Troubleshooting Networks

The Real World

The Performance Capacity Planning group at a large corporation was overwhelmed. The most common call to the Help-Desk boiled down to this: “the network is slow.” Due to limited troubleshooting and analysis tools in the Help-Desk organization, trouble tickets were routinely escalated to the Performance Capacity Planning group. Schedules were slipping in the deployment of core infrastructure upgrades because network engineers were dropping these tasks to focus on escalated trouble tickets. Meanwhile, the user’s problem still wasn’t solved, and the network conditions that existed at the time the problem was reported had changed considerably.

The good news is that a deployment of WildPackets technology can eliminate this waste, with a return on investment (ROI) that is very quickly recouped.

The Real Solution

The solution incorporated real-time data collection, with both real-time and post-capture analysis, provided by the OmniPeek Product Family. The data is now collected from appropriate network nodes, and is available to all network engineers within the escalation chain. The specific deployed solution took the following form.

Enterprise

• OmniPeek Enterprise Connect for Help-Desk analysts
• OmniPeek Enterprise Connect for The Performance Capacity Planning group (desktop analysis capability)
• OmniPeek Enterprise-equipped notebook computers for the Performance Capacity Planning group for portable analysis
• OmniEngine Desktop for all client machines
• OmniEngine Enterprise running at the core of the network

Workgroups/Small Business

• OmniPeek Professional-equipped notebook computers for the Performance Capacity Planning group for portable analysis
• OmniEngine Workgroup running at the core of the network

The Real Benefits

Help-Desk analysts now initiate real-time data collection at the time and place where the problem is reported, and employ OmniPeek Enterprise's intuitive graphical interface to not only monitor but to analyze the problem in real-time. Escalations are significantly reduced. However, when the occasional escalation is required, the Performance Capacity Planning group has access to the same, real-time data that was collected at the time the problem was reported. They can also initiate new captures, either at the end-user’s machine or deeper in the network core to determine the root cause of performance issues.