Network Instruments

Observer Infrastructure (OI)

Introducing Observer Infrastructure

Maintaining device and route performance is key to ensuring the delivery of critical applications. Observer Infrastructure (OI) is fastest in its class for providing powerful network monitoring that provides the functionality and intelligence needed to ensure the network supports current and future business.

Use OI to transform infrastructure metrics into actionable information to use in problem prevention, optimizing performance, resource planning, and more.

OI includes:

• Device health monitoring (JMX, Database queries, IPMI, IP SLA, JMX, HTTP, NBAR, SNMP, SSH, WAAS, WSD, WMI, and additional proprietary protocols)
• IP SLA active testing
• NBAR and WAAS data collection
• Server monitoring
• Event notification
• Automatic mapping and topology discovery

See what devices and applications Network Instruments can monitor

Observer Reporting Server Integration

Maintaining device and route performance is critical to ensuring application delivery. Use ORS to correlate infrastructure and device performance with application delivery.

• Easily assess impact of infrastructure performance on overall enterprise
• Report utilizing multiple performance data sources (JMX, Database queries, IPMI, IP SLA, JMX, HTTP, NBAR, SNMP, SSH, WAAS, WSD, WMI, and additional proprietary protocols)
• Compare network-level views side-by-side with device-level views in reports
• Enhance planning capabilities by matching capacity trends with underlying device details
• Navigate from high-level ORS reports to specific device details

GigaStor Integration

OI works seamlessly with the GigaStor back-in-time analysis appliance to provide the ultimate in troubleshooting flexibility. Drill down to the packet level and use GigaStor to go back to the time the problem occurred to see exactly what happened, without having to recreate the issue.

Cloud Support

Observer Infrastructure now includes broad-based cloud support to monitor your high-profile applications. Get visibility into private clouds (internally-hosted apps) and public clouds (externally-hosted apps). We support the following:

VM Monitoring

Observer Infrastructure provides comprehensive monitoring of virtual networks and underlying physical hosts. Track key health and performance metrics including CPU utilization, memory allocation, and disk space alongside relevant application metrics. Navigate seamlessly between the virtual and physical networks.

We support the following virtualized technologies:

Virtualization

• Citrix XenApp
• Citrix XenServer
• Hyper-V Server 2008
• Microsoft Virtual Server
• Parallels Virtuozzo
• VMware ESX Server (SNMP)
• VMware ESX Server-Host (WSD)
• VMware ESX Server-VM (WSD)
• VMware for Windows (WMI)
• VMware Virtual Server

Leverage IP SLA, NBAR and WAAS Metrics

Use these technologies to improve traffic visibility on the network without deploying a single network probe.

• Track performance between IP SLA-enabled devices and other remote devices
• Obtain detailed application metrics from Cisco routers and switches using NBAR
• Actively simulate VoIP calls between IP SLA-enabled devices
• Track server and network bottlenecks in a WAN-optimized environment

Device Monitoring

OI leverages SNMP and WMI metrics for collecting and reporting on device performance. OI also allows for user-configurable alarms and thresholds to notify if hardware or applications are up or down.

• Prioritize device problems based upon their impact on the business
• Monitor IP address, port, and resource availability
• Schedule weekly device inventories to track unauthorized or unknown hardware changes

Device Subgroups

Upon launching OI, devices are automatically identified and classified into subgroups based on device type. These subgroups and device associations can be fully modified. Users can also create new subgroups to organize devices by business process, location, category, etc.

Subgroups provide real-time status updates, and can be integrated into reporting for historical analysis.

Route & SLA Monitoring

Ensure route availability and consistency with OI. Upon installation, OI discovers routes and creates route maps. OI then uses this data to continually measure route performance and alert of route changes or route delay. Documenting these changing paths, known as route flapping, is essential for ensuring adequate response time and enforcing SLAs.

Dynamic Reporting

Customize, view, expand, and compare reports for in-depth analysis on routes, devices, and groups. Track statistics over time for use in network trending and analysis.

Report types include:

* Alarms
* Business group statistics
* Device events
* Response time
* Alarm log

OI can also keep track of and monitor changes in removable hard drives, installed software, and more. Run automatic inventories or take instant snapshots, and create alarms for specific WMI and SNMP objects.

Event Notification

Be alerted when a device is unreachable or has poor response time. Choose alert mechanism, or set OI to launch a program or generate a trouble ticket.

Report types include:

* View alarms by business group and/or route
* Drill down for device status details
* Graph and compare alarm data over time

Active Discovery

OI allows views into what devices are connected to the network and how they are connected. Users can obtain graphical and table-based displays of a network, network segment, or remote locations on the WAN, which allows for intuitive monitoring of response time and performance of devices anywhere on the network.

Technical Specifications

OI is available as a Windows-based software to monitor 10, 100, or 500 devices. Or monitor up to 500 devices with an OI appliance. OI Enterprise can function as a monitoring device or collector from remote sites. Choose OI Enterprise for virtually unlimited scalability and for reporting device level metrics to ORS.