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Real Testing – A Real Solutions Full Validation! (by The Oldcommguy)

Chris, Tony and I are always saying “Test Them, Don’t Trust Them” and Anue Systems took that to heart and did just that!

Most companies sell on their specifications alone, most if not all have of them have never been tested! What and Why do you believe them?

The Tolly Group and other test verification labs, test products to assure you, the customers that you are getting what the vendors say they are selling to you. Don’t Trust Them, Test Them!

I am writing about this because it is important to point out companies that focus on customer satisfaction as well as assuring the customer that they are getting a top quality product.

One must first decide on the parameters that are required for their solution and the solutions capability for future growth.

Then they must decide on the operational, deployment and operational difficulty level that they can handle.

In my humble opinion, Anue Systems deserves recognition for all their efforts and that is why I wrote this article. I also write about products that I have tested or worked with a customer that has done the testing and review.

As a consultant and a very avid supporter of deep network visualization access I would certainly use the Anue solution. This may seem as biased and yes it is – when I like a product and company and they have shown ethical and technically responsible behavior then I love to tell you about them! This is one of those solutions!

Anue Systems in their effort to prove that their specification and capabilities are one and the same did just that. No façade just real testing to prove that they do what they say and that buyers can be confident investing in this carrier grade network access technology solution, the Net Tool Optimizer. They wanted to again prove that they are a carrier class device and have done it with this Tolly Test along with their NEBS 3 compliance certification. One cannot be a carrier class solution without NEBs 3 compliance and fully technology verification.

Anue went to the Tolly Group and asked that they test for the real specifications required to validate the Anue NTO claims and Tolly did a great job!

What The Network Manager In Your Life Really Wants For Christmas (by Vess Bakalov)

What the network manager in your life really wants for Christmas!!! 

Ask any network manager what they want for Christmas this year and aside from the presentation box-set of Mythbusters; they may ask for a network system that gives them integrated monitoring, alerts, troubleshooting and analysis. One that would allow users to retrieve rich, detailed reports within seconds of being alerted about a change in a key performance indicator.

 

In the twelve-plus years since Cisco introduced its NetFlow IP traffic flow monitoring capability, it has grown to become one of the most widely adopted technologies for managing the huge array of devices and interfaces involved in modern enterprise-level networks. It offers most of the functionality of traditional, expensive, resource-intensive packet inspection-based monitoring and it can be inexpensively implemented. This fact, combined with NetFlow’s scalability and the relative ease with which it can be deployed and maintained, has made it an attractive option for enterprise and service provider organizations around the world. With the advent of NetFlow v9, the technology has seen significant improvements in functionality and customization. Most notably, users can now choose among 200+ fields to generate customized reports that meet their unique requirements.

Read More -

 

Having to Buy TAPs is not a Bad Problem (by The TAPman)

Take the test to see if you are a TAPaholic!

 Take the test to see if you qualify as a Certified TAPaholic!

Note from Author and Technical Editor- Not all addictions or obsessions are bad and most should be taken seriously, like drug, alcohol, and many others that are life threatening.

There are also good addictions, and one that we feel, tongue in cheek, all network managers should catch: Tapping, or focusing on getting real visibility into their network, so they can finally really see what is going on!  There are many reasons to become a “TAPaholic” and all of them are good!

So this article is about a good addiction or obsession – becoming a “TAPaholic,” really getting to know your network, and helping those “SPANaholic’s” get a better path in their professional life so they, for once, can see what is really in their network!

So you bought your first TAP to review and solve your compliance problems.  You became a hero for solving that problem and it hardly cost anything.  Now, you’re wondering how many more problems you can find using TAPs.  You’ve taken this first step for “TAPification” of your network, but you may be in danger of becoming a “TAPaholic.”

From now on you will have to be extremely careful or else you may fall into the TAP abyss.  There are still so many problems to solve on your network.  You have in-line appliances that can kill your live traffic if they should fail, and every time you need to apply software patches, you need to reserve a maintenance window.  Worrying about it keeps you and your colleagues up at night. 

