LinkRunner Reviews

We use it for general connectivity issues and trying to determine throughput on fiber and throughput on the wired part of the network. We have a lot of excess network traffic and we are trying to determine if it is inherent to a particular run of fiber or a particular network switch. We've been chasing activity around campus for most of the year, including VLANs and things of that nature. A lot of it was pretty simply explained and it was really easy to see on this device.

The AutoTest feature is really important because it saves time. Instead of chasing something down the old, manual way, with a ping test and a tracer, and a tone-tester loop-back process, AutoTest saves me something like eight to 10 hours every week.

In terms of network validation, and copper and fiber Ethernet configuration, I can't imagine life without LinkRunner devices. The minute I got the 10G, everybody was fighting over it. They had never used such a device before and it was just breathtaking for them to very quickly see the validation you can gain from these devices. Without one, it's a manual process where you're chasing your head in circles.

When it comes to troubleshooting, I don't even know how to measure its value. It gives you the information you need, when you need it, very quickly. When you're dealing with a school, like we are, you don't have a lot of time. When technology breaks, learning stops, and that's the core product. I can't imagine not having something like this to help me and my team track down intermittent issues. The amount of time it saves me on troubleshooting varies but I would estimate it's several hours a week, on average.

The speed of the device means that, for what we're looking for, it usually takes 30 seconds to a minute.

Another benefit is the automatic upload of test results to the Link-Live Cloud Service. Over a period of a month, that feature saves me several hours. I can look back on a particular activity at the time it happened and know what we tested and what we found. It has demonstrated its value that way very easily.

You can very easily see the VLAN structures and which port is involved on the switch. A lot of detailed information comes back.

It's also helpful that I have both my devices connected to email. Every time they're used I get an email that shows me the test results—fail/pass—and the details around it. When I get back, I review where I was and recall all the details without having to scribble them down on a piece of paper.

If the results were not automatically saved to NetAlly’s free Link-Live Cloud Service, it would lose a lot of effectiveness. Without that, you would have to depend on the memory of the device or walk around with a notepad and scribble things down, and hopefully you'd be able to read what you wrote when you got back. Having that automated process is very important, and knowing it is there even made it easier to make the purchase.

Also, being able to do a packet capture is important. 

AutoTest largely gives you a snapshot of what the network is looking like on that particular leg. It helps trace down if we have connectivity. We have a unique setup in the way we structure our VLANs, so it's just important to know which port on a switch is tied to which VLAN structure. When you're out, you're not going to necessarily log in to the switch and automatically start looking. You need to know, "Is this on this VLAN or that VLAN?" Given that they're not necessarily marked clearly, the LinkRunner device makes it a lot easier to really quickly say, "Okay, I need to move this port because this one is dead. Where is another VLAN for it?" You can very quickly determine which of the ports will work.

Also, on very long runs at the end of a building, I am able to do a more in-depth cable test to see if we've got a mismatched pair or a loose wire that needs to be punched down. You can very easily tell when you've got an intermittent connection. 

And, of course, the performance of it is pretty handy too. You can start an analysis of what's going on and look at what outgoing port you're going at.

I've been using LinkRunner for about a year. It was actually the first purchase I made when I got here. I had a couple of LinkRunners, not the 10G but the wired and wireless combined one, the AirCheck G2. I also have that here. I used that at my previous school for a couple of years.

We've never had any issues with the LinkRunner.

I've never had to use their tech support, which is a good thing.

In the school where I'm now working, they didn't have any testing devices before I arrived. They did whatever they could, but there was no intelligent testing available. They would just look at the network activity on a switch, which isn't really helpful at all. 

I went with LinkRunner in my current job because of my prior experience with it. 

Getting it set up was very easy, almost seamless. It was almost plug-and-play. There was just not a lot to it. Within 30 minutes of utilizing it and doing a few tests, you see that it's very user-friendly. Most users adapt to it very quickly and find what they're looking for.

