Infosim® Global Webinar Day
Why is this app so terribly slow?

How to achieve full
Application Monitoring with StableNet®

Join Matthias Schmid, Director of Project Management with Infosim® for a Webinar and Live Demo on “How to achieve full Application Monitoring with StableNet®”.

This Webinar will provide insight into:

• Why you need holistic monitoring for all your company applications
• How the technologies offered by StableNet® will help you master this challenge

Furthermore, we will provide you with an exclusive insight into how StableNet® was used to achieve full application monitoring for a global company.

A recording of this Webinar will be available to all who register!
(Take a look at our previous Webinars here.)

Thanks to Infosim for the article.

In the landscape of Enterprise Network Management most products (and IT Professionals) tend to focus on “traditional” IT monitoring. By that I mean the monitoring of devices, servers, and applications for performance issues and faults. That makes sense because most networks evolve in a similar fashion. They are first built out to accommodate the needs of the business. This primarily involves supporting access for people to applications they need to do their jobs. Once the initial buildout is done (or at least slows down) then next phase is typically implementing a monitoring solution to notify the service desk when there are problems. This pattern of growth, implementation, and monitoring continues essentially forever until the business itself changes through an acquisition or (unfortunately) a shutdown.

However, when a business reaches a certain size, there are a number of new considerations that come into play in order to effectively manage the network. The key word here is “manage” as opposed to “monitor”. These are different concepts, and the distinction is important. While monitoring is primarily concerned with the ongoing surveillance of the network for problems (think alarms that result in a service desk incident) – Network Management is processes, procedures, and policies that govern access to devices and change of the devices.

What is NCCM?

Commonly known by the acronym NCCM which stands for Network Configuration and Change Management – NCCM is the “third leg” of IT management with includes the traditional Performance and Fault Management (PM and FM). The focus of NCCM is to ensure that as network systems move through their common lifecycle (see figure 1 below) there are policies and procedures in place that ensure proper governance of what happens to them.

Figure 1. Network Device Lifecycle

Source: huawei.com

NCCM therefore is focused on the devices itself as an asset of the organization, and then how that asset is provisioned, deployed, configured, changed, upgraded, moved, and ultimately retired. Along each step of the way there should be controls put in place as to Who can access the device (including other devices), How they can access it, What they can do to it (with and without approval) and so on. All NCCM systems should also incorporate logging and auditing so that managers can review what happened in case of a problem later.

These controls are becoming more and more important in today’s modern networks. Depending on which research you read, between 60% and 90% of all unplanned network downtime can be attributed to a mistake made by an engineer when reconfiguring a device. Despite many organization having strict written policies about when a change can be made to a device, the fact remains that many network engineers can and will log into a production device during working hours and make on-the-fly changes. Of course, no engineer willfully brings down a core device. They believe the change they are making is both necessary and non-invasive. But as the saying goes “The road to (you know where) is paved with good intentions”.

A correctly implemented NCCM system can therefore mitigate the majority of these unintended problems. By strictly controlling access to devices and forcing all changes to devices to be both scheduled and approved, an NCCM platform can be a lifesaver. Additionally, most NCCM applications use some form of automation to accomplish repetitive tasks which are another common source of device misconfigurations. For example, instead of a human being making the same ACL change to 300 firewalls (and probably making at least 2-3 mistakes) the NCCM software can perform that task the same way, over and over, without error (and in much less time).

As NCCM is more of a general class of products and not an exact standard, there are many additional potential features and benefits of NCCM tools. Many of them can also perform the initial Discovery and Inventory of the network device estate. This provides a useful baseline of “what we have” which can be a critical component of both NCCM and Performance and Fault Management.

Most NCCM tools should also be able to perform a scheduled backup of device configurations. These backups are the foundation for many aspects of NCCM including historical change reporting, device recovery through rollback options, and policy checking against known good configurations or corporate security and access policies.

Lastly, understanding of the vendor lifecycle for your devices such as End-of-Life and End-of-Support is another critical component of advanced NCCM products. Future blog posts will explore each of these functions in more detail.

The benefits of leveraging configuration management solutions reach into every aspect of IT.

Configuration management solutions also enable organizations to:

• Maximize the return on network investments by 20%
• Reduce the Total Cost of Ownership by 25%
• Reduce the Mean Time to Repair by 20%
• Reduce Overexpansion of Bandwidth by 20%

Because of these operational benefits, NCCM systems have become a critical component of enterprise network management platforms.

Thanks to NMSaaS for the article.

Our team is excited to represent Viavi Solutions during an industy (IT and cloud-focused) event, VMworld, in San Francisco at booth #2235. We’ll be showcasing our latest innovation – the GigaStor Software Edition designed for managing performance in virtual, cloud, and remote environments.

Here are some topline thoughts about why this product matters for our customers and core technologies trending today, what a great time it is for the industry and to be Viavi!

For starters, the solution is able to deliver quick and accurate troubleshooting and assurance in next generation network architecture. As networks become virtualized and automated through SDN initiatives, performance monitoring tools need to evolve or network teams risk losing complete visibility into user experience and missing performance problems. With GigaStor Software, engineers have real-time insight to assess user experience in these environments, and proactively identify application problems before they impact the user.

“GigaStor Software Edition helps engineers troubleshoot with confidence in virtual and cloud environments by having all the traffic retained for resolving any challenge and expert analytics …leading to quick resolution.”

