Industrial Network Infrastructure

The industrial business sector is evolving, for this reason, organizations need to upgrade their network infrastructure and connectivity between industrial assets, local, central applications, and systems. As they adapt, challenges arise from multiple domains, such as traffic visibility, network security, and performance.

Ethernet Cable Troubleshooting: Why a Gigabit Link Was Only Running at 100 Mbps

A network connection that should be running at 1 Gbps but consistently negotiates at 100 Mbps is a classic physical-layer troubleshooting problem. The switches may both support Gigabit Ethernet, the configuration may look correct, and yet the link refuses to operate at the expected speed. That's exactly what happened during this troubleshooting job. Rather than immediately replacing the switches or changing configuration settings, I started at the physical layer and worked through the cable path. The investigation eventually uncovered a hidden Ethernet connection that was the likely cause of the problem.

How to Merge Wireshark Capture Files: A Simple Way to Combine Packet Captures

When troubleshooting a network problem, you don't always end up with one convenient Wireshark capture file. Sometimes you have multiple packet captures taken from different interfaces, different locations, or different points in time. Instead of opening each file separately and trying to piece everything together, Wireshark can merge multiple capture files into a single file. This can make analyzing a complicated network problem considerably easier, especially when you need to compare traffic from multiple sources.

WiFi vs LAN: What Actually Happens When You Plug In Ethernet?

A client of mine recently raised a great networking question while we were planning a new laptop build: what actually happens when a machine is already connected over WiFi and you then plug in Ethernet—whether that's a docking station, a USB dongle, or the built-in port? It's a classic "it depends" scenario, and it's the kind of WiFi vs LAN question that gets debated far more often than it gets tested. If you've ever wondered which connection your laptop prioritizes, the answer is worth verifying yourself rather than trusting secondhand claims.

Wireshark Windows Adapter Issue and Fix

I was trying to capture packets from my Network Critical SmartNA packet broker and only saw broadcast packets.

At first, I blamed the packet broker since I assumed I knew my laptop and Wireshark so well. Do you know what they say about the word 'assume'? ;)