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Network Baselining

Baselining is the process of recording network traffic and performance and saving the data for future reference or reviewing it for network performance analysis.

Once baselines are saved, they can be used as a benchmark with which to compare other traffic patterns. WatchPoint, together with OmniPeek Enterprise and Omnipliance Network Recorders, make it easy to baseline your network and application performance characteristics and then be immediately notified should anomalies occur or thresholds be exceeded.

Baselining provides the network administrator insight into expected behavior on the network and subsequently, the ability to notice changes to the environment. To be clear, people often think of expected behavior as always being good traffic, meaning that expected behavior of a network reflects when everything is running perfectly. This is incorrect. Think of "expected behavior" as known versus unknown traffic.

By understanding the behavior of a network and what has happened historically, with WildPackets solutions one can almost immediately solve problems that arise. Baselining makes it easier to identify network attacks (internal or external) and even the people causing problems on the network, such as downloading movies at work. Without a basis of comparison, how do you determine the difference between good and bad on the network?

There are many macro-level baselines to consider - How much bandwidth is going out to the Internet? How much bandwidth is in the core? - and many more granular views - How many people are talking to a particular network? What protocols are going across the network? How much bandwidth does a particular application use in general? What is our latency on the network for said application? The list goes on and on.

Our Solution

• WatchPoint

• OmniPeek Enterprise - Network Analyzer

No matter what baselines you choose to implement, the overall strategy remains the same: it is important to understand the baselines and the benchmarks of the particular application servers, clients on the network, and the overall health of the network from a utilization perspective. With WatchPoint, OmniPeek Enterprise, and Omnipliance Network Recorders, you'll have all the tools you need for your initial baselining efforts, as well as your ongoing network performance optimization activities.