Network Performance Archives - Page 7 of 9

See How Ixia’s NTO 7300 Vastly Outperforms the Closest Competitor in 100GbE Visibility, Scalability, Capacity, and Cost-Efficiency

Visibility Is an Urgent Challenge

Lack of visibility is behind the worst of IT headaches, leaving the network open to malicious intrusions, as well as compliance, availability, and performance problems. Today’s soaring traffic volumes are bringing greater complexity, proliferating apps and devices, and rising virtual traffic—in fact, “east-west” traffic between virtual machines now makes up half of all traffic on the network. Virtual traffic is the culprit that spawns unmonitored “blind spots,” a breeding ground for errors and attacks.

All these challenges make visibility critical to network security and management. Customers need a highly scalable visibility architecture—one that can eliminate blind spots and reduce complexity, while providing resilience and control. Visibility relies on monitoring tools, and new tool investment can be a real budget-buster. That’s why companies need to protect their investments in 1GbE and 10GbE monitoring tools, and why load balancing has become such a smart approach. Now, as networks move into the 100GbE environment, Ixia offers the NTO 7300, enabling total visibility into multiple 100GbE links and dominating its competition.

Dramatic Design Difference

The NTO 7300 delivers the ability to optimize 1GbE and 10GbE monitoring tools for the intensive 100GbE environment and offers decisive advantages over competitors. No other solution packs as many ports into a compact footprint for industry-leading density and cost-efficiency. The NTO 7300’s one-two punch of design ingenuity plus advanced technology makes it the clear choice in every comparison. If you take a typical 100GbE deployment that requires 8 100GbE ports, advanced filtering, and 10GbE ports for tool access, it becomes clear that other solutions cannot keep up with the density and performance Ixia provides.

The Numbers Speak for Themselves

Compare the Ixia NTO 7300 to its closest competitor, and you see a striking difference in capacity, scalability and performance. The NTO 7300 commands every category for customer needs by providing more performance in 71% less space!

7300: Port-Plentiful

The Ixia NTO7300 configuration fits neatly and entirely in a single 8U chassis, with many unused ports.

Competition: Port-Poor

This competitor requires 28U and has insufficient 40GbE ports. It’s significantly lower in density, with no ports on advanced processing blades and fabric modules placed awkwardly in front.

Per Chassis:24 40GbE ports (or 96x10GbE)

64 10GbE AFM ports

8 100GbE ports

640Gbps Deduplication

Per Chassis (2 chassis required):2x40GbE ports

40x10GbE ports

4x100GbE ports

240Gbps Deduplication

With its “pay as you grow” scalability; savings on rack space and power; a simple, rack-mountable chassis; superior advanced features such as header stripping and deduplication; and wire-speed performance in any configuration, the NTO 7300 is ideal for filling that critical visibility gap in the 100GbE environment.

	Ixia NTO7300	Other
Fabric Module location	Rear panel	Occupy front slots
100GbE configuration	2x100GbE + 4x40GbE or 16x10GbE	2x100GbE + 8x10GbE
Advanced Processing capacity per slot	Up to 640Gbps (320Gbps ingress + 320Gbps egress)	Up to 80Gbps
Advanced Processing card configuration	2xAFM16s + 4xQSFP + 640Gbps AFM, per slot	No tool or network ports, “the other’s” processor only
Slots per chassis	6	8
Chassis RU	8 (with AC shelf)	14

Total Configuration	Ixia NTO7300	Other	Advantage
10GbE ports	64 (up to 160)	80 (up to 96)	Ixia (67% more max)
40GbE ports	96	8*	Ixia (1100% more max
100GbE ports	8	8
Deduplication bandwidth	640Gbps	480Gbps*	Ixia (33% more)
Total RU	8	28	Ixia (71% less)
		*Doesn’t meet requirements

Additional Resources:

Ixia Visibility Architecture

Ixia NTO 7300

Thanks to Ixia for the article.

Why Companies are Making the Switch to Cloud Based Network Monitoring

Many Enterprises today are making the switch over to “The Cloud” for a variety of applications. The most popular cloud based (business) applications include CRM software, email, project management, development & backup. It’s predicted that by 2015, end-user spending on cloud services could be more than $180 billion.

Some of you may be asking “Why the cloud?” or “is it really worth it?” The answer to these questions are both simple and compelling.

If an Enterprise decides to use a cloud based solution of any kind they’re going to see immediate benefits in 3 major areas:

Cost savings
Speed
Flexibility

Cost saving

In the network monitoring space, all of the “big guys” require a hefty upfront fee for their software, and then an equally, if not more expensive fee for professional services to actually make the system operate and integrate with other platforms.