With the explosion of online applications and mobile devices, the role of cloud and virtualization will increase in importance, along with the need for enterprises and services providers need to guarantee around-the-clock availability or risk losing customers. With downtime costing companies $300K per hour or $5,600/minute, the solution that solves the problem the fastest will get the business. Walking the show floor at VMworld, IT engineers will be looking for solutions like GigaStor Software that help ensure quality network and services, as well as speed and accuracy when enabling advanced networks for their customers.

And, what a great time to be Viavi Solutions! Our focus on achieving visibility regardless of the environment and delivering real-time actionable insights in a cost-effective solution means our customers are going to be able to guarantee high levels of service and meet customer expectations without breaking the bank. GigaStor Software Edition helps engineers troubleshoot with confidence in virtual and cloud environments by having all the traffic retained for resolving any challenge and expert analytics that lead to quick resolution.

Thanks to Viavi Solutions for the article.

There are many famous debates in history: dogs vs cats, vanilla vs chocolate & Coke vs Pepsi just to name a few. In the IT world, one of the more common debates is “single platform vs point solution”. That is, when it comes to the best way to monitor and manage a network, is it better to have a single management platform that can do multiple things, or would it be better to have an array of tools that are each specialized for a job?

The choice can be thought of as being between Multitaskers & Unitaskers. Swiss Army knives, vs dedicated instruments. As for most things in life, the answer can be complex, and probably will never be agreed upon by everyone – but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore the subject and form some opinions of our own.

For this debate, we need to look the major considerations which go into this choice. That is, what key areas need to be addressed by any type of network monitoring and management solution and then how do our two options fair in those spaces? For this post, I will focus on 3 main areas to try to draw some conclusions:

• Initial Cost
• Operations
• Maintenance

1) Initial Cost

This may be one of the more difficult areas to really get a handle on, as costs can vary wildly from one vender to another. Many of the “All-In-One” tools come with a steep entry price, but then do not grow significantly after that. Other AIO tools offer flexible licensing options which allow you to only purchase the particular modules or features that you need, and then easily add-on other features when you want them.

In contrast, the “Point-Solutions” may not come with a large price tag, but you need to purchase multiple tools in order to cover your needs. You can therefore take a piecemeal approach to purchasing which can certainly spread your costs out as long as you don’t leave critical gaps in your monitoring in the meantime. And, over time, the combined costs for many tools can become larger than a single system.

Newer options like pay-as-you-go SaaS models can greatly reduce or even eliminate the upfront costs for both AOI and Point Solutions. It is important to investigate if the vendors you are looking at offer that type of service.

Bottom Line:

Budgets always matter. If your organization is large enough to absorb the initial cost of a larger umbrella NMS, then this typically leads to a lower total cost in the long run, as long as you don’t also need to supplement the AIO solution with too many secondary solutions. SaaS models can be a great way to get going with either option as they reduce the initial Cap-Ex spend necessary.

2) Operations

In some ways, the real heart of the question AIO vs PS comes should come down to this – “which choice will help me solve issues more quickly”? Most monitoring solutions are used to respond when there is an issue with service delivery, and so the first goal of any NMS should be to help the IT team rapidly diagnose and repair problems.

When thought of in the context of the AIO vs PS debate, then you need to think about the workflow involved when an alarm or ticket is raised. With an AIO solution, an IT pro would immediately use that system to try both see the alarm and then to dive into the affected systems or devices to try and understand the root cause of the problem.

If the issue is systemic (meaning that multiple locations/users/services are affected) then an AIO solution has the clear advantage of being able to see a more holistic view of the network as a whole instead of just a small portion as would be the case for many Point Solutions. If the AIO application contains a root cause engine then this can be a huge time saver as it may be able to immediately point the staff in the right direction.

On the other hand, if that AIO solution cannot see deeply enough into the individual systems to pinpoint the issues, then a point solution has an advantage due to its (typically) deeper understanding of the systems it monitors. It may be that only a solution provided directly by the systems manufacturer would have insight into the cause of the problem.

Bottom line

All In One solutions typically work best when problems occur which affect more than one area of the network. Whereas Point Solutions may be required if there are proprietary components that don’t have good support for standards based monitoring like SNMP.

3) Maintenance

The last major consideration is one that I don’t think gets enough attention in this debate- the ongoing maintenance of the solutions themselves i.e. “managing the management solutions”. All solutions require “maintenance” to keep them working optimally. There are upgrades, patches, server moves etc. There are also the training requirements of any staff that need to use these systems. This can add up to significant time and energy “costs”.

This is where AIO solutions can really shine. Instead of having to maintain and upgrade many solutions, your staff can focus on maintaining a single system. The same thing goes for training – think about how hard it can be to really become an expert in anything, then multiply that by the training required to become proficient at X number of tools that your organization has purchased.

I have seen many places where the expertise in certain tools becomes specialized – and therefore becomes a single point of failure for the organization. If only “Bob” knows how to use that tool, then what happens when there is a problem and “Bob” in on vacation, or leaves the group?

Bottom Line:

Unless your organization can spend the time and money necessary to keep the entire staff fully trained on all of the critical network tools, then AIO solutions offer a real advantage over point solutions when it comes to maintainability of your IT management systems.

In the end, I suspect that this debate will never completely be decided. There are many valid reasons for organizations to choose one path over another when it comes how to organize their IT monitoring platforms.

In our view, we see some real advantages to the All-In-One solution approach, as long as the platform of choice does not have too many gaps in it which then need to be filled with additional point solutions.

Thanks to NMSaaS for the article.