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Network General will show off the fruits of its beefed-up R&D budget this week with the rollout of a series of network analysis and reporting enhancements to its Sniffer Enterprise Architecture.
At the companys first user conference, in Miami, officials will unveil the latest iteration of Network Generals Sniffer InfiniStream network analysis platform. The network traffic capture tool includes integration with Sniffer Enterprise Visualizer and Sniffer Enterprise Administrator, a new hardware platform for capturing traffic at the edge of the network, the ability to gather MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) statistics, and the ability to capture and analyze traffic across wide-area and ATM interfaces.
The integration of Sniffer InfiniStream 2.5 with Network Generals management software lets users analyze trends, provides graphical views of application transactions and provides reporting for capacity planning.
“The InfiniStream looks to be a good value-add product. I would have selected it a year-and-a-half ago if it was available,” said John Vogt-Nilsen, senior manager of technical services at Orbital Sciences Corp., in Phoenix, a user of Sniffer Distributed, an existing Network General product.
For its part, Network Instruments LLC, of Minneapolis, this week will launch a competing tool in Version 11 of its Observer protocol analysis suite, which includes enhancements to its GigaStor Probe offering that allow for time-based analysis for troubleshooting problems.
Network General, of San Jose, Calif., meanwhile, enhanced its Sniffer MultiSegment Intelligence software module for Sniffer platforms to provide analysis of multitiered Web applications, before-and-after comparison reports for network traffic in infrastructure upgrades, as well as the ability to analyze and correlate application flows across as many as eight network segments.
Sniffer Enterprise Visualizer 4.0 adds new dashboards for monitoring key network and application parameters in near real time, custom report definitions, and comparative performance reporting across multiple applications and geographic locations. The Visualizer enhancements deliver on customer requests for consolidated views of multiple, distributed probes, said Angelo Tenaglia, an enterprise management engineer supporting North American Air Defense Command, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“The old Visualizer was a little cumbersome. You had to select each of the probes we have out there and generate the reports off those probes. The enhancements will allow us to report on multiple probes in a single report,” Tenaglia said.
The new offerings are due by January.