Monitoring and Reporting on Individual VSAN Partitions and Traffic; Efficient
Troubleshooting and Lower TCO via New Fibre Channel Switch Roving
WESTFORD, Mass., March 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NetScout Systems, Inc.
(Nasdaq: NTCT), a leading provider of enterprise-wide network performance
management solutions, announced today that it is the first independent vendor
to deliver performance monitoring and reporting for Virtual SAN (VSAN)
technology. VSAN is a SAN partitioning technology available through the Cisco
MDS 9000 Family of Multilayer Intelligent directors and fabric storage area
networking (SAN) switches. In addition, NetScout expanded its Fibre Channel
troubleshooting capabilities with new switch roving support. The new features
are enabled by firmware enhancements to NetScout's nGenius(R) Fibre Channel
Probes and software enhancements in nGenius Performance Manager 2.0.1.
Through VSANs, storage administrators can build more scalable and reliable
SANs able to support multiple applications in a single physical
infrastructure. Using NetScout's new VSAN monitoring capabilities, SAN
managers can identify, analyze and trend the traffic being delivered for each
VSAN for real-time troubleshooting and long-term capacity planning. In
addition, they can understand the resource requirements of each VSAN and its
contributions to overall interswitch link traffic. NetScout's ability to
monitor and report on individual types of SAN activity complete the necessary
visibility needed by a SAN manager to proactively optimize the SAN.
"We have introduced VSAN and Inter-VSAN routing features in the Cisco MDS
9000 in order to provide SAN managers with the means to better control and
segment their storage traffic," said Bill Erdman, director of marketing in the
Storage Technology Group at Cisco Systems. "The Cisco MDS 9000 also offers
other innovative features such as switch port roving that help customers
accelerate troubleshooting. By supporting these features within their nGenius
Solution, NetScout is helping our mutual customers effectively address the
growing challenges of deploying and managing large SAN infrastructures."
"NetScout continues to anticipate the needs of large enterprises by
introducing performance management for important new technologies such as
VSAN," said Nancy Marrone-Hurley, senior analyst with Enterprise Storage
Group. "VSAN technology and diagnostics features as well as switch roving are
two of the key features driving customers to choose Cisco solutions. By
supporting these features, NetScout is providing a level of visibility into
SANs that no other vendor can provide today."
The nGenius 9800 Fibre Channel Probe can be configured to automatically
discover and monitor Virtual SANs present on Enhanced Inter-Switch Links
(EISL) in Cisco Fibre Channel SAN implementations. All the network
performance analysis details provided on Fibre Channel segments are now
extended to the VSANs. SAN managers can identify, monitor and report protocol
details for the link and its associated VSANs, incorporating Fibre Channel
specific details such as:
* Traffic statistics of symptoms that may cause performance degradation
including Frame Busy and Rejects, Port Busy and Rejects, Zero Credit
Events and Initializations.
* New Fibre Channel traffic views that detail Fibre Channel Protocol
(FCP), Extended Link Services (ELS) and Basic Link Services activity.
* Detailed views of Upper Layer protocol session activity including SCSI
Initiator to Target/LUN conversations for such exchanges as SCSI reads
and writes in FCP or Login traffic for ELS.
The addition of switch roving capabilities in the nGenius Fibre Channel
Probes offers a cost-effective way to troubleshoot Fibre Channel segments and
switches. Connected to a mirror port on a switch, an nGenius Probe can rove
to all ports in the switch, allowing SAN managers to troubleshoot under- or
over-utilization on a port, identify bandwidth hogs on a port, or execute a
packet capture on a port to perform in-depth decode analysis. This new
feature makes switch troubleshooting more efficient and also lowers the TCO
for enterprises seeking proactive performance management in their Fibre
Channel environments.
"Many of our enterprise customers are suspecting that the growth and
complexity in their Fibre Channel SANs are contributing to slow downs in
application performance for their users," said Michael Szabados, senior vice
president of product operations for NetScout Systems. "We are committed to
supporting innovative features such as VSAN that are helping the SAN industry
mature and embrace the best elements of other networking technologies, so that
true enterprise-wide network and application performance management can be
achieved in a cost-effective manner."
Pricing and Availability
The new enhancements are available in nGenius Performance Manager 2.0.1
Service Pack 1 and nGenius Probe Firmware CDM 2.1 for nGenius 9800 Fibre
Channel Probes at no additional charge. For additional product or ordering
information about nGenius solutions, call NetScout Systems at 1-800-357-7666
or visit our Website http://www.netscout.com.
About NetScout Systems, Inc.
NetScout Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTCT) is a market leader and pioneer of
integrated network performance management products that unify performance
across the enterprise. NetScout's nGenius(R) Performance Management System is
helping more than 3000 leading companies increase their return on
infrastructure investments by optimizing the performance of networks and
applications according to business priorities. NetScout is headquartered in
Westford, Massachusetts and has offices worldwide. Further information is
available at http://www.netscout.com.
NetScout and the NetScout logo, and nGenius are registered trademarks of
NetScout Systems, Inc. CDM and the CDM logo, and MasterCare and the MasterCare
logo, are 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.
For Further Information:
Peggy Flynn Dawn Sullivan
NetScout Systems Schwartz Communications, Inc.
(978) 614-4162 (781) 684-0770
flynnp@netscout.com netscout@schwartz-pr.com
SOURCE NetScout Systems, Inc.