NETSCOUT nGeniusONE

Packet tracing is its main purpose and well suited for. Unfortunately, I am not a mainframe expert but know enough to know the danger. We have, what I call, a version 1 mainframe which requires a separate stack for its TCP/IP access per program, unlike Microsoft and Unix. With the use of NetScout, we were able to determine a routing issue as well as the incorrect stack that the TCP traffic was routing too. Beginning with the graphical interface we were able to narrow the path down between multiple devices and then analyzing the packet trace generated by NetScout.

It’s best for troubleshooting issues that require a packet level analysis. By having source/destination you can have a view into how the packets are traversing the network. If alerts/baselines are set up it can help identify something out of the norm. Very useful for VoIP applications as well. Would not recommend for small scale environments.

Great for detailed real-time and historical network and application (over the network) utilization analysis. It works well both for capacity management and live troubleshooting, mostly focusing on the network performance for the applications running over it. Not appropriate for detailed routing analysis (follow full routing path), application performance analysis at the client or server level (before/after reaching the network).

NetScout nGeniusONE is perfectly suited for an end to end network service monitoring, no matter what type of service it is—IP, mobile, datacentre, or the cloud— it can all be a good place to have NetScout nGeniusONE deployed to assist in the operation.

One of the primary focus we have is application visibility as data crosses the network. We have found several instances where latency was an issue, unknowingly and was able to take corrective action.

Using this tool as a troubleshooting tool only is missing out on all the addons you get from a solution like this. Don't be tunnel visioned share the tool and get the most out of it.