nGenius K2 Delivers Unprecedented Visibility into the Health of Application Services and Enables Contextual Drill Down into Flow and Packet InformationWESTFORD, Mass., Apr 14, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT), the industry leader in
advanced network and application performance management, today
announced the availability of nGenius(R) K2. While the mountain K2
provides climbers an unimpeded view of the surrounding landscape,
nGenius K2 provides IT professionals a clear, high-level view of the
current state or health of applications and services measured from the
network perspective, where all of those services must come together to
be delivered to business end users. This at-a-glance overview is
backed up with contextual drill-down into flow and packet details for
rapid problem diagnosis, dramatically reducing Mean Time To
Repair/Restore (MTTR).
The ability to produce this view is unique to nGenius K2 since
NetScout builds its network and application monitoring solutions on
the foundation of packet-flow monitoring technology - the most
definitive source of network, application, and service performance
data. Other technologies try to assess the health of applications and
services from incomplete viewpoints, such as the infrastructure
elements or snapshots of end-user experience, and in so doing, they
miss out on an increasingly complex and vital base of information -
the dynamic interactions between elements. Without understanding these
interactions, IT teams cannot get a clear idea of where problems lie,
and the result is end-user suffering.
"Enterprises are embracing new technologies that virtualize not
just servers but storage, applications, and desktops," said Dennis
Drogseth, Enterprise Management Associates. "In this complex
environment, enterprises need a way to resolve issues faster and more
efficiently and get ahead of problems--depending upon secondary
intelligence in the infrastructure for decision-making and problem
detection will simply no longer suffice. Packet Flow technology on the
other hand, gives the high-definition visibility enterprises will need
to reliably assure service quality in modern IP networks."
NetScout builds powerful performance management solutions that
solve hard problems fast. In organizations where the networked
infrastructure is truly mission-critical, performance management is
not merely a nice to have - it is a must have. nGenius K2 is the
"crowning jewel" in NetScout's three-tiered vision for the future of
integrated service management, based on packet-flow data. (See related
strategy release issued today, "NetScout Unveils Its Vision to Address
IT's Toughest Challenge: Managing the Modern IP Network".)
The three key features of nGenius K2 are:
1. Service Views. nGenius K2's innovative approach to integrated
service management starts with service views which expose the current
state or health of applications and services measured from the network
perspective:
- Status Dashboard View of Application Health: nGenius K2
graphically depicts the current health or state of application
services, while indicating the number and severity of alerts due to
anomalies in application performance metrics known as KPIs (key
performance indicators). This service status dashboard provides a
graphical summary of the scope of problems, including potential
performance problems before end users have been affected, and serves
as a starting point for drilling down to application traffic flow data
and alert details. Additionally, user-definable service profiles
ensure various constituencies can focus on precisely the applications
and services that are of interest to them.
- Virtual Service Network Map: An nGenius K2 Virtual Service
Network Map shows the flow "footprint" for a particular application
service by displaying the nGenius(R) System instrumentation points
where that service has been detected as well as the groups of servers
that are active in sessions and transactions for that particular
application. It also shows which instrumentation points have
recognized performance alerts for that application service for
additional drill-down investigation.
- Service Summaries. nGenius K2's Service Summaries are status
snapshots containing a select set of charts and tables for rapid
recognition of factors contributing to current application service
health status. For instance, operators can view information on Service
State over Time, KPIs over Time, Application Usage over Time, Response
Time Distribution over Time, Worst Performing Locations or Worst
Performing Servers. Further, operators can drill down directly, with
context, to nGenius Performance Manager from most of these thin-client
views, for added details and troubleshooting flexibility.
2. Early Warning System. nGenius K2's early warning capabilities
come from a powerful analytics engine that builds on the company's
earlier successes in this area and leverages KPIs associated with all
applications seen by the nGenius System. nGenius K2 eliminates the
need for static threshold-based alarms, by learning normal patterns of
behavior for key performance metrics and alerting operators when
significant changes have occurred. nGenius K2 early-warning alerts can
be sent to many traditional network management consoles including HP
Network Node Manager, Operations Center and Business Availability
Center, and IBM Tivoli NetView, Event Console and NetCool/OMNIbus.
3. nGenius Performance Network (nPN). The nGenius Performance
Management System is a sophisticated service in its own right, and so
nGenius K2 applies service views and early warning capabilities to the
monitoring application itself. The nPN service views indicate the
health of the nGenius System and let administrators monitor the status
of all related infrastructure devices, including nGenius Performance
Manager servers, nGenius Probes, and nGenius(R) InfiniStreams(TM).
Operators can drill down through three levels to view details about
attached clients, instrumentation devices, and processes.
"There are a lot of pretenders when it comes to deriving and
delivering meaningful services intelligence from today's Modern IP
Networks. But as our customers know, it is the quality --not the
quantity-- of your management data that truly counts," said Michael
Szabados, COO, NetScout Systems. "And the results of your choice of
tools will be apparent in your ability to assure consistent end-user
experience while driving down the time required to recognize and
resolve the hardest problems. The nGenius K2 product delivers against
two key strategic goals in this regard - service-aware views of the
applications being delivered over the network coupled with advanced
early-warning alarms that put the operations team in a solid,
proactive stance for protecting service quality."
About NetScout Systems
NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT) has been an industry leader
in advanced network and service assurance solutions for over twenty
years. NetScout's breakthrough technology solutions provide trusted,
comprehensive real-time and historical performance intelligence,
including advanced early warnings and rapid, definitive problem
analysis. These capabilities are vital to IT operators who are
accountable for reducing the Mean Time to Resolution. The world's
largest enterprises, government agencies, and service providers depend
upon NetScout's nGenius and Sniffer (formerly Network General) brands
to assure service levels to their users by reducing or preventing
disruptions and degradations. More information about NetScout is
available at http://www.netscout.com.
NetScout, the NetScout logo, Network General, the Network General
logo, nGenius and Sniffer are trademarks or registered trademarks of
NetScout Systems, Inc. Other brands, product names and trademarks are
property of their respective owners. NetScout reserves the right, at
its sole discretion, to make changes at any time in its technical
information and specifications, and service and support programs.
SOURCE: NetScout Systems, Inc.
NetScout Systems, Inc.
Christine Johansen, 978-614-4113
Manager, Public Relations
johansenc@netscout.com
or
Davies Murphy Group, Inc.
Rob Morton, 781-418-2460
netscout@daviesmurphy.com