Author Profile - Karen Kaliski has over 20 years of experience in software product development and marketing. She has focused on geographic data analysis and mapping, IT asset management, network management, customer support technology and other niches in roles inside corporations and as a marketing consultant. Karen has previously written an interesting introduction into the Dartware solution, telling real customer stories and how the Dartware solution is helping them to be more successful and much more proactive.
Editor's Note - John Sutton, Director of Customer Service at Dartware has very kindly offered our readers an opportunity to receive five FREE copies of the InterMapper software. Just fill out the form and get the license, Free! This is a great offer and will allow you, our readers to give us feedback about this very cool technology while using it in your own network.Please enjoy the following writeup from Karen and enjoy these as well as other use case articles from different vendors. Please let us know about products or technologies you want us to write about or review.
I wish you Great Success with less stress - Oldcommguy
Vendor Profile - Dartware, LLC develops the InterMapper® family of network mapping and monitoring software. InterMapper earns a quick return on investment by proactively alerting administrators to potential slow-downs, crashes, and other business interruptions. Its real-time, color-coded maps and other displays provide users with an instant view of their network and device status. Dartware's software is installed in financial services, healthcare, retail, education, government, non-profit, WISP and ISP organizations around the world.
Customer Story #1
As with other network managers who can rely on network monitoring applications for early warning on potential network issues that can lead to outages and reduced efficiency, Brian Magnuson (President of Cascade Networks, a WISP in Longview, Washington) delights his customers with his proactive approach. He uses InterMapper, a network monitoring and mapping tool from Dartware, to note service problems before he hears from customers. “When we see a customer issue or we see them going down, we give them time to call us,” says Magnuson. “During that time, we call the power company to see if there's an outage. Then we call the customer to see if everything is o.k. They're always amazed we know that they're down or having issues – sometimes they haven't even noticed.”
Customer Story #2
Matt Federoff, Director of Technology at the Vail School District in Arizona, also uses Dartware to proactively monitor his network. Four monitors above his desk alert him to problems before they are noticed at individual schools. “I can see that a server is down before a site notices a problem. Or I might see that a server is running low on disk space. I can call the school and let them know what's up so they can get right on it.”
Similar to Brian Magnuson and Matt Federoff, every network user expects 24 x 7 access to network resources. And they expect that the network will always be fast – at least as fast as it is when it’s at its fastest. When an end-user calls and says “the network is down”, well, the horse has already left the barn.
In the name of great customer service, network managers have had to shift from a reactive (not very cost effective) to proactive ( resolving issues before they cause network access loss) posture on network maintenance. In other words, they have to go looking for trouble and find it before end-users or management sees an issue. How can they do that without adding tremendous overhead in terms of time and money to already tight schedules and little or no budget?
InterMapper - A Proactive Solution - Network monitoring tools play a key role in proactive network maintenance. Here’s how InterMapper delivers real-time network intelligence to pinpoint problems in the making.
- Network device data is gathered via A) Pinging, B) SNMP queries, and C) Synthetic transactions.
A) Pinging is a good, simple way to test for packet loss, packet delay, and jitter.
B) SNMP queries gather a wide variety of statistics that describe device performance and network behavior including:
- Host resources – CPU, memory, and disk utilization as well as information about processes running on the system
- UPS – Battery temperature, whether the UPS is running in AC power, time remaining while running on battery
- Wireless – Signal strength, noise levels, number and identity of associated clients, switch contacts, etc.
- Environmental – Temperature and humidity as recorded by sensors, switch contacts, etc.
C) Synthetic transactions mimic true end-user experience by sending the same kinds of requests or queries and monitoring the responses and the round-trip time from the device. They also allow network administrators to stress network connections artificially and determine how additional load affects server performance and where extra bandwidth is needed.
- Host resources – CPU, memory, and disk utilization as well as information about processes running on the system
- Alerts are sent when network device performance or traffic flow is below or above set thresholds. Network managers choose to have sounds, pages, email messages, syslog entries, etc. alert them to problems.
- Network maps show exactly where poor performing devices are located or traffic jams are forming. Time to fix is shortened when a network technician can see that a server, for example, is coded orange – meaning that performance is suffering – and can see exactly where the server is at the same time. If he knows where the server is, he knows where to go or who to call.
- Reports and charts provide diagnostic information that is critical for implementing a fix. Noticing a problem network device or connection before it goes down is great but understanding why it’s having trouble is even better. InterMapper gets users from network maps that show devices and status to underlying diagnostics with one click. A network technician in a Chicago headquarters could call someone in the LA office and say, “Hey, Server A in room 204 is just about out of disk space.”
This network map shows wireless service subscriber points in a housing complex.
This strip chart shows T-1 utilization, by location, over time.
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