| The platform also recognizes the growing role network
teams play in ensuring application uptime by increasing
its in-depth support of critical applications, as well
as allowing companies to maximize the value of their NetFlow
monitoring applications by expanding their visibility.
Observer 14 features include:
- Auto-Baselining: baseline for all performance and
time-based metrics
- New Solution-Focused Workflows: reduce mean time
to repair with user-defined investigations
- Expanded Application Transaction Analysis: in-depth
application details for troubleshooting
- New GigaStor™ NetFlow Agent: export NetFlow data
from any point on the network
- Unified Communications: robust support and analysis
for secure VoIP (SRTP)
"The largest challenge network teams face is identifying
the cause of performance problems," said Jim Frey,
research director of Enterprise Management Associates.
"With every minute that the network or applications
are down, businesses can lose millions of dollars. Key
to ensuring that application uptime and quality of experience
are meeting expectations is the ability to detect problems
before they impact users. Solutions like Observer that
provide high-level performance monitoring together with
a seamless path to problem resolution are essential
to a proactive performance management strategy."
Auto-Baselining for Performance Management
Observer's auto-baselining enables engineers to identify
and respond to performance problems before they impact
the user. The platform automatically establishes baselines
for all performance and time-based metrics. Network
teams can quickly determine if application delivery
and performance is acceptable based on current and past
network’s traffic patterns.
"Our clients are often consumed by user calls
reporting perceived network problems," said Jeff
Parker, president of OpenWater Solutions. "Being
able to auto-baseline performance to identify critical
deviations allows us to take a more proactive approach
to network management. Rather than waiting on a call,
we can resolve the problem as soon as the performance
graphs turn yellow. This saves us time and, more important,
minimizes business interruptions."
Solution-Focused Workflows
Observer 14 offers a new approach to tracking and investigating
performance problems. Traditionally, for every network
or application issue the network engineer is forced
to navigate through the same investigation path as dictated
by their analysis software. Rather than having to follow
a set process to find relevant data, the network team
can use Observer Reporting Server to take the shortest
route to resolution.
Application Transaction Analysis
In managing application performance, network engineers
need to determine whether application delivery occurred
on time and if the content was delivered successfully.
Observer's Application Transaction Analysis does both.
Engineers can verify delivery and diagnose specific
application failures.
In Observer 14, all application protocols provide greater
error and transaction details. In addition, greater
support and analysis for Citrix, DHCP, LDAP, and VoIP
(H.323/225, H.323/245, H323/RAS, Megaco H.248, SCCP
(Cisco Skinny), and SIP) have been added.
GigaStor NetFlow Agent
Although leveraging NetFlow is popular for performance
management, most NetFlow agents are limited to routed
traffic. The new GigaStor NetFlow Agent allows engineers
to utilize NetFlow data about any device in any environment.
GigaStor captures and converts packets into NetFlow
data flows, pushing it out to multiple destinations
simultaneously. This is especially valuable for Network
Behavior Anomaly Detection (NBAD) and compliance monitoring
applications.
Managing Unified Communications
"A substantial portion of our customers depend
upon Observer for monitoring and optimizing VoIP and
unified communications," said Douglas Smith, president
and co-founder of Network Instruments. "The newest
release provides several new features that make managing
and troubleshooting these applications even easier."
To protect against unauthorized review of corporate
phone conversations, many organizations have implemented
VoIP with secure RTP streams. However, encrypting VoIP
severely limits the monitoring and troubleshooting of
call problems. Observer 14 now provides call quality
metrics on SRTP without impacting the security of the
traffic.
Another difficulty engineers can have is analyzing
and troubleshooting VoIP issues when call components
are split among multiple captures. Observer solves this
issue by combining separate independent captures into
a single view for analysis. The latest version also
expanded in-depth, application-specific support and
analysis for a variety of VoIP protocols. |
