Are You Getting the Whole Picture as you Optimize Application Performance?

As you deploy optimization to improve application performance over the WAN you need to know what kind of results you are getting. To help understand the benefits of deploying these systems you might be looking at reports from the WAAS central manager or to get end-to-end results you might have deployed probes from an NMS vendor. These reports can provide useful insight into the benefits of optimization; however there is more to the picture that you might want to look at. What if you need detailed data for planning, performance analysis and troubleshooting across network elements and you need to save on the costs of deploying these systems?

Let’s say you need to quantify the impact of WAN Optimization on application and network performance, or you need to perform throughput analysis of LAN/WAN bandwidth to justify the benefits a deployment. You might need a way to leverage performance data gathered in proof-of-concept scenarios in your analysis, or you might want help in identifying the best links for optimization or to be able to characterize the end-user experience with transaction and session-based statistics.

If you want to ensure consistent and efficient delivery of applications and services you need a way to get visibility into network and application performance. Quickly getting to the root of problems requires troubleshooting tools that improve operational efficiency and minimize impact to the end users. End-to-end visibility in a WAN environment means being able to measure application response time, transaction time, bandwidth usage, and LAN and WAN data throughput. It also means being able to monitor before and after analysis and user experience improvements, as well as identifying sources of delay-causing issues.

To do this type of analysis you need a system that can gather and present application traffic data in a way that is easy to use and that provides drill down detail. What you need is the Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM). Cisco NAM is a data collector and an analyzer that can identify the applications that would benefit the most from deploying Cisco WAAS. It can help to reduce mean time to repair when deep-dive network troubleshooting is required and it can streamline the workflows between high-level reporting and detailed packet level detail drill down so you get the big picture and the details.

Up to this point network traffic analysis and WAN optimization have been separate systems, but at smaller locations you need to watch costs. Virtualization and device integration can help with this. Cisco NAM is available on the WAAS WAVE appliances on a virtual server instance giving you WAN Optimization and data collection on one device and saving the cost of the data collector equipment. Take a look here to learn how Cisco NAM helps enable you to Optimize Application Performance.