We have seen value from the product from day one. It's worth every dime we paid for it, 100 percent.

The area where the product could be improved is by having a lower cost so that I could have more than one. The price is competitive, but everybody would always like to see the price go down. I'd buy another one if it were cheaper.

We use this for daily work for desktop, network, server and infrastructure sections.  

It can be used in the office environment, factory floor, up in the rafters and out in the elements. With the device being rugged, it has withstood all that we've put it through with minimal issues.

It's a great product and worth every penny if you calculate hours lost with personnel and downtime of equipment.

The unit has saved hours and hours of troubleshooting and manpower on site. Other sections that are not in IT have also purchased these for wire map, tracing and testing.

I highly recommend getting the gold support because of the two issues that we've had over the five years. Throughout all of its use, the LinkRunner RJ45 jack on the top of the unit has been replaced due to wear and tear.

Bluetooth connectivity to a phone/tablet to manipulate if it's toning a line for an Access Point in the rafters and you're 250+ft away and 15" down.  Having to go back up in a lift to use the interface and then go back down again can be cumbersome.

Or something like the remote access that the OneTouch has to access the screen remotely.  That comes in handy.

I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement with a compared cost on the market yet.

Being able to use this as a reflector with OneTouch is very handy.

Top-notch, and I've been using Fluke/NETSCOUT for over 20 years.

Straightforward.

Get the gold support! It's worth every penny for the loaner while your device is in for maintenance.

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 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.

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.

I work for a college and we have mostly been using it on campus, whenever we've been adding fiber optic links between switches or routers, to identify paths and determine if they're plugging into the intended switch and port, before we plug it in with the actual switch.

The other use case is that we're starting to do troubleshooting with LinkRunner but we haven't done a lot of that yet. If we're seeing errors on a link, we're trying to use it to identify the source or the severity of them using something that is not part of our switching structure. Having something that's a separate standard or measuring device is very appealing.

Given that some of the kinds of links that we need to do on campus are going from building to building, sometimes that can be tricky if you're doing it by yourself. With LinkRunner it is much more practical to do that as one person, without having another at the end or in between. I have been able to pretty confidently evaluate the link all the way, at every step in the process, rather than plugging it in at the end and looking at the switches to see what the status is. 

In addition, with the AutoTest feature, it's good to have the PoE validation or reporting, as well as the detailed LLDP information at the same time. And it provides ping-level information to both local and remote websites. That information is pretty significant because we have a variety of APs with differing power requirements, and a variety of switches with differing levels of PoEs. I anticipate that we'll be able to use this to more readily identify if we've got the proper power when we're installing some of the newer, more power-hungry APs.

In general, I like the idea of the Link-Live Cloud Service a lot. That was something I'm not even sure I knew about beforehand. I may have read about it in the sheets, but hadn't looked at it in any detail at all. It should help save time because I know I don't have to worry about the results on the tester itself. I know that they're going to be on the cloud and I'll get notifications about them too.

One of the most valuable features may seem really small, but it's really helpful. The LLDP decoding is better than on some of the other devices that we've used. Specifically, it goes beyond the minimum of the LLDP data to decode, and it shows the LLDP port descriptions. That makes it vastly simpler to identify which port you're connecting to on a switch that's patched back to some other building, rather than having to figure out an SNMP index or something else.

Its ability to simplify network validation and configuration of fiber Ethernet networks has been very good. It has certainly helped anytime we've been doing something where we wanted to evaluate it beforehand.

On the troubleshooting side, from what I've seen, I think the Link-Live is going to be a big plus with the automatic storing of data on the cloud. I expect to have to take fewer pictures of my tester to record something. And while I haven't used it at all, I'm expecting to like the LAN BERT function for more extensive troubleshooting or validation of a link at higher levels.

