Any time you encounter a user complaint, whether regarding slow Internet access, application errors, or other issues that impact productivity, it is important to begin with a thorough understanding of the user’s experience. Not sure where to begin?  User complaints usually fall into three categories: slow network, inability to access network resources, and application-specific issues. Based upon the complaint being presented you need to understand the symptoms and then isolate the issue to ...

Planning for the Future As we approach the New Year, many organizations’ data centers and network configurations are in lockdown mode. Whether this is due to assuming a defensive posture against the onslaught of holiday ecommerce traffic, or an accommodation to vacationing staff, the situation provides network managers an opportunity to perform a year-end network monitoring assessment Establish Future Goals, Identify Current Weaknesses and Make Sure Core Tasks and Goals Are Achieved   Q. Ho...

Are you are planning to implement new IT projects such as data center consolidation, server virtualization, cloud computing, or perhaps adding new applications on the network?  Do you understand exactly how these upgrades will affect the existing applications and the user experience?  What strategy are you going to use to ensure application performance is not compromised?  It is imperative that you understand how each of the components can affect overall application performance. A...

If you’re implementing IPTV, it’s important to know what metrics to monitor to ensure the transmission of high quality video. Managing performance entails more than tracking response time. Let’s look at the key metrics for managing IPTV in the following table: Performance AreaMetricDescriptionIPTV Service MetricsQoEVideo quality of experience measured via Media Delivery Index (MDI), most often displayed as two numbers separated by a colon: delay factor (DF) and the media loss rate (MLR)Packet lo...

Chances are you’ve seen Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) but didn’t know it. Different types of IPTV are popping up in our daily lives ranging from Video-On-Demand to being greeted by pre-recorded video messages at the gas pump or ATM. And many businesses are adopting IPTV to broadcast live or on-demand video content to employees, partners, customers, and investors. But what does this mean for the network team? In this article we’ll outline IPTV basics and focus on primary management challenges and b...

The proper network Management tools allows you to follow these 6 simple tips. This will help you stay ahead of network probelms, and if a problem does occurs you will have the data to be able to analyze the problem.   Troubleshoot sporadic issues with the right equipment  The most irksome issues are often sporadic and require IT teams to wait for the problem to reappear or spend hours recreating the issue. With retrospective network analysis (RNA) solutions, it's possible to elimi...

The unprecedented complexity of IoT is bringing together a universe of "things" that were not designed to work together or share data. Data is increasing exponentially. Competitive edge often depends on getting new services to market quickly. New management systems can take years to roll out.  Now there's StableNet® — an innovative, flexible p...

 Infosim® together with University of Würzburg, TU Munich & genua mbH Key Learning Objectives  ​The SarDiNe Research Project Fine-grained Access Control in SDN Networks Resiliency and Offloading for a Firewall Virtual Network Function SDN/NFV & Cloud managed by StableNet® The ever-increasing number and complexity of cybe...

 It is really next to impossible to avoid hearing about how "The Cloud" is transforming business everywhere. Well-known technology companies from the old guard like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and Adobe, to established tech powerhouses Google and Amazon, to pretty much every new hot startup like Cloudera are all promoting how they are using the cl...

{jcomments on} Detecting Phantom Devices on Your Network So you run a network discovery and you notice devices that you are not familiar with. A phantom device is a device that is unmanaged that should be monitored by your Network Management System (NMS) It seems these devices show up even though you have processes in place to prevent this type of behavior. These could be devices connected to the wrong network, printers, BYOD etc. A phantom device is invisible to you so you are unaware of the de...

The increasing density, complexity and expanse of modern networking environments have fueled the ongoing debate around which network analysis and monitoring tools serve the needs of the modern engineer best - placing Packet Capture and NetFlow Analysis at center-stage of the conversation. Granted, both can be extremely valuable tools in ongoing efforts to maintain and optimize complex environments, but as an engineer, I tend to focus on solutions that give me the insights I need without too much...

InterComms talks to Marius Heuler, CTO Infosim®, about Infosim® StableNet® and the management and orchestration of SDN and NFV environments Marius Heuler has more than 15 years of experience in network management and optimization. As CTO and founding member of Infosim®, he is responsible for leading the Infosim® technical team in architecting, developing, and delivering StableNet®. He graduated from the University of Würzburg with a degree in Computer Science, holds several Cisco certifications,...

Infosim®, the new leader in network performance management, today announced that it has been selected as the supplier of choice to consolidate the IT infrastructure performance monitoring capabilities at Athenahealth. Following an extensive evaluation of the performance management market, the organization identified StableNet® as the only vendor capable of offering a single comprehensive view of the performance and capacity of its IT infrastructure in one unified solution, and with the highest l...

NMSaaS Webinar November 24th at 2:00pm EST Are you tired of "Tool Sprawl" and large CAPEX intestments when trying to deliver Enterprise network Management for Network Monitoring, VoIP Monitoring and Config Management to your organization?  This Wedinar will provide an in depth demonstration on how to move your enterprise network to the cloud using the following solutions: Network ManagementVoIP monitoringConfiguration ManagementNetFlow Monitoring  

IT Heroes: A Prescription for Network Health Each and every day, the bold men and women of IT risk it all to deliver critical applications and services. Their stories are unique. Their triumphs inspire. For the first time ever, the IT Heroes Series offers a revealing glimpse into the secrets and strategies that have won accolades for network teams around the world – and could do the same for you. Initial Symptoms Located in South West England, the Northern Devon National Health Service (NHS...

As we all know, technology has a life cycle of birth, early adoption, mainstream, and then obsoletion. Even the average consumer is very in touch with this lifecycle. However, within this overarching lifecycle there are “mini” lifecycles. One of these mini lifecycles that is particularly important to enterprises is the network design and equipment deployment lifecycle. This lifecycle is the basic roadmap of how equipment gets deployed within a company data network and key a topic of concern for ...

In Part 1 of this series I discussed how an NCCM solution and a CMDB can work together to create a more effective IT inventory system. In this post, I will be taking that a step further and show how your change configuration process will benefit from integration with that same CMDB. In general, the process of implementing IT infrastructure change happens at 3 separate stages of an assets lifecycle. Initial deployment / provisioningIn production / changesDecommissioning / removal In each of these...

Infosim®, the technology leader in automated Service Fulfillment and Service Assurance solutions, today announced the release of version 7.5 of its award-winning software suite StableNet® for Telco and Enterprise customers. StableNet® 7.5 provides a significant number of powerful new features, including: Dynamic Rule Generation (DRG); a new and revolutionary Fault Management concept REST interface supporting the new StableNet® iPhone (and upcoming Android) app Highly customizable dashboard ...

According an article in techtarget.com "Your routers and switches can yield a mother lode of information about your network--if you know where to dig." The article goes on to say that excavating and searching through endless traffic data and logs manufactured by your network system is a lot like mining for gold, and punching random holes to look for a few nuggets of information isn't very efficient. Your search will be much more fruitful if you know where to look and what it will look like. Fort...

Most networks today have a “traditional” IT monitoring solution in place which provides alarming for devices, servers and applications. But as the network evolves, so does the complexity and security risks and it now makes sense to formalize the process, procedures, and policies that govern access and changes to these devices. Vulnerability and lifecycle management also plays an important role in maintaining the security and integrity of network infrastructure. Network Configuration and Change M...