On the contrary, most cloud based systems are sold as yearly (or less) SaaS models. The removal of a huge upfront investment usually makes the CFO happy. They’re also happy when they don’t need to pay for server hardware, storage and other costs (like electricity, and space) associated with running a solution in house.

Flexibility

“Use what you need, when you need it and then turn it off when you don’t” – that is one of the most common (and powerful) sales pitches in the cloud world. But, unlike the sales pitch from your local used car salesperson, this one is true! Cloud based system are generally much more flexible in terms of deployment, usage, terms, and even support compared to “legacy” software deployments.

Most cloud based SaaS applications offer a free no-obligation evaluation period and can be upgraded, downgraded or cancelled with just a few clicks. This means that organizations are not completely “locked in” to any solution for many years that might not do the job they need. Try that with your behemoth on premise software!

Speed

In the IT world, speed comes in many forms. You might think of application performance or Internet download speeds, but in the cloud speed generally means how fast a new application or service can go from “I need it” to “I have it”.

One of the biggest advantages of cloud based systems is that they are already running. The front end, backend and associated applications are already installed. As a user all you have to do is raise your hand and say you want it and in most cases your service can be provisioned in a matter of hours (or less).

In the cloud world of SaaS this “lead time” has shrunk from weeks or months to hours or minutes. That means more productivity, less downtime and happier users.

In the end, all organizations are looking for ways to trim unnecessary costs and increase capabilities. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this today is to switch to a cloud based network monitoring application.

Thanks to NMSaaS for the article.

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Network Instruments State of the Network Global Study 2015

Eighth Annual “State of the Network” Global Study from JDSU’s Network Instruments Finds 85 Percent of Enterprise Network Teams Now Involved in Security Investigations

Deployment Rates for High-Performance Network Visibility and Software Defined Solutions Expected to Double in Two Years

Network Instruments, a JDSU Performance Management Solution released the results of its eighth annual State of the Network global study today. Based on insight gathered from 322 network engineers, IT directors and CIOs around the world, 85 percent of enterprise network teams are involved with security investigations, indicating a major shift in the role of those teams within enterprises.

Large-scale and high-profile security breaches have become more common as company data establishes itself as a valuable commodity on the black market. As such, enterprises are now dedicating more IT resources than ever before to protect data integrity. The Network Instruments study illustrates how growing security threats are affecting internal resources, identifies underutilized resources that could help improve security, and highlights emerging challenges that could rival security for IT’s attention.

As threats continue to escalate, one quarter of network operations professionals now spend more than 10 hours per week on security issues and are becoming increasingly accountable for securing data. This reflects an average uptick of 25 percent since 2013. Additionally, network teams’ security activities are diversifying. Teams are increasingly implementing preventative measures (65 percent), investigating attacks (58 percent) and validating security tool configurations (50 percent). When dealing with threats, half of respondents indicated that correlating security issues with network performance is their top challenge.

“Security is becoming so much more than just a tech issue. Regular media coverage of high-profile attacks and the growing number of malware threats that can plague enterprises – and their business – has thrust network teams capable of dealing with them into the spotlight. Network engineers are being pulled into every aspect of security, from flagging anomalies to leading investigations and implementing preventative measures,” said Brad Reinboldt, senior product manager for Network Instruments. “Staying on top of emerging threats requires these teams to leverage the tools they already have in innovative ways, such as applying deep packet inspection and analysis from performance monitoring solutions for advanced security forensics.”

The full results of the survey, available for download, also show that emerging network technologies* have gained greater adoption over the past year.

Highlights include:

40, 100 Gigabit Ethernet and SDN approaching mainstream: Year-over-year implementation rates for 40 Gb, 100 Gb and SDN in the enterprise have nearly doubled, according to the companies surveyed. This growth rate is projected to continue over the next two years as these technologies approach more than 50 percent adoption. Conversely, survey respondents were less interested in 25 Gb technology, with over 62 percent indicating no plans to invest in equipment using the newer Ethernet specification.
Enterprise Unified Communications remains strong but lacks performance-visibility features: The survey shows that Voice-over-IP, videoconferencing and instant messaging technologies, which enable deeper collaboration and rich multimedia experiences, continue making strides in the enterprise, with over 50 percent penetration. Additionally, as more applications are virtualized and migrated to the cloud, this introduces new visibility challenges and sources that can impact performance and delay. To that end, respondents noted a lack of visibility into the end-user experience as a chief challenge. Without visibility into what is causing issues, tech teams can’t ensure uptime and return-on-investment.
Bandwidth use expected to grow 51 percent by 2016: Projected bandwidth growth is a clear factor driving the rollout of larger network pipes. This year’s study found the majority of network teams are predicting a much larger surge in bandwidth growth than last year, when bandwidth was only expected to grow by 37 percent. Key drivers for future bandwidth growth are being fueled by multiple devices accessing network resources and larger and more complex data such as 4K video. Real-time unified communications applications are also expected to put more strain on networks, while unified computing, private cloud and virtualization initiatives have the potential to create application overload on the backend.