But now that you bought your first TAP, you begin to wonder:

1. Could a TAP solve that in-line appliance access problem for me? 
2. Can I safely place an active security appliance on my most critical links?
3. Can I do so without the worry of losing our critical “bread and butter” link in the event that anything goes wrong with the security appliance?
4. Can I do software upgrades and maintenance on the security appliance without having to schedule a maintenance window for the critical link?

I am The TAPman and I’m here to tell you, YES!  Yes, you can! 

Keep Reading and Take the TAPman Test!

 

Trick! or Treat? (by George Bouchard)

Sometimes we think we are getting a Treat when in reality, upon closer examination it may very well be a Trick. Take for example, the matter of IEEE standards on the 1G copper, where, whenever a port pair is interrupted for any reason, the port pairs must renegotiate their connection. Well when the problem occurs on a critical network, we cringe at the thought that we will have to lose some traffic while the ports are occupying themselves with the task or renegotiating the ports before traffic can resume. The reality is that no matter how fast the ports renegotiate there will be traffic loss!

 
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could fudge our way around this IEEE requirement “NOT” so that our important traffic links will not be interrupted in the event of a passing glitch that caused the port pair to lose their connection? Well there is no way this can happen so some loss will happen and that is a reality of a power loss and we have to expect that!

Well yes, it would be nice not to have to bite the bullet of losing some critical network traffic but is fiddling with the IEEE standard worth the benefit. Could we be setting ourselves up for a possible greater problem than just dropping a few packets? Why do we have standards if we are going to subvert them when it suits us?

 

Eliminating Network Exposure in Critical Government Networks (by Tim Kcehowski)

ELIMINATING NETWORK EXPOSURE IN CRITIAL GOVERNMENT NETWORKS -  Agency IT managers can now achieve 100% network visibility and optimized tool utilization, while adhering to growing compliance and regulatory requirements Solutions are now available to government agencies from trusted U.S.-based suppliers, whose products are manufactured in-house, and reflect close working relationships with and inputs from agency IT departments

Challenges Facing Today’s IT/Security Managers -  Government and military agencies rely on computer networks to perform their duties and meet their operational responsibilities. They face the requirement of non-intrusively intercepting and capturing traffic for the purposes of monitoring the performance of these networks, often on a round-the-clock basis—for example, monitoring hundreds of thousands to millions of IP addresses tied to entities that could put the U.S. in harm’s reach; and they’re dealing with ever-growing network traffic and increasing compliance and regulatory requirements (e.g., FISMA and ICE).

The answer to these challenges lies in making the best use of powerful tools such as analyzers, intrusion detection systems and forensic devices. But these tools are expensive – they can range in price from $25,000 to $400,000 – making it cost-prohibitive to deploy them at every network access or test access point (TAP). So it’s now more difficult for administrators to know what tools they have in their inventories, where they are deployed and by what departments or agencies, and for what purposes. This situation has made networks vulnerable to attacks, has subjected tools to overloading and unnecessary usage, has contributed to the inefficient use of manpower, and has led to uninformed tool purchase decisions that have driven costs unnecessarily higher.

The Uses and Benefits of Remote Probes in Network Monitoring Solutions (by Dirk Paessler)

Companies with multiple locations rely on a highly efficient IT infrastructure. Key factors for this include smoothly running IT processes and reliable communication between different company locations, as well as with customers and partners. Steady monitoring plays a significant role in maintaining these operational “musts,” so as to always keep an eye on locally distributed networks regarding their availability and bandwidth utilization. For businesses with multiple locations, network monitoring can easily be distributed across various locations with the use of, what we at Paessler call, remote probes.

The remote probe architecture is highly valuable for a number of special technical solutions including:

• For simple load distribution of the monitoring tasks on several individual computers; this is recommended, for example, for extensive use of the slow WMI protocol in large networks
• To establish a generally secure connection for transmitting monitoring data between two secured sites over the open internet
• For monitoring of completely encapsulated services, such as mail or web server
• The probe technology allows the administrator to measure the Quality of Service (QoS) of a network without any additional tools

And some benefits of remote probes include, but are not limited to:

Wireshark Certified Network Analyst – New Industry Certification from Wireshark University!

