OptiView^® Management Appliance with Reporter

As soon as the analyzer is connected to the network, it automatically begins to discover devices on the network, with no interaction required, by monitoring traffic and actively querying hosts. IT staff can immediately see what is on the network and where it is connected, by switch, slot and port number. They can investigate and quickly locate “suspect” devices and with minimum effort identify problems associated with device mis-configurations.
 

The network analyzer categorizes devices into interconnect (routers, switches, and SNMP hubs) , servers, printers, SNMP agents, VoIP devices, wireless devices, and other hosts.  Additionally, networks are classified by IP Subnets (both IPv4 and IPv6), VLANs, NetBIOS Domains and IPX Networks, together with host membership within each classification.  Network devices that may be experiencing problems are also discovered. Examples of problems detected are: duplicate IP addresses, incorrect subnet masks, default router not responding and many more.

Wireless LAN Infrastructure Discovery and Analysis
The analyzer discovers and categorizes Wireless LAN controllers, Lightweight access points, Intelligent access points and wireless clients. The Wireless LAN Infrastructure Analysis provides detailed device information for Cisco Wireless LAN controllers including the wireless network associated with the controller together with the SSID, security and QoS parameters, the lightweight APs being controlled and the 802.11 protocol in use. Detailed device information is also provided for Cisco LWAP’s.

VoIP Devices

The analyzer's active discovery capability has now been extended to VoIP devices such as IP phones and call managers for these manufacturers; Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and Mitel . Device capabilities and configurations may be viewed, allowing the user to easily identify and correct configuration issues during VoIP deployment.

Key Device Monitoring

The IT staff user can add a device to Key Devices and the analyzer will automatically test connectivity from the attached segment to that device by performing an IP or IPX ping. A key device that fails to respond, will show up in the Problem Discovery as “Key Device not responding,” providing you with at-a-glance monitoring of critical network devices.  The analyzer can also be configured to perform a discovery on an off-broadcast domain subnet to provide visibility of devices at remote sites.

Generate up-to-date HTML format inventory reports of devices both on the attached network and also on networks at remote sites.

Trace SwitchRoute allows you to see the exact path two devices use to communicate through your switch fabric. Trace SwitchRoute begins its discovery from the specified Source Device and traces the path to the specified Target Device. For each switch in the path, the displayed results include the DNS name and IP address, the inter switch connections by port number, together with link speed and VLAN information. Highlighting any device in the Trace SwitchRoute name column and selecting Host Detail allows you to view that device’s network configuration information.The Trace SwitchRoute feature now incorporates layer 3 trace route information.

Vendor independent infrastructure device analysis
Get visibility into switches and routers located anywhere on the enterprise network. With this information, you can optimize network performance, improve efficiency and reduce costs while improving reliability and security.

Additionally, easily manage and validate infrastructure configurations when deploying SNMPv3 with the analyzers new capability of supporting configurable credential sets including authentication with and without privacy.

 

Multi-port switch statistics
In-depth analysis, including:

• A tabular view of all switch port configurations, including the identity of each host and where it is connected to the switch for both layer 2 and 3.
• A graphical view of utilization and error rates on each switch port to see over subscribed or errored ports at a glance.

Detect over-utilization, excessive errors, and locate inactive switch ports to determine if performance problems are related to link speed or duplex mis-configurations, or are related to the number of hosts on a port.
 

VLAN analysis
Determine if connectivity problems are related to VLAN configuration by seeing information such as:
 

• VLANs that are configured on the switch.
• Interfaces that are members of each VLAN.
• Identification of trunk or uplink ports together with the trunking protocol in use.
• Identification of which hosts are members of each VLAN.

Router and WAN link analysis
In-depth device analysis identifies Router ARP cache or routing table errors and also provides visibility to manage and troubleshoot costly WAN links.  See WAN link configuration, a graphical display of utilization and error rates and identification of specific error types on ISDN, Frame Relay, T1/E1, T3 and ATM links.

Telnet and web browser links to allow reconfiguration of devices directly from the analyzer. Detailed HTML reports show switch configuration on a per port basis.

Only “on the wire” analyzers can provide vision into actual VLAN trunk traffic. When connected to a switch trunk port, the analyzer will detect all VLANs available on that trunk, measure the traffic distribution across all the VLANs and provides the user with the capability of selecting a specific VLAN. If an individual VLAN is selected, device discovery, traffic statistics and packet capture data will only be displayed for that VLAN.

To speed deployment of IEEE 802.1X, the OptiView Series III is capable of performing a full 802.1X transaction with an authentication server to ensure correct credentials are being deployed. The analyzer supports 802.1X authentication through most common EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) types, 15 in total, allows import of software certificates and can store multiple authentication profiles to allow connectivity to different broadcast domains or networks with multiple authentication servers for deployment, validation and troubleshooting.  A connection log for detailed 802.1X protocol exchange analysis is also generated.

Free String Match to find and capture anything
Match any set of words or phrases when detected (regardless of the position in the packet – payload or header) in real-time to trigger the analyzer to start or stop capturing and/or filter traffic. Use free string match to capture traffic around any application error message, detect traffic containing certain words or phrases in non-encrypted emails, web pages, file transfers or documents to identify illicit use of the network or detect downloading of restricted documents based on content or filenames (.doc, .xls, .pdf).  Additionally, use free string match to identify and track applications that are not allowed on the network such as streaming media that may consume valuable bandwidth, or P2P traffic that may pose a security risk.  A total of eight sets of triggers or filters can be defined to trigger a capture unattended for later analysis, allowing analysis when you have time, not when the event occurred.

Assess network readiness for new deployments by determining the impact of the new application, or the addition of network users, by stressing your network with simulated traffic – up to 1 Gbps.