Key takeaways: what can network teams do?

Enterprises need to be on constant alert and agile in aligning IT teams and resources to handle evolving threats. To be more effective in taking on additional security responsibilities, network teams should be trained to think like a hacker and recognize increasingly complex and nefarious network threats.
They also need to incorporate performance monitoring and packet analysis tools already used by network teams for security anomaly detection, breach investigations, and assisting with remediation.
Security threats aren’t the only thing dictating the need for advanced network visibility tools that can correlate network performance with security and application usage. High-bandwidth activities including 4K video, private clouds and unified communications are gaining traction in the enterprise as well.

State of the Network Global Study Methodology

Network Instruments has conducted its State of the Network global study for eight consecutive years, drawing insight about network trends and painting a picture of what challenges IT teams face. Questions were designed based on interviews with network professionals as well as IT analysts. Results were compiled from the insights of 322 respondents, including network engineers, IT directors, and CIOs from around the world. In addition to geographic diversity, the study’s sample was evenly distributed among networks and business verticals of different sizes. Responses were collected from December 16, 2014 to December 27, 2014 via online surveys.

Thanks to Network Instruments for the article.

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Infosim StableNet Legacy Refund Certificate (value up to $250,000.00)

Are you running on Netcool, CA eHealth or any other legacy network management solutions?

$$$Stop throwing away your money$$$

Infosim® will give you a certificate (value up to $250,000) of product credit for switching from your legacy product maintenance spend.

Check whether your legacy NMS applies!

Fill out the request form and we can check whether your system matches one of the ten that qualify.

Find out your trade-up value!

Make your budget work this year!

Thank you!

Thanks to Infosim for the article.

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The Importance of Using Network Discovery in your Business

Network discovery is not a single thing. In general terms it is the process of gathering information about the Network resources near you.

You may be asking why is this even important to me? The primary reasons why it is vital for your business to use network discovery is as follows:

If you don’t know what you have, you cannot hope to monitor and manage it.
You can’t track down interconnected problems.
You don’t know when something new comes on the network.
You don’t know when you need upgrades.
You may be paying too much for maintenance.

All of these key factors above are vital in maintaining the success of your company’s network resources.

One of the most important aspects which I’ve mentioned is not knowing what you have, this is a huge problem for many companies. If you don’t know what you have how can you manage or monitor it.

Most of the time in network management you’re trying to track down potential issues within your network and how you’re going to resolve these issues. This is a very hard task especially if you’re dealing with a large scale network. If one thing goes down within the network it starts a trickle effect and then more aspects of the network will in return start to go down.

All of these problems are easily fixed. NMSaaS has network discovery capabilities with powerful and flexible tools allowing you to determine what exactly is subject to monitoring.

These elements are automatically labeled and grouped. This makes automatic data collection possible, as well as threshold monitoring and reporting on already discovered elements.

As a result of this we can access critical details like IP address, MAC address, OS, firmware, Services, Memory, Serial Numbers, Interface Information, Routing Information, Neighbor data, these are all available at the click of a button or as a scheduled report.

Thanks to NMSaaS for the article.

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Infosim® Global Webinar Day- Return On Investment (ROI) for StableNet®

We all use a network performance management system to help improve the performance of your network. But what is the return to the operations bottom line by using or upgrading these systems? This Thursday, March 26th, Jim Duster CEO of Infosim will be holding a webinar “How do I convince my boss to buy a network management solution?”

Jim will discuss-

Why would anyone buy network management system in the first place?

Mapping a technology purchase to the business value of making a purchase
Calculating a value larger than the technology total cost of ownership (TCO)
Two ROI tools (Live Demo)

You can sign up for this 30 minute webinar here

March 26 4:00 – 4:30 EST

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.

