Netcosm is a three dimensional video game-like graphical representation of your network and the traffic that traverses it. Initially developed in NetQoS Performance Labs as an experiment in low cognitive burden network monitoring, it allows you to view at a glance the health of the network. Sure, you could get the information from viewing text-based reports and 2D graphs – and this isn’t a replacement for them – but it does allow you to get information about the performance status of your network literally at a glance. Dropped packets are ejected from the stream and detonate in a fiery explosion, servers struggling under load are depicted first as smoking, then as on fire.

Audio cues also determine the health of your network so you don’t even need to be looking at the screen to keep an “eye” on your network – you can “hear” the file crackle and the packets explode, so you can work on other problems while always being aware of the network in the background. Hear the sound of a server crackling or a multitude of explosions?

It’s our way of making hard-to-detect, subtle network performance problems… a bit less subtle, and therefore, easier to detect.

In Netcosm you can move around and zoom in on particular parts of the network or even one server, and you can zoom out to take a look at your entire network. Controls are familiar to anyone who has ever played a three dimensional computer game like Doom, Quake, or World of Warcraft – and that’s not unintentional. The generation coming into the IT rooms today grew up with video games – and will find this tool familiar.

Below is a video of Netcosm in action. Let us know what you think of it in the comments below.