Saturday, March 21, 2015

Tabula Rosa Systems Product Of The Day - ThousandEyes for Enterprise and IT Operations


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ThousandEyes is one on Tabula Rosa's newer product offerings and is being embraced by many organizations as a stellar and compelling product. It brings new levels of problem solving to many compsnies and it does so in quite rapidly.

A good overview is posted below. Please contact Tabula Rosa for more information!
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ThousandEyes for Enterprise and IT Operations

Performance Challenges in Enterprise Environments

The performance of a corporate network is highly dependent on different factors. Applications like VDI and VoIP are specially sensitive to the real-time state of the network.

Infrastructure/Network Performance:

                Latency: Defined as the round-trip time (RTT) between the client and server, network latency depends mostly on the physical distance between the endpoints, as well as the congestion state of the network. Higher latencies cause higher application response times, as well as lower TCP (Transport Control Protocol) throughputs. TCP throughput is actually inversely proportional to the round trip time (WindowSize/RTT). Also, because of the slow start mechanism, TCP can be quite inefficient in taking advantage of available bandwidth. The impact of the RTT is exacerbated in the case of chatty protocols, that require N rounds to complete a transaction. A transaction that would take Nx5ms inside a LAN can take Nx100ms over the public Internet, making the application virtually unusable.
                 
                Packet Loss: Packet loss can trigger TCP retransmissions and bring the throughput of the connection down. The throughput of a TCP connection is roughly proportional to sqrt(p) where p is the packet loss probability. So a connection with 2% loss has about 70% of throughput of a 1% loss connection. In fact it can be shown that in steady state, the window size of TCP with 1% loss is less than 10 packets. If each packet is 1,500 bytes long and the RTT is 100ms, that’s a throughput of 150 Kbytes/s.
                 
                Capacity and Available Bandwidth: Capacity between two endpoints is the maximum data rate that can be achieved in the absence of any cross-traffic. Cross traffic will use a portion of the capacity, and the remaining is the available bandwidth, which determines how fast TCP connections can go. Available bandwidth in enterprise networks is typically limited by cost, not so much by technology. Currently a WAN MPLS access can cost anywhere from $300/Mbps/month to $1,000/Mbps/month (note: Access to broadband Internet is 30x less expensive in comparison). Most enterprises still route Internet traffic through their data centers (e.g. MPLS access) using Internet traffic backhauling because of security and control. This consumes expensive bandwidth in the corporate backbone.
                 
                Routing Availability: Routing inside the enterprise is determined by interior routing protocols such as OSPF or IGRP. But for Internet traffic, different networks need to exchange routing information using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). BGP allows independent neighboring networks to talk to each other to decide what traffic they will exchange. This process is usually driven by economics rather than network efficiency, therefore routes are not always optimal from a latency/bandwidth point of view. BGP changes (e.g. misconfigurations) can render an entire network unreachable or induce severe performance degradation on applications (note: bgp convergence times are often in the order of 3-digit seconds.)
                 
                Wireless Access (WLAN): Bad quality 802.11 wireless access in the branch office is a common cause for performance degradation of applications. This can be caused by degradation of the radio signal power (lower RSSI) that can be caused by interference or physical distance between the client and the access point. This is often a hard element to troubleshoot end-to-end since typically there is no access to this information without instrumenting the client or the access point.

As enterprises adopt Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), application performance becomes more dependent on what happens outside of the corporate network.

ThousandEyes for Enterprise and IT Operations

Application Performance:

                SaaS/Cloud Adoption: As enterprises adopt Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and boost their SaaS consumption, application performance does not depend only on what happens inside the corporate network anymore. Network traffic has to cross multiple third party networks in the public Internet before it gets delivered to the end-user. Most of these hops are outside of the control of both the consumer and the provider (the endpoints) of the application. Traditional enterprise WAN architectures that were designed in the days when most traffic was staying inside the enterprise falls short when increasing volumes of traffic go through the public Internet, mainly because of Internet traffic backhauling and limited bandwidth in the corporate network.
                 
                VoIP/Video: Most VoIP protocols (including RTP) use UDP (instead of TCP), and voice applications need to use loss concealment algorithms to cope with packet loss. Voice applications are also sensitive to jitter (variations in network delay). Each end of the conversation needs to have buffers to accommodate variations of delay in the network. Beyond some point, packets that suffer a very high delay are discarded by the application. These drops can be perceptible in the audio stream. VoIP traffic can be prioritized using different PHB strategies (Per Hop Behavior) with different DSCP codes(e.g. EF or AF).

                Desktop Virtualization (VDI): VDI protocols such as ICA or RDP run on top of TCP which means that excessive packet loss and retransmissions can render VDI unusable. VDI is very sensitive to network latency since the application needs to react quickly to user interactions. Another limiting factor is available bandwidth, especially server-side video streaming, but even in non-streaming scenarios (e.g. printing), a >100kbps requirement per client is reasonable.

ThousandEyes at Work

ThousandEyes provides end-to-end visibility of application delivery in the cloud through a combination of lightweight agents and passive analysis. ThousandEyes X-Layer technology provides deep visibility into each layer of application delivery and a connecting thread between these layers, making it possible to jump from layer to layer to find the root cause of problems. Each layer maps to a different subsystem of application delivery with its own set of unique metrics.