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Unified Solution for Automated Network Management

Today’s Networking technology though very advanced, faces a major roadblock—the lack of automation in the network management products. “These products are incapable of delivering a truly unified management approach as they are not an integrated solution but merely a collection of different programs bound together under one GUI to give them the appearance of an integrated solution,” notes Jim Duster, CEO, Infosim. Moreover, the need for continuously updating new device information, changes in configurations, and alerts and actions across these different toolsets are contributing to an ongoing financial burden for enterprises. Addressing these concerns with a unique network management solution is Infosim, a manufacturer of Automated Service Fulfillment and Service Assurance solutions.

Infosim offers StableNet, a unified solution developed and designed to cover performance management, fault management, and configuration management with a software that is engineered with a single code base and a consistent data model underneath. “StableNet is the only “suite” within the network performance management software industry,” claims Duster. The solution addresses the existing operational and technical challenges of managing distributed, virtualized, and mission critical IT infrastructures. “With this approach, we are able to create work flows in every unique customer business and industry to cover many processes efficiently,” he adds. For instance, StableNet monitors the production equipment of a manufacturing company. In case of an equipment failure, the error is being reported and StableNet delivers the root cause of the problem, while notifying an external service provider. The service provider’s technician can open an inspection window with StableNet, exchange the defective device and after re air, can provide feedback to the customer’s operations center.

For supporting the flexible deployment of StableNet, the company offers Infosim StableNet appliance, a high performance, preconfigured, security-hardened, hardware platform. “Appliances related to StableNet series reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by simplifying deployment, consolidating network infrastructure, and providing an extensible platform that can scale with your organization,” states Duster. StableNet also provides a low cost agent platform called the StableNet Embedded Agent (SNEA)—that enables highly distributed installations to support End-to-End (E2E) Visibility, Cloud Monitoring and Internet of Things. The deployment of SNEA is economical and is auto discovered at tactical collection points in networks, thus resulting into a low TCO for collecting and processing network performance actions and alerts.

Infosim StableNet is deployed across the networks of major players in the Telco and Enterprise markets including that of a German auto manufacturer. Acting as the client’s centralized system, StableNet reduced their toolset from over 10 disparate software and hardware offerings from multiple suppliers to less than four. This significantly reduced TCO while increasing service levels. “Siloed IT personnel who used to hide behind non-consolidated results from their individual solutions were all synchronized into one solution, speeding productivity, collaboration and communication,” states Duster.

Infosim is currently participating in advanced research projects on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) with several universities and leading industry device manufacturers. “The company applies 50 percent of its new software development resource to customer needs which assists customers in achieving milestones in vendor agnostic device support additions, industry specific capabilities, and features that were envisioned by real users,” asserts Duster.

For the years ahead, Infosim plans to build upon its product capability by automating the processes and activities that produce guaranteed service levels and reduce the consumption of human resources in the Network Operations Center (NOC). “Our vision is to enable the Dark NOC, which means a large percent of the non-value adding activities of network engineers can be automated in our product, freeing network engineers to work on proactive new innovations and concepts,” Duster concludes.

Thanks to CIO Review for the article.

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Infosim® Announces Release of StableNet® 7.0

Infosim®, the technology leader in automated Service Fulfillment and Service Assurance solutions, today announced the release of its award-winning software suite StableNet® version 7.0 for Telco and Enterprise customers.

StableNet® 7.0 provides a significant number of powerful new features, including:

StableNet® Embedded Agent (SNEA) that allows for highly distributed installations to support End-to-End (E2E) Visibility, Cloud Monitoring and Internet of Things (IoT)
StableNet® Network Configuration & Change Management (NCCM) now offers a REST API extension to allow an easy workflow integration
New look and feel of the StableNet® GUI to improve the user experience in terms of usability and workflow
StableNet® Server is now based on WildFly 8.2, a modern Java Application Server that supports web services for easier integration of 3rd party systems
Extended device support for Phybridge, Fortinet Firewalls, Arista, Sofaware (Checkpoint), Mitel, Keysource UPS, Cisco Meraki and Ixia

StableNet® version 7.0 is available for purchase now. Customers with current maintenance contracts may upgrade free of charge as per the terms and conditions of their contract.

Supporting Quotes:

Marius Heuler, CTO Infosim®

“With this new release of StableNet®, we have enhanced our technological basis and laid out the groundwork to support extensive new automation features for our customers. This is another big step forward towards the industrialization of modern network management.”

Thanks to Infosim for the article.