It's also pretty easy to use, at least when it comes to the primary functions. I haven't used the most advanced parts yet, but I was certainly able to make use of the basic features relatively quickly. For instance, the AutoTest, was literally a matter of plugging it in and pushing "AutoTest." I was able to evaluate the information that it gave back.

The speed at which it provides results is very good. It seems very quick.

The only thing that comes to mind is that it does take a little while to boot up if it's turned off.

We got LinkRunner in the fall of 2021, so we have had it for about four months.

It has primarily been me using it in my role as network administrator, being involved in physically adding links in different places. What I expect we'll be doing in the relatively near future is to have the couple of people who also do physical port activations and switch installs make use of it in the same way I do.

I haven't noticed any stability problems on the unit.

We got it for 10-Gb links and below. There will certainly be a point where we want to do 40-Gb links, but I realize that that's a big jump from where this device is. And it has already made a big jump, going from 1-Gb links to 10. We're satisfied with that for now.

I haven't used their technical support, although there was one strange issue. The case that it's in has a Velcro strap, and the stitching that held the Velcro on was defective. It was coming undone. I went through customer support and identified that by answering an email and uploading a photo. It was a pretty painless process and, relatively quickly, they sent a replacement case for it.

Positive

I've used another NetAlly product, but it is a lower-level product. I also used an older Fluke model. I haven't used a newer Fluke device.

The key thing we were looking at in switching to LinkRunner was the higher speeds that are available. The 10-Gb capability was a real plus. It's also newer and much more modern.

When I look at its cost versus its ability to save time or solve problems faster, it's good. I'm perfectly happy with it.

It's an expensive device. Don't expect it to be cheap. But the pricing is good. It certainly seemed in line with anything else I was looking at at the time.

The range of NetAlly devices that I saw at the time gave me confidence that I could pick from other devices if I was looking for something with different capabilities at a different price point. But my first priority was the 10-Gb capability, and this was the first in their product line that did that.

I was looking around generally, so I probably ran across some others. But the NetAlly products seemed to have extra features like the test accessory, which is the remote iPerf server. That's a nice, handy thing to be able to plug in somewhere.

I expect the LAN BERT function will take some time to learn because I haven't used that yet. I need to read a little bit more about it, and I need to pair it with another device.

In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require any, as far as I know.

I haven't used those advanced features yet, but from everything I've seen, it's a 10 out of 10. I haven't come across anything that's been disappointing. It has been able to do the things that I've tried to do with it.

My company has been spinning up a lot of offices, so we use LinkRunner to verify that the copper and fiber cables are installed correctly and will meet multi-gig needs. We also use it for general troubleshooting that occurs with the various built-in tests. We have two devices shared by four or five junior and senior network engineers.

LinkRunner makes the configuration of the copper and fiber Ethernet networks a lot simpler. The kit comes with modules that you can plug in, so it will do pair matching and everything else on the screen. We can ensure that everything has been terminated properly.

It also uploads to NetAlly's cloud, creating a record of all the tests that have been run. We can easily see when something new is tested by a technician in the field and add the test to the documentation. We know when something has been added and whether it meets the installation requirements. This is crucial for us and it's easy to access the data after it uploads. We can sign into the cloud, or it'll email us the results after each test.

The client integration is a huge time saver. Older products from this vendor required us to hook our device to our laptop via USB and manually transfer. At the end of the day, everything is automatically uploaded to the cloud. We're getting the testing done faster, which saves us at least a day per location.

I like that LinkRunner is an all-in-one device with a touchscreen interface. I don't have to pair it with a phone or anything else to get the full functionality. The built-in tests are one of the most significant advantages. It will pull an IP, ping the gateway, ping out to the Intra, and report everything on the screen. It will tell me when a test completes or fails and why.

We don't have to worry about carrying multiple devices. When we’re going into a situation to deploy or troubleshoot, we don't want to take a whole bag of stuff. This comes with a little strap so we can wear it on our hips.

