What's a Ping?
A "ping" is actually a network utility that's been around for nearly 40 years.
It is basically a tiny "hello, are you there?" message sent from one network device to another, to see if it responds.
In most cases, the other device will respond, "yes, I am here." Since computers speak in binary, they don't actually say
"Hello" and "Yes", but you get the point. PingThemAll Pro uses this information to display the status of your
devices in a visually-friendly format.
Let's talk nerdy...
Let's assume you have configured PingThemAll Pro to monitor a network printer called "Printer X".
In this scenario, the computer running PingThemAll Pro, let's called that "Computer A", sends an "ICMP Echo Request" to Printer X. When this
request is sent, a technology person would say they were "pinging the printer."
When the Printer X receives the Request, it responds to Computer A with an "ICMP Echo Reply." That Reply tells
Computer A that Printer X is alive and responding. A technology person would say, "I pinged the printer successfully."
If Computer A does not receive a response, PingThemAll Pro assumes that device is down
and makes a note of it. In that case, a technology person would say, "The printer didn't respond to pings."
When PingThemAll Pro finishes checking all the devices you have defined, it updates the "PTA Status" webpage with
any devices that failed to respond to pings, and then starts the cycle all over again. The PTA Status webpage give you a bird's eye
view to tell you if any of your network devices are no longer responding.
Most devices that have an IP address will respond to a ping, unless they have been configured to not respond. In this case, you can
often reconfigure the device so that it does respond to pings.
This is why we say...
If you can ping it, we can monitor it.
Ping uses a protocol called "Internet Control Message Protocol", or ICMP for short, which is part of the Internet Protocol suite.
This "suite" is a set of international standards that are used by just about every computer and networked device on the planet, so
that devices can communicate and share data. The Internet is based on these very same standards.