The Visual Round Trip Analyzer was initially an internal Microsoft tool, which the Redmond company is now offering as a free download. Designed as a webpage performance visualizer and analyzer, according to the software company, Visual Round Trip Analyzer runs on top of Network Monitor 3.2 and is set up to offer a comprehensive perspective over the download of a specific webpage. The Redmond giant indicated that VRTA comes with support for Windows Vista RTM and SP1, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Server 2008.

“The Visual Round Trip Analyzer tool helps web developers and testers visualize the download of their page, identify best practices and changes that improve performance. The Round-Trip between the client and server(s) is the single biggest impact to web page performance - much greater than server response time. VRTA examines the communications protocol, identifying the causes of excessive round-trips, and recommending solutions,” Microsoft informed.

Just as the Visual Round Trip Analyzer, the Network Monitor 3.2 is also available as a free download. However, despite the fact that it requires NetMon 3.2, users will only need VRTA in order to capture and subsequently analyze a webpage download. In this regard, “web content developers and testers will be able to access: a main chart which displays http traffic in three dimensions; an All Files view that shows critical measurements for each file loading; and an Analysis report that indicates which file transfers are exceptions to best practice rules,” Microsoft added.

VRTA was put together and prototyped back in 2004, and since that point it has suffered numerous enhancements. As a Microsoft internal tool, VRTA was used by the MSN team to test the performance of MSN and Windows Live pages. “We are delighted to share this tool with the public and hope it will be helpful in improving many web site’s performance,” Microsoft concluded.

Visual Round Trip Analyzer is available for download here.

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.2 RTM is available for download here.