What's New in Observer 13

Observer 13 offers significant enhancements to the entire Network Instruments monitoring and troubleshooting platform. From customisable, high-level reporting features in Observer Reporting Server and increased GigaStor performance to expanded wireless and topology support, this release provides major new features that will excite new and existing users alike.

With Observer 13

• Monitor enterprise-wide performance in real time with NetLive
• Perform one-click root-cause analysis from application-level ORS reports
• Isolate sporadic problems quickly with the new GigaStor interface
• Drill down in GigaStor to investigate microbursts
• Investigate financial transactions and trade executions on a nanosecond basis
• Track WAN traffic on your OC3/12 networks

Enhanced Application Performance Monitoring

Use Application Performance Monitoring to graphically track application performance and perform quick next-step analysis. Performance is presented on a colour-coded scale, allowing periods of poor performance to be easily identified.

From top-layer application reports, drill down to specific host servers or conversations to identify sources of poor performance. Couple this with new auto-baselining in the Observer Reporting Server (ORS) for a more powerful performance monitoring solution.

Application Performance Monitoring is available with Observer Expert, Observer Suite, and ORS. Auto-baselining is available with ORS.

Expanded Application Visibility

Observer 13 provides greater accuracy and in-depth tracking of application performance and errors.

Stateful Packet Inspection
Stateful Packet Inspection allows network managers to accurately identify protocols or activities traversing a specific port through in-depth packet inspection. For example, stateful packet inspection can verify that application traffic flowing across port 80 is legitimate HTTP-based activity rather than unauthorised BitTorrent use.

Track HTTP by URL
As web-services on the network increase, tracking performance by Internet Protocol (IP) or virtual IP is no longer adequate. New URL-based performance reporting monitors response times, volumes, utilisation, and site-specific statistics.

Available in Observer Expert and Observer Suite within Application Transaction Analysis.

Realtime Enterprise-Wide Views

NetLive, within the Observer Reporting Server, presents high-level, network-operation-centre (NOC) views of network and application performance in real time. Use NetLive to assess network conditions and pinpoint concerns. From these views, drill down and isolate network problems.

Customise NetLive's application, network, and infrastructure performance views and reports to present only metrics you care about. NetLive is accessible via web browser and available to users with appropriate access rights.

Available with the Observer Reporting Server.

Unparalleled NetFlow Scalability

New with Observer 13 is our enhanced NetFlow Trending Instance, which offers unparalleled scalability by allowing engineers to configure up to 512 NetFlow devices per collection device.

Using Network Instruments' Advanced Expert Probe as a NetFlow collector, organisations can monitor high-level performance metrics, including real-time statistics like Top Talkers, bandwidth usage, and long-term network trends.

Available with Observer Expert and Observer Suite and Hardware Probes.

Enhanced Wireless Support

Observer provides in-depth WLAN monitoring and analysis and supports the emerging wireless standard 802.11n. For organisations deploying 802.11n, use Observer to:

• Monitor signal strength and quality
• Compare wired to wireless performance
• Conduct wireless site surveys
• Detect rogue access points
• Investigate wireless performance at the packet level
• Isolate and troubleshoot wireless problems

Each analyser or probe, when equipped with a wireless NIC, detects wireless activity and displays metrics to Observer consoles anywhere on the network for deep-packet analysis.

Available with Observer Expert, Observer Suite, and Probes.

OC-3 and OC-12 Support

For large organisations and carriers monitoring OC topologies, Observer provides monitoring and analysis of OC-3 and OC-12 and decodes OC-related protocols. Observer supports Packet over SONET (POS), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) over OC, the ability to reconstruct ATM streams, and ATM over SONET.

Available with Observer Expert, Observer Suite, and WAN Probes.

Enhanced GigaStor Interface

The new GigaStor Active Reporting feature includes powerful drill-down capabilities, customisable next-step analysis, and immediate report generation—all designed to reduce mean time to resolution. From the selected time-period view, engineers drilling into network and application metrics can determine the next step of their investigation by choosing from an extensive list of related reports. Based upon the investigation at hand, automatic filters are dynamically created to speed root-cause analysis.

Upgrades to the time-navigation interface improve problem identification. New macro and micro timeline views provide users both a big-picture view and a micro view to quickly pinpoint problems.

Available within GigaStor.

Reconstruct the Past

The new data-stream reconstruction interface simplifies and streamlines the file reconstruction process.

Take captured traffic and recreate communications in an easy-to-read format. Rebuild web pages and reconstruct e-mails and instant messages to gather hard evidence of network activity.

Available with Observer Expert and Observer Suite.

Data-at-Rest Security

Encrypt data stored on the GigaStor using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to ensure information security. AES is required by U.S. government agencies and can be important for companies concerned about PCI and HIPAA regulations.

Available within GigaStor.

Financial Analysis

Observer 13 includes components designed to specifically benefit financial organisations. These institutions have particular monitoring requirements that differ greatly from the average company. For example, the effectiveness of a trade is measured in nanoseconds, not milliseconds, necessitating drill down capabilities to a finite moment of time.

We have added several new features to address the financial sector's unique needs:

• Expanded Financial Protocol Support Observer offers in-depth FIX analysis, including application-specific errors and statistics, and 29West and NASDAQ trading protocol decodes and support.
• Microburst Analysis meets the financial sector's need for nanosecond detail

FIX analysis is available in Observer Expert and Observer Suite within Application Transaction Analysis. 29West, MOLD, and UDQF decodes and support are available with all Observer consoles.

Investigate Nanosecond Bursts of Activity

Drill down within GigaStor's interface to analyse network and application performance and transactions over nanosecond intervals. This function is ideal for transaction-heavy organisations such as financial services, where investigating performance delays of even a few nanoseconds can be critical.

Available within GigaStor.