* PacketTrap makes every router Cisco-like; NetQoS integrates SuperAgent with Cisco tools
Like it or not, Cisco gear resides in most networks and IT management vendors in-the-know realize if they equip their software with Cisco-smart features, then customers can’t ignore them.
Take PacketTrap. The start-up made available this week its Perspective 3.0, which now includes a feature dubbed ptFlow. This feature is a packet capture and filtering engine that allows network managers to gather traffic information from “non-Flow” support devices, meaning devices that don’t support Cisco’s NetFlow, sFlow (used by HP ProCurve) or J-Flow (the Juniper flavor). To take advantage of the ptFlow feature, devices must have port replication or port mirroring capabilities.
“There are a lot of routers and switches and hubs that don’t have those protocols and ptFlow will make flows from any devices look like NetFlow and solve the problem of traffic analysis regardless of the vendor gear,” says PacketTrap CEO Steve Goodman.
This feature enables the converting of standard network packets to the NetFlow protocol format, displays them in the Perspective dashboard and monitors packets as they traverse the network. Such information helps network managers identify high-traffic Web sites and minimize the impact of bandwidth-hogging applications such as streaming media on the network.
Perspective 3.0 is available now with pricing starting at $1,495.
Separately, network and application performance management vendor NetQoS expanded its existing relationship with the networking giant. The two have extended integration between key network management products. According to NetQoS, the company has integrated its SuperAgent application response time monitoring technology with the Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM).
“We have successfully tested the Cisco NAM/NetQoS SuperAgent integration and the value is evident to us in terms of performance monitoring, troubleshooting and cost savings,” said Paul Hoyle from the WAN Management Team of The California Department of Transportation, in a NetQoS press release.. “We will be able to combine the data from our multiple NAMs with our other SuperAgent collection sources and view it all in the NetQoS management console, which will help us better understand how applications are performing across our organization and quickly drill down to any NAM for efficient troubleshooting. Plus we get the benefit of monitoring more applications without having to deploy additional SuperAgent hardware.”
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