SolarWinds Inc. today pulled back the curtains on Traceroute NG, a new product that it’s positioning as an alternative to one of the most tried-and-tested tools in network administrators’ arsenal.

The original Traceroute is an open-source diagnostics utility that traces its roots to 1987, four years before the release of the world’s first web browser. The software is included in every major operating system and lets administrators carry out tests to evaluate how the network to which a machine is connected performs.

Yet while Traceroute has certainly proven its usefulness over the decades, the software suffers from a number of known limitations. They become particularly pronounced when evaluating modern enterprise networks that span multiple locations. SolarWinds says that Traceroute NG is better equipped for diagnosing today’s networking infrastructure.

The tool can simulate application traffic to shed light on how well packets are carried to their destination. It displays the number of network devices that the information passes on the journey, key details about each system such as its IP address and metrics ranging from packet loss to latency.

According to SolarWinds, Traceroute NG gives administrators a “live view” of changes in the data. This can make it easier to catch any potential potential issues that may arise from a new modification to a company’s networking infrastructure. Moreover, users may tweak the traffic generated by the tool to see if performance is consistent across different workloads.

Traceroute NG is available as a free command-line utility just like its namesake tool. On launch, the software supports Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016.

The release of Traceroute NG expands SolarWinds’ already sizable portfolio of infrastructure monitoring tools. According to the company, its products are in use at 425 of the Fortune 500. The suite received a major upgrade last year that introduced new diagnostics capabilities and expanded hardware support.

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