Network Instruments

Observer Expert

Observer Expert Overview
Observer Expert speeds network troubleshooting by proactively identifying network issues and offering immediate solutions. With Observer Expert you can pinpoint difficult problems through real-time or post-capture Expert analysis.

Observer Expert tracks applications, VoIP traffic, transactions and more across your LAN, wireless 802.1 a/b/g, gigabit, token ring, and FDDI networks. Observer Expert includes a 64-bit core to maximise 64-bit processing with a 32-bit version included.

The Network Instruments’ Distributed Network Analysis architecture, (NI-DNA™), makes Observer unique in network analysis. It’s the only analyser built from a unified code set, offering scalability and seamless integration across the entire Observer product family. Network administrators need only learn one interface to monitor across multiple topologies, locations, and technologies.

Have 570 Network Experts at Your Disposal
With Observer Expert network administrators can predict network bandwidth and response time impacts, track and solve application problems, view application session flows graphically, reconstruct data packets, and isolate transaction delay. Observer Expert is one of the most powerful and functional network analysers on the market. Key features are automatically included with Observer Expert:

• VoIP Analysis
• Application Analysis
• Expert Events
• Stream Reconstruction
• NetFlow Data Collection
• Server Analysis
• Wireless Experts

Observer Expert includes all the benefits of Observer Standard plus additional key features for identifying network issues and offering immediate solutions.

Expert Events
Expert is about solving network problems efficiently and effectively. Observer Expert displays protocol and application problems in real time and also provides an effective means of discerning between application and network issues. It also includes over 570 Experts designed to isolate problems and suggest possible solutions for network problems.

Expert Event features:

• Local traffic is judged differently than WAN/Internet traffic
• No false readings
• Common services are tracked and organised
• Response performance is sorted and flagged by severity
• Tracks all port-based protocols for slow response and other issues
• Measures delay to differentiate between network and application problems

List of Expert Events:

• TCP
• UDP
• ICMP
• IPX
• NetBIOS
• Wireless
• VoIP
• NetBEUI

Connection Dynamics
A unique feature to Observer; Connection Dynamics provides a graphical view of system conversations to allow for instant identification of long latency and response times. Retransmissions and lost packets are flagged in red for quick identification. Connection Dynamics is a simple way to easily pinpoint network impediments.

Expert VoIP Analysis
What other companies charge thousands for we've conveniently included in our Observer Expert system. But don’t discount our VoIP analysis—with over 70 VoIP-specific metrics it’s one of the most robust features within Observer. Monitor VoIP connections, save or play voice and video, gather actionable detail and diagnostics, gain high-level traffic summaries and much more.

Use the VoIP system to monitor at an aggregate level and drill down to optimise individual communication from one seamless interface.

Application Analysis
Observer Expert’s Application Analysis provides a way to track application communications to easily identify application problems. Obtain statistics on errors, monitor application response time, perform automatic server/application discovery, and obtain up to-the-minute application performance. Observer Expert eliminates the need to purchase a separate application monitoring system.

Supported applications:

• SQL (TDS)
• Oracle (TNS)
• MS Networking (SMB) [new]
• VoIP
• DNS
• FTP
• HTTP
• POP3
• Telnet
• SMTP
• SNMP
• Exchange
• Citrix

Virtual Machines and Servers
Observer views and analyses virtual machines exactly as it would any physical device.

MPLS Analysis
Use Observer to stay on top of migrations to MPLS. Observer gives you a detailed breakdown of your MPLS network so you can pinpoint MPLS problems and measure performance.

MPLS benefits:

• Report on performance before, during, and after the transition
• Isolate MPLS issues quickly
• Track varying MPLS priorities
• Scrutinise SLAs by creating MPLS-specific alarms
• Segment MPLS data by label, CoS (Class of Service), and embedded protocol type

MultiHop Analysis
MultiHop Analysis answers the critical question, "Is it the access layer, the core, or my service provider?". By isolating and identifying transaction problems, delay, and intermittent connectivity Observer Expert solves network issues caused by network congestion, fragmentation, and packet loss. Now MultiHop Analysis is automated—Observer can now start simultaneous packet captures from different network segments and then automatically synchronise the buffers to find delay and packet loss.

MultiHop benefits:

• Track conversations through multiple segments, hops, and routes
• Quickly pinpoint and eliminate delay
• Supports up to 10 hops
• Easily see across routers ever time
• Pinpoint bottlenecks
• Verify if 3rd party service providers are performing to their SLA
• Isolate if slowdowns are due to network delay or system processes
• Identify packet loss and location
• Measure one-way, round-trip, and individual hop delay
• Utilise Connection Dynamics to show packet-by-packet, hop-by-hop
• View delay in aggregate with Hop Summary
• Obtain a textual summary display with Summary Statistics
• Can be used across WAN, Ethernet, wireless, and gigabit networks

Stream Reconstruction
For enterprise administrators concerned with forensics, compliance, and security, Observer can take captured traffic and recreate communication in an easy-to-read format. Rebuild web pages (including images), reconstruct e-mails, documents, and instant messaging communication to gather hard evidence on network activity. Stream reconstruction can also help maintain corporate Internet usage policies, assist law enforcement, and contribute toward Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

Complete NetFlow Integration and Data Collection
NetFlow monitors routed traffic on the backplane of Cisco switches and routers. Any Advanced Expert Probe can be configured to aggregate flows from various NetFlow devices on the network and send updated information to an Observer console. The console then displays the NetFlow data, providing top talkers, pairs matrix, bandwidth usage, long-term trending, VLAN analysis, and application awareness. Learn more about Observer’s NetFlow and sFlow® data collection capabilities.

Take Advantage of the Industry’s Largest Memory Buffer
Observer offers the largest memory buffer in its class. For 32-bit Windows, use a 4 GB memory buffer. For 64-bit Windows, the buffer can expand up to 24 GB. This allows for increased captures and extended time frames for Expert analysis. A user-defined memory mode is available to fine-tune individual usage.

Make Informed Decisions with "What-If" Analysis
Use Observer's "What-If" Analysis to predict how network changes will affect response times. Track bandwidth capacity changes (e.g. 100 Mb to gigabit), review variable changes (i.e. packet size, packet ratio, users), measure based on actual client, peer-to-peer, or server conversations. "Live-modelling" lets you assess the impact of network or application changes.

Utilise Server Analysis for Measuring Server Response Time
Observer’s Server Analysis displays server response times charted against the number of simultaneous requests. It also charts response time for recorded request sets and as request loads increase.

Is the Problem Sporadic? Find Out with Time Interval Analysis
Use Time Interval Analysis to display network errors according to a time frequency. This helps identify if a problem is sporadic or consistent and shows if a slow response is due to network load.

Stay on Top of Errors with Expert Summary
Expert Summary is an excellent way to track all error events in a single, concise display. It offers the ability to quickly drill-down for further analysis and displays what errors occurred at what time.

Over 50 Wireless Experts for Precise Troubleshooting
Observer monitors wired and wireless networks simultaneously. With more than 50 wireless-specific Expert conditions, Observer isolates and provides solutions to WLAN issues. Receive instant alerts on unknown stations, spoofed MAC addresses, whether an Access Point is using an open system or shared key authentication, whether encryption is enabled or disabled and much more.

Protect Your Data with Security Decode Controls
For security reasons, Observer allows you to control the decode screen to limit access to confidential data. Limit captures to only a set number of bytes and password protect access to protect your network data from outside consultants or unauthorised users.

Click here to download Observer v12 trial version