Summary
The Protogate Freeway^® Monitor product allows users to monitor existing serial data protocol lines and store the monitored data for later viewing and/or analysis. The Freeway Monitor is especially useful for monitoring specialized serial protocols that are unavailable on standard commercial data analyzers.

Product Description
The Protogate Freeway Monitor is a software product which is added to the standard Freeway operating system. Combined with protocol software on Protogate's ICP2432 boards, the Freeway Monitor daemon passively monitors serial data protocol traffic between two external endpoints. A passive monitor Y-cable allows monitoring the data link without affecting it in any way. The Freeway Monitor daemon can monitor multiple data links simultaneously, limited only by the number of ICP2432 boards installed on the Freeway.

The Freeway Monitor daemon records the protocol traffic that it detects to individual data files and also to an SQL database. All recorded data is immediately available from the Freeway for display or analysis. The data can also be stored offline either manually or automatically, typically on a daily or weekly schedule.

A web-browser-driven user interface is included with the Freeway Monitor. It provides the ability to examine the message data in real time, at varying levels of detail. For example, a user can view the total number of messages per day or per hour, or can see a detailed graph of how the data rate varied over a 24-hour period or during the past 5-minute period. Using the web-browser, a user can view a summary of the packet exchange...

or can examine the contents of actual message packets themselves, down to the byte level:

Additional Features
The Freeway Monitor software is easily extensible, and can be customized for specific needs (to record individual data fields within messages which follow a standardized format, for example). Also, the user interface is provided in source-code form, so users can easily modify the provided webpages, or create their own webpages to display information about the recorded data-link messages in any form they wish.

Protocols Available
At this time, the Freeway Monitor can be used to monitor lines running the following serial protocols:

• STD-1200A or STD-1200B (ADCCP)
• STD-1300
• AUTODIN Mode I and II
• Milstar
• Various asynchronous protocols
• Various HDLC/SDLC-based protocols.

Software Requirements

• Freeway Server Software
• Freeway Monitor Software (includes SQL database)
• ICP Protocol Software

Hardware Requirements

• Freeway Server with magnetic hard disk
• ICP2432 boards (see note below)
• ICP connector cables (EIA-232 or EIA-530)
• Passive Monitor Y-cable (1 for each line monitored)

Note: The Freeway Monitor requires two ICP2432 serial data channels to record the traffic in both directions on a single serial data link. Therefore, a 2-port ICP can monitor 1 serial line, a 4-port ICP can monitor 2 lines, and an 8-port ICP can monitor 4 lines (EIA-232 only). For example, a Freeway 3414 with 36 serial data ports could monitor both directions of 18 data links.