AutoTest is another feature we use. It provides a power rating and does the basics post on IP. It has thresholds to tell me if a DHCP request takes longer than expected or the DNS takes longer to resolve something based on thresholds we've set. AutoTest is critical for troubleshooting because it helps diagnose network issues. If it's an issue with a DNS server or DHB server, then it is not traditionally a network issue.

Overall, it's easy to use. When I hand it to junior technicians, they can figure it out in a few minutes and test whatever they need. The results display quickly after the initial boot and testing. The unit also has a built-in camera, so we can snap pictures of the wall plates and other field items when we're troubleshooting or looking at a new install.

One area where LinkRunner could be improved is the battery life. Depending on which tests are run, it gets a decent six to eight hours. However, sometimes we need to do back-to-back shifts to meet a deadline, and we need access to an outlet to keep it plugged in and charging. It takes about an hour or two to charge.

I'd also like to see NetAlly add the ability to test 40-gig fiber.

We've been using LinkRunner for about a year.

The OS is pretty stable. I think we've only had one crash, and that may just be because Android OS is running multiple test apps at once. We don't always remember to close them, so it's running a lot in the background. The device itself is sturdy, but I've only used it with a protective case, so I don't know how well it would handle a drop without it.

We were using a different NetAlly device previously. It was a LinkSprinter. We switched to LinkRunner because it does 10-gig fiber and 2.5-gig copper. LinkRunner also has cable mapping built into it. 

LinkRunner is a single device, which is an advantage over LinkSprinter. We don't have to pair it with our phone to get the features. With LinkSprinter, we plug it in, and it does the AutoTest. We must pair it to our phones to launch additional tests. We don't have to worry about keeping our phone connected, so it's more convenient.

There is some setup, but it's relatively straightforward. You need to register the device on the portal if you want the results emailed. You go put in the last eight digits of the MAC address for the device and connect to the network. It talks to the cloud, and the cloud is listening to that MAC address.

NetAlly does that for most of their tools, so it's the same portal if you have multiple NetAlly products. If you already have an account set up, you only need to add the new device to the portal. 

I can't give a dollar amount, but anything that saves time is worth the investment. It pays for itself if we look at our usage throughout the year and the time saved.

The price was fair. We bought LinkRunner with a bundle. One of the bundles came with the wireless tester as well as a bunch of other modules and adapters.

We took a cursory look at other solutions to see what's out there. LinkRunner seemed to be the most straightforward and feature-rich option. I can't recall the name of the other vendor, but it was a much larger device. LinkRunner fits in your hand. The other device is more of a tablet with modules and everything else. It was more unwieldy.

I rate LinkRunner ten out of ten. Even though it has some room for improvement, it's still the most feature-rich solution out of all the ones I've used.

When I moved into my current job, I got my manager to get one mainly to do 10-GB network testing for our upcoming products.

We use it every day now. The rest of the guys in my team use it for network discovery a lot, such as for making sure that most of our devices that run 10-GB are getting proper throughput around the network. We also use it for bandwidth checking.

Our company manufactures a lot of AV equipment and there are network ports available on them. We use the tool to set up the network for a particular device or product that we're about to release.

Before I joined the company and introduced the product to my manager, we were running around tracing cables and guessing what port or what VLAN is in that particular port in the field patch. With LinkRunner, we can just plug it into the port and it detects which VLAN and how much power it's outputting and what port on the switch we're plugged into for that field patch. It's made things a lot easier in terms of troubleshooting clients' networks.

It has reduced troubleshooting time immensely. The guys have more confidence when they troubleshoot things now. They don't have to go back to their desks and log in to the switch and check. They can just bring that device to the port and check what VLAN and which port switch number it is. Having this tool and information easily obtainable is a key component for day-to-day troubleshooting.

The fact that test results are automatically saved to NetAlly’s free Link-Live Cloud Service enables remote users like me to see things from the office. If I get one of my guys to go and have a look at a port or to check something, I don't have to go with them. I have a look at the information remotely. That's very useful for us.