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Why SNMP Monitoring is Crucial for your Enterprise

What is SNMP? Why should we use it? These are all common questions people ask when deciding if its the right feature for them, the answers to these questions are simple.

Simple Network Management Protocol is an “internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP netowrks”. Devices that typically support this solution include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks and more.

Key functions

Collects data about its local environment.
Stores and retrieves administration information as defined in the MIB.
Signals an event to the manager.
Acts as a proxy for some non–SNMP manageable network device.

It typicaly uses, one or more administrative computers, called managers, which have the task of monitoring or managing a group of hosts/devices on a computer network.

Each SNMP Monitoring tool provides valuable insight to any network administrator who requires complete visibility into the network, and it acts as a primary component of a complete management solution information via SNMP to the manager.

The specific agents uncover data on the managed systems as variables. The protocol also permits active management tasks, such as modifying and applying a new configuration through remote modification of these variables.

Companies such as Paessler & Manage engine have been providing customers with reliable SNMP for years, and its obvious why.

Why use it?

It delivers information in a common, non-proprietary manner, making it easy for an administrator to manage devices from different vendors using the same tools and interface.

Its power is in the fact that it is a standard: one SNMP-compliant management station can communicate with agents from multiple vendors, and do so simultaneously.

Another advantage of the application is in the type of data that can be acquired. For example, when using a protocol analyzer to monitor network traffic from a switch’s SPAN or mirror port, physical layer errors are invisible. This is because switches do not forward error packets to either the original destination port or to the analysis port.

However, the switch maintains a count of the discarded error frames and this counter can be retrieved via a simple network management protocol query.

Conclusion

When selecting a solution like this, choose a solution that delivers full network coverage for multi-vendor hardware networks including a console for the devices anywhere on your LAN or WAN.

If you want additional information download our free whitepaper below.

Thanks to NMSaaS for the article.

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Ixia Extends Visibility Architecture with Native OpenFlow Integration

Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA), a leading provider of application performance and security resilience solutions, announced an update to its ControlTower distributed network visibility platform that includes support for OpenFlow enabled switches from industry leading manufacturers. ControlTower OpenFlow support has at present been interoperability tested with Arista, Dell and HP OpenFlow enabled switches.

“Dell is a leading advocate for standards such as Openflow on our switching platforms to enable rich and innovative networking applications,” said Arpit Joshipura, Vice President, Dell Networking. “With Ixia choosing to support our Dell Networking switches within its ControlTower management framework, Dell can extend cost-effective visibility and our world-class services to our enterprise customers.”

Ixia’s enhanced ControlTower platform takes a unique open-standards based approach to significantly increase scale and flexibility for network visibility deployments. The new integration makes ControlTower the most extensible visibility solution on the market. This allows customers to leverage SDN and seamlessly layer the sophisticated management and advanced processing features of Ixia’s Net Tool Optimizer® (NTO) family of solutions on top of the flexibility and baseline feature set provided by OpenFlow switches.

“Data centers benefit from the power and flexibility that OpenFlow switches can provide but cannot afford to lose network visibility,” said Shamus McGillicuddy, Senior Analyst, Network Management at Enterprise Management Associates. “However organizations can use these same SDN-enabled switches with a visibility architecture to ensure that their existing monitoring and performance management tools can maintain visibility.”

Key highlights of the expanded visibility architecture include:

Ease of use, advanced processing functions and single pane of glass configuration through Ixia’s NTO user interface and purpose-built hardware
Full programmability and automation control using RESTful APIs
Patented automatic filter compiler engine for hassle-free visibility
Architectural support for line speeds from 1Gbps to 100Gbps in a highly scalable design
Open, standards-based integration with the flexibility to use a variety of OpenFlow enabled hardware and virtual switch platforms
Dynamic repartitioning of switch ports between production switching and visibility enablement to optimize infrastructure utilization

“This next-generation ControlTower delivers solutions that leverage open standards to pair Ixia’s field-proven visibility architecture with best of breed switching, monitoring and security platforms,” added Deepesh Arora, Vice President of Product Management at Ixia. These solutions will provide our customers the flexibility needed to access, aggregate and manage their business-critical networks for the highest levels of application performance and security resilience.”

About Ixia’s Visibility Architecture

Ixia’s Visibility Architecture helps companies achieve end-to-end visibility and security in their physical and virtual networks by providing their tools with access to any point in the network. Regardless of network scale or management needs, Ixia’s Visibility Architecture delivers the control and simplicity necessary to improve the usefulness of these tools.

Thanks to Ixia for the article.

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