* NetScout gives network managers better visibility into VPNs
NetScout isn’t one to toot its own horn, executives say, but the company just had to point out a feature added to its performance management product over the summer because NetScout believes it to be a must-have for enterprise network managers.
NetScout shipped the upgraded nGenius Performance Manager 2.0.1 network and application performance management software this summer with a feature that lets IT managers deploy NetScout traffic monitoring probes on the LAN side to determine how well traffic travels on VPNs. With the capability, dubbed nGenius VPN Site Monitoring and Reporting, customers can perform application-level analysis on VPN traffic with slightly different approaches for tunneling and encryption methods such as IPSec, DES and Triple-DES, and Multi-protocol Label Switching.
“It lets IT managers see the remote sites by using the subnet addresses and still perform analysis on traffic where the tunnel and encryption is applied,” says Eileen Haggarty, a product manager at NetScout. She and other NetScout representatives are spreading the news about this feature – which perhaps not all customers have taken advantage of yet in their NetScout software – because it helps troubleshoot problems over VPNs and plan for additional capacity, and because it’s free to those with the software. “It’s in there. They just need to turn it on,” she says.
According to Infonetics Research, end-user demand for VPN services is skyrocketing and the market is expected to reach $30.1 billion worldwide by 2008. Many times when VPNs are put in place to save money over WANs and optimize bandwidth, Haggerty says, the visibility of the traffic is lost.
NGenius VPN Site Monitoring and Reporting provides a unified picture of the types of applications being delivered across IPSec and MPLS-based VPNs. It can also validate prioritization schemes, individual application flows and their respective quality-of-service levels in context with remote site details. The product also delivers real-time monitoring of these applications and presents it alongside total application volumes and network responsiveness data.
NetScout uses a combination of server software and appliance probes to monitor traffic. To monitor VPN traffic, customers should locate a LAN probe in front of an edge router (connected with a passive tap) and configure the probe to look for subnet addresses at remote sites. The probe will collect data and make a copy of the traffic, which is fed to the probe and forwarded to NetScout’s nGenius Performance Manager software. The software, which performs analysis and generates reports, is installed on a dedicated server and can be accessed via a Web browser.
NetScout’s new VPN Site Monitoring and Reporting capabilities are available in nGenius Performance Manager 2.0.1 and nGenius Probe Firmware CDM 2.1. Probes cost about $20,000. The nGenius Performance Manager costs about $50,000.