The following elements are unique to ThousandEyes:
                 
                X-Layer: Provides deep visibility into each layer of application delivery and a connecting thread between these layers, making it possible to navigate from layer to layer to find the root cause of problems.
                Deep Path Analysis: Microscopic view of the end-to-end path between the client and server, including localization of loss per interface, link delays, route changes and measurement of capacity and available bandwidth.
                 
                Interactive Sharing: Enables enterprises and application providers to share live data with one another, eliminating ad-hoc tests, reducing manual processes and resolving problems faster.

Using ThousandEyes inside the Enterprise

ThousandEyes can be deployed inside the Enterprise through Private Agents. Private agents perform periodic synthetic measurements to specified targets and are valuable to troubleshoot performance problems due to the depth of information they provide.

Private Agents

Private Agents can be installed in branch offices and data centers either as a software package or virtual appliance. They can be configured to perform different types of tests that provide visibility over different layers. The agents perform periodic repeatable measurements to targets configured by the user (e.g. web servers, network devices, DNS servers). The agents export their measurements to ThousandEyes collectors in real-time. This data gets organized into layers of application delivery:

                Web / HTTP Server Layer: HTTP transaction data, including service availability, as well as information on which step of the transaction is failing; in the example below some agents are failing to establish a TCP connection to the server.
                 
                 Network / End-to-End Metrics Layer: Includes network level data to the server in the previous step, including packet loss, latency, capacity and available bandwidth.

                Network / Path Visualization Layer: Provides a hop-by-hop visualization of how traffic is routed between the agents and the destination; it indicates where packets are being lost and which links are having long delays

ThousandEyes Private Agents are valuable to troubleshoot performance problems due to the depth of information they provide.

Conclusion
With ThousandEyes, Enterprises gain the end-to-end level of visibility required to troubleshoot problems inside, but also outside of their environment. ThousandEyes Private Agents are distributed as a lightweight software package that can be installed and configured in minutes. Using the patented X-Layer technology, ThousandEyes is able to relate different layers of application delivery through a common thread that allows users to find the root-cause of problems immediately. ThousandEyes can reduce the MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution) of infrastructure problems from hours and days to minutes.


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**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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Tabula Rosa Security Alert - Via US-CERT - Apple Vulnerability


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NCCIC / US-CERT

National Cyber Awareness System:
03/20/2015 07:38 PM EDT

Original release date: March 20, 2015
Apple has released Security Update 2015-003 for OS X Yosemite v10.10.2 to address multiple vulnerabilities. Exploitation of one of these vulnerabilities may allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected system.
US-CERT encourages users and administrators to review Apple Security Update 2015-003 and apply the necessary updates.

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**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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Tabula Rosa Quote Of The Day - Steve Job's 10 Principals To Secret Success


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**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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Friday, March 20, 2015

Tabula Rosa Blog Of The Day - A Quotation From Albert Einstein

 


"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
Albert Einstein
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**Important note** - contact company, www.tabularosa.net, for very powerful solutions for Network, Systems, IP management (IPv4 and IPv6), security, firewall and many IT solutions and services:

www.tabularosa.net
In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications.
Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Tabula Rosa Systems Product Of The Day From Packet Design

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The Route Explorer™ System

• Route analytics technology provides unique insight into routing topology and events across the entire network

• Route-Flow Fusion combines route analytics with NetFlow data for “path-aware” visibility into traffic behavior

• Supports all routing protocols and major infrastructure vendors

Filling the Management Gap

The Route Explorer system provides visibility into the network’s routing topology and events that are invisible to other tools.

Network managers can see exactly how traffic traverses the entire network and quickly identify sub-optimal routing metrics,

flapping, loops, black holes and a host of other conditions that can cause service delivery issues and inefficient use of network resources.

All major IGP and BGP routing protocols are supported.

• IGP protocols: OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP
• BGP
• Multicast
• L2 and L3 VPNs
• MPLS WANs
• RSVP-TE tunnels
How It Works

Using Packet Design’s patented techniques, the Route Explorer system participates passively in the network and subscribes to all routing announcement messages. It records these messages and uses them to calculate and maintain a real-time model of how the network forwards traffic. It maintains the changes in a time-indexed data base so that the network forwarding plan and events
for a time period in the past can be retrieved, analyzed and played back using animation.

Capabilities

Past: Forensic analysis of hard-to-find, intermittent network routing and traffic flow issues
Present: Real-time monitoring of routing and traffic behavior, alerting and anomaly reports for proactive service management Future: ‘What if’ modeling to know in advance the impact of network failures, configuration changes and new workloads

Benefits

• Troubleshoot intermittent, hard to find problems faster
• Mitigate the risk from changes
• Improve network resiliency and service delivery
• Optimize peering relationships
• Simplify planning and reporting
• Drive up efficiency and make more informed investments

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**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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Tabula Rosa Security Bulletin - Apple Releases Security Updates for Safari



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National Cyber Awareness System:
03/18/2015 09:54 AM EDT

Original release date: March 18, 2015
Apple has released security updates for Safari to address multiple vulnerabilities. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or prevent users from discerning a phishing attack on an affected system.
Updates include:
  •     Safari 8.0.4 for OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.5
  •     Safari 7.1.4 for OS X Mavericks v10.9.5
  •     Safari 6.2.4 for OS X Yosemite v10.10.2
US-CERT encourages users and administrators to review Apple security update HT204560 and apply the necessary updates.

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**Important note** - contact company, www.tabularosa.net, for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6), security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications.
Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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