Now we clearly understand why we need tools and how to use them to best cover the network. However, on the flip side, it is important to optimize the utilization of the tools themselves. Tools can range from “free” for open source (some debate whether free is free, or whether the cost is hidden elsewhere) to hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. With such hefty investments of money and effort, particularly in tight economic and budgetary times, it is imperative to squeeze the most that you can out of those tools.
The key challenges associated with tool utilization are:
- Tool Overload – this problem is particularly prevalent for 10G networks. When a tool is oversubscribed, packets will be dropped. Dropped packets compromise coverage, plain and simple, since part of your visibility vanishes. The traditional fix for this problem was simply to buy a duplicate tool and split the traffic between them. But can you really afford to invest 2X each time your tool is overloaded? Most data centers simply cannot these days.
- Tool Underutilization – With the high cost of tools, it makes absolutely no sense to leave monitoring capacity on the table. Frequently, when data centers run into the oversubscription problem, they look to deploy an additional unit of the same tool, using both tools below capacity. These data centers need to filter and route traffic from the unmonitored segments (see Simson’s 20%) to their underutilized tools to take advantage of that available monitoring bandwidth.
Monitoring Optimization addresses these issues in three ways.
First, the products offer Boolean Filtering to load balance tools, which ensures the right data (and only the right data) makes it to the right tool. It provides pinpoint management of tool utilization and enables a strategic approach to your overall monitoring effort.
Anue’s Monitoring Optimization solution also offers the Tool Management View, providing full statistics on all processes, and helping identify problems early before they become crises using alarms and SNMP traps.
Finally, this solution offers significant flexibility to help preserve and maximize your tool investments, and to even enable monitoring of 10G segments with 1G tools. In the case the Anue Net Tool Optimizer, it is in a standard form factor, offers the ability to activate ports in quantities of one, allows for 1G ports to upgrade to 10G, and helps you save money by doing more with existing TAPs.
Next: ROI for Optimizing Tool Utilization (Case Study)