And we use the Cloud Service even more for archiving. Our office is more like a campus. People come and go. Being able to configure and check ports, and then archive that particular port in Link-Live is very useful for us. We can go back and say, "Okay. That port used to be that." It's like a change-control. It's good to have that functionality so that we can go back and look at how a port was configured back then.

The most valuable features are the 

• AutoTest for the network
• port testing
• network test performance.

AutoTest is very helpful. It's very streamlined and it's very easy to set up and very easy to identify what we want to achieve. It's probably the feature we use the most. It provides us with LLTD, which is very useful. It helps us to discover devices from the other side. If they have link layer discovery protocol or CDP enabled, we can actually check the device that we're plugged into, as well as the port and tag; the Layer 2 information. 

That is very useful for us because we always have labs testing new products that we are about to release. The ability to record the results from the AutoTest, such as what interface speed it's negotiating, and the PoE on that port, helps us when releasing new products, as a part of our lab networks.

And when it comes to documenting ad hoc additions, moves, and changes of wired ethernet connections, it works very well. We can organize the results by folders, so we can see what's been changed over a certain amount of time. That's really good.

It's also amazing when it comes to troubleshooting. It's really helpful for us, especially if we're identifying a 10-GB network, or whatever our product is negotiating. We're very happy with it.

As for its ease of use, the apps are very well-designed. They're very easy to use and understand.

I'm also pretty impressed with LinkRunner's speed in providing results. As long as it's connected to the internet or WiFi, it's pretty quick in uploading the results to the cloud.

And the Link-Live website is pretty easy to use. You can create folders and tag them. It's very, very well-designed.

It's a bit bulky. It would be nicer if it were a little bit smaller and packed with all its features. I would also like it if the screen were a bit bigger.

I've been using NetAlly since it was called NETSCOUT, when I was with a previous company a long time ago. I've been using the LinkRunner 10-GB for almost six months.

It's very stable. I haven't seen it crash or had any issues with lockup or freezing of the unit.

If we want to go further, it's going to be a bit more expensive. Cost is the factor when it comes to adding to our use. For us, it's not that scalable as a result, but it's a good tool for us to have even just one of. I would like to have more of them. Some of our new products will be moving into a space where we need to start using more network-capable devices such as the LinkRunner.

At the moment there are five of us using it in the roles of desktop support, systems engineer, me as network engineer, another guy who looks after the Cloud Services, and my manager.

I have not used their technical support.

The documentation on the Link-Live support is pretty straightforward. It's a bit confusing sometimes but it's not too bad for figuring out where to go if you need support.

Neutral

We evaluated other options but because I had used this product at a previous job that made it a lot easier for me to show the rest of the team how to use it. 

I looked at Axence NetTools but it was not as feature-rich as LinkRunner.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. This is my second NetAlly product, so it was a lot easier for me to set it up.

We purchased it through a reseller and the experience was great. He invited me over to his office and showed me all the NetAlly products. I told him my use case scenarios and he gave me an idea of which NetAlly product we could use. That was very helpful.

We see return on our investment because we can test 10-GB throughput. That is helpful already because it's hard to find a solution that can do 10-GBtesting with a touch and portable device, one that we can carry everywhere we go.

The pricing and the support licensing is not that complicated. Just make sure you talk to your reseller about how many years you're buying, in connection with your Link-Live account or your AllyCare Premium Support Services. You have to be aware of that.

We did purchase a WiFi dongle so that we can connect it to WiFi.

I would buy another one if I had a chance but they're too expensive. If they made it a bit cheaper, I think a lot of network engineers and network administrators would immediately jump onto it. At the moment, they're just using whatever open-source product they can to do pretty much what LinkRunner can do.

You get what you pay for.

So far, we're loving it. It's a good product. Don't hesitate to buy one if you have the budget.

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.