* Network Physics adds Insights to NetSensory
Best practices seem to be on the mind of most IT professionals these days. Ad hoc firefighting and troubleshooting practices are no longer acceptable as regulatory and security concerns mount within enterprise IT shops. Now network managers need to be sure to follow procedures and document processes, while also ensuring performance across their networks as well as the systems and applications the network supports.
Network Physics next week is set to announce an upgraded version of its NetSensory operation system (which I mentioned in this newsletter a year ago). NetSensory 5.0 will run on the company’s NP-500, NP-2000 and NP-Director appliances and adds what the company is calling Insights, which are XML templates that encapsulate best practices for how to respond to an event or problem within networks, applications and systems.
“Insights provide network managers with a step-by-step workflow and best practice approach to resolving problems or even responding to network changes,” says Dwight Barker, director of product management at Network Physics.
Insights could help junior network staff members resolve higher-level issues as well. NetSensory is typically aimed at senior network engineers who know what they are looking for when sorting through performance data from network devices, systems and applications. The Insights feature could walk less-experienced staffers through resolution, the company says.
The NetSensory operating system facilitates communication among multiple NP-Director and NP-2000 boxes. The NP-Director, launched in September 2004, is a central appliance that sits in a data center and provides a global view of a network.
The NP-2000s are 1U devices that plug into a network via a switch port and passively watch all the traffic at key aggregation points. The boxes can auto-discover paths for each application flow in a network, determining performance metrics such as packet loss, throughput, network latency and server response times. IT managers can use the information to troubleshoot problems locally, but because the boxes also forward information back to NP-Director, central data center managers can determine whether a problem, such as increased WAN latency, is widespread.
Because of this architecture, the company says NetSensory 5.0 coupled with the company’s appliances can help IT managers using WAN optimization tools determine the true source of performance issues. Because 80% of the company’s 150 or so customer are currently using WAN optimization tools, Network Physics’ officials say their products can accurately pinpoint if a server is causing poor performance or if an application is the source of concern or if more bandwidth is needed.
“The products can tell if an application is chatty, if there are latency issues, basically if the other vendors’ products are working appropriately for the customer,” says Bob Quillin, vice president of marketing at Network Physics. “It’s an objective measure of performance.”