Protocol type, frame size, frame rate, percentage utilization and number of frames to transmit are user configurable, along with the type of traffic: Broadcast, Multicast or Unicast.

Selectable protocols include: Benign Ethernet, Benign LLC 802.2, NetBEUI, Benign IP, IP ICMP Echo, IP UDP Echo, IP UDP Discard, IP UDP NFS and IP UDP NetBIOS. Selecting an IP protocol allows you to select Time to Live (TTL) parameters and TOS(QOS) parameters such as Minimum Delay, Maximum Throughput, Maximum Reliability, Minimum Monetary Cost and Maximum Security to ensure correct routing configurations.

With the Throughput Test, measure bidirectional data flow between two Fluke Networks’ devices to validate LAN and WAN throughput capabilities. The throughput test requires a second device to communicate with on your network. That second device can either be an OptiView Integrated or Workgroup Analyzer, an EtherScope or OneTouch Network Assistant, or a LinkRunner Pro Reflector.

The Throughput Option allows you to configure the following parameters:
 

• Data Speed (Up to 1 G bps) - maximum rate is determined by the link speed and duplex
• Frame Size - choose from seven different frame sizes or select Sweep to run the test on all seven frame sizes
• Content – Select payload for all 1’, all 0s, alternating 1s and 0s or random
• Test duration can be 2 seconds to 18 hours

Test results can be viewed in a tabular or graphical format.  The Rate format tabular view indicates the local and remote transmit and receive rates together with the total percentage of frames received by both devices.  Switching to tabular Frame Format view shows the number of local and remote frames transmitted and received, together with the total percentage of frames received by both devices.
 

Remote user interface
Simply point a web browser at the IP address of a correctly configured OptiView Series III Integrated Network Analyzer to retrieve saved reports and capture files. You can also install a Remote User Interface (UI) and use your PC to obtain remote access to an analyzer over a TCP/IP connection. Once the Remote UI is installed, simply give the interface the IP address of the analyzer to monitor and see an almost identical interface to the analyzer’s local interface. Communications between the analyzer and Remote UI can also be encrypted. A single analyzer will support seven remote sessions for collaborative troubleshooting or opening of multiple sessions on a PC to provide a remote dashboard view.

User accounts
Through the user accounts screen, you can add and modify analyzer security information for each individual analyzer user, which prevents unauthorized use of certain analyzer features for easier compliance with regulatory requirements.

Features that can be disabled include packet capture and decode, traffic generation, remote user interface and analyzer configuration.

While viewing the statistics, discovery or detail screens, pressing the Reports key will generate HTML reports on Protocols, Top Hosts, Top Conversations, Devices, Networks, Problems and many more. These reports are saved and may be viewed locally or remotely using a web browser.


 

Application testing with NetAlly Application Advisor

The OptiView Network Analyzer comes with a NetAlly Agent preinstalled, and with the separate NetAlly Application Advisor Test Center software and additional agents, users can test and monitor a variety of network and application performance parameters from and to any point in the network. Typically installed at network aggregation points or remote sites, NetAlly Agents are capable of performing extensive tests selected from a diagnostic library of predefined and automated test procedures. Primary parameters such as delay, loss, throughput and jitter, peer-to-peer and client server applications such as HTTP, Mail and FTP may be analyzed. Troubleshooting tests can be configured with notifications or alerts that are dependent on the results of the test. The test results are displayed using an on-line graphical user interface or published in standardized reports.
 

Application testing with NetAlly Application Advisor

The analyzer will discover and display complete IPv6 network and device inventory including routers, switches, wireless APs, DHCP6 servers and hosts. It enables you to identify active IPv6 devices in the network and those that may have problems in single-stack IPv6 networks. Router Advertisements are analyzed and information gathered from routers (by subnet) is displayed such as the router name, auto configuration, MTU, preferred lifetime, valid lifetime, network name, subnet, local prefix, on link, and user-defined name.

Easily identify applications that may be communicating using both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols. In a dual stack network, IPv4 and IPv6 can be running at the same time but if the network is transitioned to pure IPv6, the application may not continue to run.

Detect devices using tunneling mechanisms and identify the tunnels in use. Undetected or unauthorized tunneling could represent a serious security risk.

 

Centralized documenting, network diagramming and reporting.

OptiView Reporter works with your OptiView Integrated Network Analyzers and Workgroup Analyzers to provide documenting and trending capabilities from one central location.

The OptiView hardware agents automatically perform detailed device, VLAN and network discovery, problem identification, and infrastructure device analysis. This information, in turn, is automatically imported into OptiView Reporter for reporting, trending, and event notification.

 

OptiView Reporter’s seamless integration with Microsoft® Office Visio® diagramming program allows you to create maps showing the links between your servers, switches routers, and hosts.

With OptiView Reporter you’ll get:
 

• Distributed LAN visibility using OptiView Integrated and Workgroup analyzers
• Automated documentation, diagramming, problem identification and notification
• Long term interface trending
• Scheduled, web-accessible reports and network maps

Part of the OptiView Management Suite (OMS)
OMS provides the breadth of visibility and depth of analysis for a complete picture of network and application performance. It’s the only solution that combines proactive monitoring with in-depth “on-the-wire” analysis and portability to see problems up close – anywhere on the network.

By combining best of breed solutions for monitoring, analysis and troubleshooting, OMS can be used as a holistic management suite or part of your IT organization’s toolset, to help reduce complexity and improve productivity in your team’s daily workflow.

OptiView Management Appliance and OptiView Reporter
At the core of OMS, the OptiView Management Appliance gives you unmatched visibility into your network because it integrates NMS functions in a purpose-built appliance along with on-the-wire deep packet inspection. When used in combination with OptiView Reporter, network support organizations can create and use customizable web reports for daily operations and monitor long-term trends of network and application performance.