Who makes route analytics products?

Wide Area Networking This newsletter is sponsored by Blue Coat Get the latest on Web Acceleration Tools Discover how to significantly improve document delivery times for users that are physically away from your centralized data center. A document that takes 80 minutes to deliver to a user across the globe could be delivered in three minutes with Web acceleration. Learn how your IT organization can benefit from this technology. Listen to this Webcast now. Network World's Wide Area Networking Newsletter, 10/18/07 Who makes route analytics products? By Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler Last time, we suggested that route analytics is poised to become a mainstream technology for IT organizations that have complex meshed networks supporting business critical applications. We summarized some conversations we’ve had with some IT professionals who talked about the value that route analytics brought to their organization. Today, we’ll summarize some conversations that we have had with suppliers of route analytics products. More information on this topic can be found here. Certainly it is not surprising that vendors would tell us how important their products are. In fact, it would be surprising if that were not the case. What caught our attention about route analytics is the breadth of companies that provide products. The point being that given this breadth it is difficult to relegate route analytics as a niche technology. We talked to three very different suppliers of route analytic products. Packet Design is the pioneer and market-leading provider of route analytics products. According to Alex Henthorn-lwane, vice president of product marketing: “Many large IT shops have made huge investments in monitoring end-to-end application performance and prioritizing problem response based on an application's business criticality. Yet, at the end of the day, if engineers can't even see which part of the network is carrying application traffic at a given time, they can't plan any more accurately or troubleshoot any faster. Route analytics fills a critical visibility hole in the network management portfolio.” Henthorn-lwane added that far from being a niche technology, “Packet Design has deployed route analytics solutions globally for hundreds of enterprise, service provider and government organizations.” Executive Guide:Virtualization Meets Reality Virtualization is being used to make the most out of everything from applications and servers to desktops and storage. But as companies expand their reliance on the technology, challenges mount. Read this guide authored by a host of Network World editors and review this timely topic. Click Here for More Information HP is another supplier. Klaus Muehlbradt, product marketing manager told us that: "Route analytics is becoming a core component of network management software for large corporations and service providers. It closes a gap in network availability and performance management effectively helping to prevent network outages and brown-outs that could disrupt critical applications and business services.”   Another company that has developed products using route analytics technology, with a focus on solving control plane issues in carrier networks, is Alcatel-Lucent. According to Lindsay Newell, VP of marketing in Alcatel-Lucent's IP division: "A significant portion of service failures, provisioning problems and troubleshooting delays can be directly attributed to control plane mis-configuration, undetected routing topology changes and the lack of simple tools that would help network operators understand the control plane's impact on services." We are not saying that route analytics is appropriate for all networks. It is, for example, not appropriate for simple hub and spoke networks. However, our conversations with a variety of IT professionals and suppliers has convinced us that route analytics is poised to cross the chasm for IT organizations that have complex meshed networks that support business critical applications.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials, the premier site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and market research. Taylor can be reached at taylor@webtorials.com Jim Metzler is the Vice President of Ashton, Metzler & Associates, a consulting organization that focuses on leveraging technology for business success. Jim assists vendors to refine product strategies, service providers to deploy technologies and services, and enterprises evolve their network infrastructure. He can be reached via e-mail. This newsletter is sponsored by Blue Coat Get the latest on Web Acceleration Tools Discover how to significantly improve document delivery times for users that are physically away from your centralized data center. A document that takes 80 minutes to deliver to a user across the globe could be delivered in three minutes with Web acceleration. Learn how your IT organization can benefit from this technology. Listen to this Webcast now. ARCHIVE Archive of the Wide Area Networking Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007