* Metron associates bandwidth directly with end users
IP address management vendor eTelemetry last week at Interop announced an appliance that takes the company’s Locate technology and applies it to bandwidth management.
The network appliance, dubbed Metron, can associate bandwidth directly with end users, company executives say. Metron, using the Locate software, passively monitors network traffic and associates patterns within the network traffic to an individual.
“Metron includes all the features of Locate and provides a higher value to the enterprise product, which is bandwidth monitoring,” says Ermis Sfakiyanudis, eTelemetry President and CEO.
Locate dynamically correlates in real-time a network user’s name, contact information, IP address, computer’s unique hardware (MAC address) and switch port. Personal identifying information is also gathered on people who are not registered users of the network. The appliance also includes a database that imports data from corporate directories to more quickly associate an actual individual at the company. Metron uses that information to, for instance, identify top bandwidth users by name, and ultimately give IT managers the information they need to better manage bandwidth consumption.
“We track all those moving parts to dynamically identify the bandwidth usage of a person, department, office or campus regardless of changing IP address or multiple PCs used by that person over time,” says Alan Schunemann, CTO of eTelemetry. “This is our first step toward business activity monitoring.”
For instance, IT managers looking to charge back bandwidth usage to a department, for Web surfing or monitoring for unauthorized activity on the Internet could put Metron to use. Companies such as Evident Software, NetQoS and NetScout also provide tools in their products to help customers determine usage and chargeback for various departments.
Metron’s main appliance costs $35,000, depending on the network configuration. Addition collection nodes, which would serve as distributed sensors in key network locations to pick up on bandwidth usage, are priced at $12,000. Metron is set to be available by mid-August.
