The Performance Zone

Health Information Systems – Accuracy Improves Patient Care

Submitted by Eileen Haggerty, NetScout Director of Product Marketing

A recent report released in the January 26, 2009 Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that in Texas hospitals where electronic information technology has been implemented, patients seem to have fewer complications and lower death rates.

Spotlight on Patient Care – Adoption of Modern IP Network Capabilities for E-Prescriptions

Submitted by Eileen Haggerty, NetScout Director of Product Marketing

We have periodically in the Performance Zone Blog talked about some of the dramatic changes the Modern IP Network has had in the way ordinary people do things in new ways – most recently, the way the Obama Presidential Campaign leveraged smart devices, Web 2.0 social networking, and the Internet in his path to the Presidency.

Yesterday morning, I caught yet another example how times change – and how modern network technology is evolving to provide better, safer, and more cost effective services

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Monitoring the Modern IP Network Requires a Unified Management Solution

Submitted by Heidi Gabrielson, Solutions Marketing Manager for NetScout

Huge investments in faster servers, better protocols, high-speed backbones and virtualized services have turned yesterday’s low-speed, data-only networks into information technology platforms ready to support a multitude of 21st century business services rapidly and reliably.  The amount of redundancy and re-routing architected into these networks has mostly hidden hardware or circuit outages from end users.  The bigger challenge is how to address persistent and intermittent application degradations that can present an even greater threat to revenue, customer service or public reputation.

Exciting News for Riverbed Technology, a New NetScout Alliance Partner!

Submitted by Adam Reeves, NetScout Solutions Marketing Manager

Congratulations to our new alliance partner, Riverbed Technology, on being identified as the market share leader in WAN optimization controllers! Gartner has recognized the company as the market share leader for first quarter of 2008, the 7^th quarter in a row that the company has been recognized as the market share leader in this space! (Read the Gartner article)

Response Time Filtering with nGenius Intelligence

It’s very common to filter network statistics by IP address or protocol type, but have you ever filtered by response time? In this video from the floor of Interop 2008 in Las Vegas, Matthias D'Autremont shows how easy it is to find your slowest servers with just a few mouse clicks!

Visualizing Response Time with Sniffer Intelligence

Gathering response time statistics from your critical enterprise applications is easier than you might think! In this video segment from Interop 2008 in Las Vegas, Matthias D'Autremont demonstrates how easy it is to quickly determine the response time of the network, the application servers, and the transaction transfer times.

Companies waste millions in unnecessary telecom charges

If you haven't already, you may want to read this 12/7/06 Network World article called "Companies waste millions in unnecessary telecom charges".  It covers a new Aberdeen Group survey that says a large portion of companies have inadequate control over telecom expenses, and are bleeding millions of dollars annually as a result.

Since the report was funded by a group of so-called telecom expense management vendors , it primarily tackles issues related to complicated bills and exorbitant late fees. But it doesn't go into any depth on how much it costs when a company unknowingly over-provisions its network or over-subscribes for bandwidth because it is blindly supporting non-business related activities. It doesn't talk about how applications that are authorized by senior management but perform inefficiently over the WAN can unnecessarily add to the telecom cost burden. It doesn't tell network managers how to distinguish between business and recreational uses of streaming audio and video.

Sure, you should get your act in gear and avoid paying late fees. We all know that. A more interesting approach to lower your telecom expenses is to fully understand your traffic mix today and leverage that information to plan properly for tomorrow.

On The Learning Curve to Network Performance

After our recent NetScout User Forum meetings in Washington and Toronto, I've definitely concluded the learning curve for nGenius Performance Manager can be unquestionably quick.  Let me share some real world stories based on observations from the field...

One user noted he was able to work closely with a peer system administrator to quickly identify hundreds of custom applications they wanted to monitor on their worldwide network.  With only a bit of informal coaching, the co-worker was able to work through all IT process approvals, then configure and test the applications tracked in nGenius Performance Manager in only a few weeks.

Another example is even more intriguing; one user who "regularly" keeps his peers up to date on nGenius products via WebEx training sessions decided to invite "non-Network Managers" for the first time.  These IT specialists were from the application server and security teams.

The user had only 3 hours to "train" these folks.  All of these "users" had no prior experience with NetScout and definitely were not network specialists.  But some did have a bit of previous exposure to Sniffers....

The first hour was dedicated to presenting concepts via Powerpoint, but the next two hours were hands-on problem solving with our products.

Our user asked the audience for a recent problem they needed to solve with their own favorite toolset:  it happened to be that a server was slow. The trainees were introduced to all key features that could help them solve this problem.  Once the feature walkthrough was presented, everyone then had to demonstrate all they could to uncover the slow server and define the problem. 

The results were impressive.  Five or six people from this group of "network neophytes" now use our product every day, some probably more often than our user's own network experts.

So, if you're having any troubles don't hesitate to contact us for training as it will pay off in the long run!

Reduce MTTR Using A Top-down Approach to Network and Application Performance Management

Memorial Day weekend was relaxing. It was a nice break from constant business travel. Besides golfing, surfing, and spending quality time with the family, I also got a chance to reflect on my recent discussions with customers and peers regarding the direction of network and application performance management. One common thread emerged from these discussions: We need a top-down approach to performance management in order to achieve reduced MTTR.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the importance and temptation of looking at the packets. However, it simply doesn’t make sense and is not scalable to begin with thousands/millions of packets at the bottom. It is like finding a needle in the haystack! A better and more efficient approach is to start with flow data on the top to view performance information such as users and applications. From this network and application flow vantage point, you can then drill down to do targeted data mining and analysis on the packet level.

With this approach, you can better address performance issues in these three areas:

1. Enterprise-wide real-time visibility integrated with packet level history
2. Capacity planning, trending and baselining analysis etc.
3. Integration of reactive and proactive technologies to achieve more automation

I will write more entries to discuss each of these topics in more detail. In the meantime, please send me your comments and observations.