Digging into each of these 6 functional areas: Performance and Capacity
Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Network monitoring, Performance management, Symantec, BMC, EMC, NetIQ, Alcatel-Lucent, NetScout, DataCenter, CA, OSS, Systems monitoring, InfoVista, IBM Tivoli, HP Software, Quest Software, Netuitive, Integrien, NetQoS, Compuware, Fluke Networks, Network Instruments, Opnet, Entuity, Brix Networks, Keynote, Gomez, Xangati, Apparent Networks, Packet Design, Groundwork, Hyperic, Nagios, OpenNMS, ZenOSS, Zabbix
First things first, we have many of the same vendors from the Availability & Notification functional area of this Data Center Automation Blueprint in this category. Which probably begs the question, do we combine Availability & Notification with Performance & Capacity? I know in the OSS (not Open Source Software but telco-oriented Operational Support Systems) model they do this and call it “Service Assurance”, another name could be Service Level Management as they two monitoring-centric functions are about ensuring service levels are met…or simply I call it Availability & Performance? I’ll come back to this at the end after I type up the players in this Performance & Capacity area:
- BMC - Performance Manager & ProactiveNet Analytics
- CA - eHealth (former Concord)
- IBM - Netcool Proviso (former Quallaby that Micromuse acquired), Monitoring
- HP - Performance Manager, Performance Insight, Operations
- Quest Software - Foglight, PerformaSure
- Symantec - i3 (former Precise product line Veritas acquired)
- EMC - IP Performance Manager
But then, we have a slew of others that have been around for quite some time now…
- InfoVista - In January ‘07 Microsoft announced a $15M licensing deal of their product
- NetQoS -
- Netscout - nGenius & Network General (acquired in November ‘07)
- Compuware - Vantage
- Alcatel-Lucent - VitalSuite (former INS)
- Fluke Networks (they also OEM NetQoS’ products)
- Network Instruments (also have reseller relationship with NetQoS)
- NetIQ - AppManager
- Opnet
- Entuity
- Brix Networks
- Keynote
- Gomez
And some innovative up-and-comers in some unique technology/approaches…
Real-Time Behavior/Pattern Analysis through Dynamic Thresholding
IP Traffic/Packet Flow Monitoring & Analysis
Open Source Software (OSS) vendors
Whew..that was more work then I expected to pull together and I’m not done yet… Please throw into the comment who I’ve missed (I know there has to be a few).
The major challenge here is organizing and breaking down this functional area. There are so many approaches to obtain performance metrics from/for the data center. Some of the techniques and perspectives include;
- passive vs. active
- agent vs. agent-less
- in-line appliance vs. out-of-band appliance (e.g., span a port)
- proprietary vs. leverage infrastructure mgmt. capabilities (e.g., Cisco Netflow)
- outside the data center looking in vs. inside the data center itself.
- Reactive troubleshooting vs. Proactive Predictive
I’m going to need to have a part two (and maybe more) for this functional category breaking down the pro’s and con’s of various approaches. Which vendors do what, etc. I also need to revisit that question from the top of do we combine this into a single “availability & performance” functional category??? For now, this first pass will have to do…
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