primary use cases are plugging into a port to determine what switch it is, the name of the switch, what VLANs are on it, and to test if there is a correct connection or even a correct termination on both sides.

LinkRunner's ability to simplify network validation is pretty good. I just recently started using the telnet feature and it is helpful because previously, I had to carry a laptop with all of the correct connections set up. I no longer have to. As long as I have the IP address, I can directly connect to the hardware and make the changes.

Using it means that instead of having to use several pieces of equipment, I now just need one to do all that I need at any given point.

It has definitely helped in terms of saving time and costs, as well as improving efficiency. My time savings is pretty significant. Some of my calls are pretty quick but if I didn't have the tool, they would take longer. Calls that took me between an hour and an hour and a half, now take about 15 minutes. 

From the point of testing all the way through to the switch, including DHCP and DNS, this solution is very important. It eliminates half the problems that I have when testing.

Recently, we had a problem with fiber connections and determining our slowness on campus. When it comes to easy stuff like going from a client to a switch, it's very easy to find it and it's not a problem. When it goes to DHCP and out to the internet, it is great and again, not a problem. However, when we're trying to diagnose why there's slowness on campus, that's pretty hard to figure out, even with this specific tool.

In terms of the speed at which LinkRunner provides results, it's really good. It is one of the better tools I've used in a long time. It gives me everything at a glance and I can just give it to somebody in the field, and they can do it themselves remotely. Then, I can see the data back at my end, and make the appropriate changes.

The telnet feature has come in handy because I no longer have to carry a laptop with me to test connectivity.

The integration with the cloud system is very good. If I need to give this device to a level one engineer, they can run and plug it into the port, and then an automatic email is generated. It sends me all of the information that I need to make changes. This feature is great when I'm in the field.

The fact that the test results are automatically saved into NetAlly's Link-Live Cloud Service is pretty important to me. As a network engineer, it's really useful to have and be able to look at testing in the past. I enjoy it thoroughly. This is a feature that saves me time and helps with the management of the results.

If I'm using a laptop then usually, all I can see is where I can reach Google. This device tells me the name, port number, VLANs, and other details. That's what I like to see.

The fiber connections are great, and this feature makes a huge difference.

The AutoTest feature is one that I use quite significantly. It provides me with information such as the name of the switch, the port number, and the VLANs. These are the major focuses. I also use it when I have to probe out a link and check the connections in between. Using the AutoTest features wipes out more than half of my work. Perhaps three quarters.

With most of our testing, this solution makes it pretty simplistic. It will go through the network, it will tell you how fast the traffic is moving, the return cycle, and other relevant information. 

In terms of documenting ad hoc additions and other changes to wired ethernet connections, this product is very good. It keeps the information in the cloud and I have the ability to name it. This makes it very nice and easy to see. I don't think that I can do this from the device itself when I test. That would be a nice feature to have. If I could name it inside the actual device, and then have it transmit the data to the cloud automatically, it would be one less step that we have to do. 

We were having trouble diagnosing a slowness on our network and using this tool, we weren't able to determine where the problem was. Ultimately, it was that a transceiver was going bad but we couldn't tell because it was still functional. It was slow, and the problem was intermittent, but there was no way to really identify the issue.

Unlike using an application like Wireshark, this device gives us no way to see network packets specifically to look at what's going on. It doesn't have the capability. This means there is no way to determine whether a transceiver is going bad if it's still functional.

Using some of the other tools supplied by the NetAlly support care, that run with LinkRunner, really hurts us because if we have to keep purchasing the product, we can't keep using the full potential of the tool. We can't do full performance testing.

When I test a connection, it doesn't give me a place to name the results. It sends it to the cloud and provides an email about it. Having the ability to attach a name to the data, right from the device, would be helpful.

The learning curve for this tool is pretty steep if you don't know what you're doing. A lot of it for me was on-the-job learning. I read a lot and watched a lot of the videos that are available. However, the videos helped perhaps a quarter compared to what I had to learn myself. There are no specific videos, for example, on how to use telnet or to use it on the device when you're on the network.

I have seen other vendors provide training material in the form of a course, instead of just a set of YouTube videos. They go more in-depth and show you more detail, which would be ideal for this product. As it is now, the videos that they have are pretty general and although they show you some parts of what you can do in the real world, it doesn't show 100% of the features. This is an important thing to add because using it to its full extent can be truly life-changing.

Another complaint that we have about the product is the firmware updates, which have to be done through NetAlly Care specifically. Firmware updates and software upgrades should be included for the life of the device. Alternatively, they should be included for the first three years or even the first year, at a bare minimum. As it is now, you don't even have that. There is really no support in that regard, once you get the tool. Originally, that deterred me. However, I took a risk on the product because I saw that it was being used heavily in the industry, and I'm glad that I did. The support for inclusive firmware updates is the number-one thing that I would change.

I think that the OS could be updated a little bit. It looks like it's running Android Froyo, or perhaps one that is a little more recent.

You're supposed to be able to read the instructions right on the device but the problem is that they are too difficult to see.

It requires an internet connection and if I'm in the field, I either have to make sure that I've purchased a USB separately or have the one that comes with it. Or, I need an internet connection when I might need to be testing it from that point, which is a little bit difficult to do.

I have been working with LinkRunner for approximately two years.

I have never had any issues with stability, and it has never crashed.

We have three of us who are using it. I do the networking in our organization, and the other two people are level one engineers that might need help with networking or diagnosing problems.

I have never been in contact with technical support.

I have used other tools in the past and this is one of the better tools I've used in a long time. We don't buy a lot of the tools very often because they're expensive. In any of our networking, we were using a lot of older stuff.

It's good to now have tools that are all-inclusive and one set for networking. That said, I know it's harder to get more tools that can tell us directly what's wrong with the fiber, except that it's slow or the threshold is at a certain level.

Prior to working with LinkRunner, we used products from Fluke Networks. The reason that we switched had to do with researching other products, as well as asking my peers what they were happiest with. They recommended it.

Having always been a user of Fluke products, and trying this now, I'm glad that I decided to try it because I'm impressed. The features that made the biggest difference were that it's all-inclusive in a single system, its ability to handle 10G fiber, which we're just starting to implement now, and the capability of the cloud system.

Overall, I really enjoy this tool compared to everything else, because it really reduces laptop usage, having to plug into the network or the switch directly. It gives me everything at a glance.

There are documentation and YouTube videos available to help with setting up the product.

On the topic of cost versus the ability to solve problems faster, from the perspective of a large company, it's well worth it because it leads to better time management for individuals. Instead of us spending 60 or 90 minutes trying to figure out one particular network issue, we can diagnose it within 15 minutes. 

The cost of this device is very expensive, especially with the NetAlly Care on top of the costs. It is not for personal use and would be very expensive for smaller businesses. My company purchased it out of pocket and they provided it to me. It frees me up more so it is worthwhile for them. However, if I were using it personally, it would be hard to justify the cost versus the time.

If I were choosing a solution for a private business, I would suggest that the technician uses a laptop. It might cost only $1,000 with all of the connection cables and everything that they need. It would require more effort and it would take more time to resolve issues, but it would be easier to justify the cost on a higher level.

On the other hand, if troubleshooting is something that you do every day as a network engineer or a network technician, and this is a device that is going to be used consistently, then it's worth the time and the cost. Long-term productivity will improve because of it.

Overall, the full functionality of this tool is phenomenal. This is a tool that I would buy on my own, provided I could afford it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.