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Tip of the Month

Network Analysis Tip of the Month – October 2006

Getting the "Big Picture" for Network Applications

By Jeff Trawick, WildPackets Professional Services

The Peek analysis platform is unparalleled in its ability to give you very detailed visibility into the packets that travel across your network. You can easily drill down into statistics and into packet content for individual nodes, protocols, and conversations. You can analyze and filter down to the byte and bit level when necessary.

But sometimes, seeing the “big picture” is more important. The latest edition of the Omni Analysis Platform contains several new features that provide you with this satellite view of network traffic. One of these new and powerful views is the Expert’s Application view. Rather than grouping traffic by node, protocol, or conversation, the Application view categorizes all traffic by the application to which it belongs. In this view, a quick glance shows you the vital statistics for each application type.

Apdex User Satisfaction Scores

Notice that the applications are displayed in a “tree” format. Expanding the tree reveals the nodes involved in each application. For each node, individual conversations are shown. Statistics for each application include counts for packets, bytes, and flows, as well as the Apdex score. When you drill down to individual conversations, you can see other critical data, such as average response time. Additional stats can be views by right-clicking on the column headers and selecting additional columns to display. Double-clicking on any conversation takes you to the Visual Expert for that flow. Right-clicking in the Applications view opens a context menu from which you can Select Related packets, or perform other common tasks.

So from a single screen, you can quickly see the overall “big picture” for your network applications, but still retain the ability to drill down to the packet, byte, and bit level, as needed. Go ahead – give it try! Whether you are capturing in real-time or viewing a previously-saved trace file, the Applications view focuses a spotlight on the overall performance of applications in your IT environment.