After much anticipation, Wireshark University has just announced its new Wireshark Certified Network Analyst exam. This week, there will be 4 free webinars outlining the details of this new certification. These free events cover the process of preparing and registering for the Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Exam. Including: What should you study? How should you study? What are the hot areas on the Exam? What are the Exam question formats? What should you watch for? What if you need to reschedule the Exam? And more…..

These informational webinars about this new exam will be held at the following times:

August 17, 2010 11am PDT

August 18, 2010 11am PDT

August 18, 2010 4pm PDT

August 19, 2010 11am PDT

Register for one of these webinars here - http://www.wiresharktraining.com/certification.html

At the end of these webinars, Laura Chappell, founder of Wireshark University and co-founder of the Wireshark Certification, will be available to answer questions following a 20 minute presentation.

If you are interested in becoming certified on the number one open-source tool in the world for network analysis, tune in and find out more.

And don’t worry, if you missed the webinars, we will cover the highlights of how to get certified, what to study, and more right here on LoveMyTool.

Today’s Network Data Access Technology - a Review (by Tim O'Neill)

The Reality of meeting your visualization demands!

TAP, SPAN (rspan), VACL and the latest High Tech Filtering Technology

Just know the Devil or Angel you are dealing with!

Part One!

By: Tim O’Neill – The Oldcommguy™

 

Author’s comments –

-          This article is written for the Lovemytool.com readers!

 

-          All Rights are reserved – Copyright 2010 by The Oldcommguy™!

 

-          No one may repost this article without getting permission from me!

 

-          If permission is given then it must be posted as it is, in full context, WITHOUT any changes!

 

-          I welcome higher education organizations to use any of my material for the education of their students!

 

I apologize for the long length of the article in advance, but I felt that I needed to give the most information I had to you for your consideration and edification.

 

SPAN out of the Box (by John He)

Presenter Profile - John He is the founder and senior hardware design consultant of Dualcomm Technology, Inc. For the past 15 years, He has worked on electronics hardware design projects at both board and chip levels, building complex and high-speed telecom/datacom products, including network taps and Ethernet switches. He conceived the idea of portable Ethernet switches with pre-configured port-mirroring functionality, and he has been working on developing and commercializing such portable Ethernet switches as an easy to use and more affordable hardware solution for network traffic sniffing applications and troubleshooting. John received master's degrees in Electrical Engineering from Wuhan University, China and University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth.

Editor's Note - This session was presented at the 2010 Sharkfest Wireshark Developer and User Conference at Stanford University. You can click here to download the PowerPoint presentation.

If you have problem watching this video or if you need a non-Flash version, please click here to go directly to the hosting site. Thanks.

Continue viewing other Sharkfest videos »

Avoid “Garbage-In, Garbage-Out” in Network Analysis (by Peter Hage)

Author Profile - Pete Hage is Sales Director for nTAPs at Network Instruments, LLC.  With 25 years in the tech space, Pete is responsible for support, training, and marketing of the TAP products at Network Instruments, a leader in network performance monitoring and troubleshooting.

Network Instruments, a leading provider of performance management and troubleshooting for fifteen years, helps organizations ensure the delivery of business-critical applications. The company's platform of management and reporting products provides comprehensive visibility into networks and applications to optimize performance, speed troubleshooting, and assist long-term capacity planning. Network Instruments achieved profitability in its first quarter and posted revenue growth every year since its founding — without any external funding. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company has sales offices worldwide and distributors in over 50 countries.

 

We are all familiar with the expression ‘garbage-in, garbage-out.’ A more ironic version might be “garbage in, gospel out”; referring to the tendency to put excessive trust in 'computerized' data and to blindly accept what the computer spits out.

With that adage in mind, let’s look at how in the world of network analysis, it is possible to end up making critical decisions with incomplete and therefore unreliable data.  First we need to lay some groundwork.

Data networks are similar in some ways to the human system of arteries, veins and capillaries. Both link together and provide pathways to the vital organs (servers, routers, firewalls, applications).  Knowing how well the ‘systems’ are functioning and quickly fixing problems once they occur is critical in data networking.  If systems are not operating optimally, it can have a huge impact on the functioning of all other operations.

Many of the monitoring applications deployed to measure changes in network health are passive, and the analysis is performed on a copy of the network data.  Here is a partial list of the types of passive analysis: