Advanced net analysis wares on tap at Interop

LAS VEGAS -- Network professionals attending Interop this week will get a look at a slew of products designed to take network troubleshooting to the next level as network management vendors pump up wares with advanced application, voice and virtualization analysis.

As wireless, security and LAN vendors introduce their latest gear, network management veterans and newcomers will showcase how their troubleshooting tools will keep such advanced technologies running smooth on today's enterprise networks. NetScout, Netreo, Netcordia and WildPackets are separately set to unveil today upgrades to their flagship products targeted at reducing the mean time to repair when problems occur and providing insight into how networks and applications can be tweaked for optimization.

NetScout

Performance-management vendor NetScout has readied an update to its nGenius Analytics product, which the company unveiled at last year's show. Version 1.2 of the appliance developed from technology NetScout acquired with Quantiva now adds VoIP quality metrics, application-response times and decreases to the network-performance metrics it collects across an enterprise to help IT managers get a view of end-to-end application-performance management.

The product, previously offered only as a stand-alone appliance, can now be purchased bundled with NetScout's nGenius Performance Manager product, which can be bought as software or preconfigured as an appliance on optimized hardware. Coupling the two applications, NetScout says, provides deeper network and application analysis, enabling it to send early warnings to network managers on potential VoIP degradations, application-response slowdowns and anomalous network behavior.

With competition from Network General, Network Physics and others, NetScout says it needs to continue to advance the application intelligence in its products and help network managers get ahead of performance issues.

"We have added the ability to start tracking and watching for the presence of previously unrecognized and uncategorized traffic," says Jim Frey, NetScout vice president of marketing. "The analytics can alarm on the unknown in essence and help network managers get ahead of performance problems."

Available now, pricing for nGenius Analytics 1.2 starts at $50,000.