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Network Instruments® Closes Virtualization Visibility Gap

Observer® Platform Seamlessly Tracks Network and Application Performance in Virtual and Physical Environments

March 23, 2009 — Minneapolis, MN — Network Instruments, a leading provider of innovative analysis solutions for in-depth network intelligence and continuous availability, announced today that its Observer monitoring platform now provides complete visibility and in-depth analysis of application performance and traffic within both virtualized and physical environments. The Observer platform is the first analysis solution to close this visibility gap and extend the power of real-time and retrospective network analysis to virtualized environments.

Observer's expanded virtual monitoring capabilities go beyond traditional analysis tools which provide limited views of virtualized networks. Network teams using Observer can now access a complete, integrated view of virtual traffic traversing physical networks, between different virtual machine hosts, and between virtual machines on the same host. Further, all virtual traffic and communications flowing within the virtual machine host can be copied and sent to a GigaStor™ appliance for back-in-time analysis or the Observer Reporting Server for enterprise-wide performance reports.

"While server virtualization is happening at a rapid rate, tools for managing application performance in these environments have not kept pace," said Will Cappelli, research vice president at Gartner. “In order to understand application behavior, one needs to combine data from the dynamically reconfiguring application layer, network layers, and virtualization layer. Traditional tools which assume that the environments remain static while an application executes are not answering the needs of the Global 2000.”

Complete Performance Tracking
Central to any performance monitoring effort is the ability to monitor seamlessly across physical and virtualized environments. Using the Observer platform, organizations obtain enterprise-wide views of virtualized resources and performance within virtualized and physical environments.

"Companies often migrate to virtualization to cut costs, but find the move opens up gaps of coverage as their traditional monitoring tools can't address these new environments," said Charles Thompson, product manager of Network Instruments. "Customers can rely on the Observer platform to provide visibility to all points on their network, regardless of whether it's at the edge or core or within physical and virtualized environments. Using our performance management platform, engineers can pinpoint performance problems from high-level reports and immediately perform root-cause analysis."

Availability
The Network Instruments Virtual TAP is a key component within the expanded Observer virtualized offering. To obtain this functionality, a user installs a Network Instruments software probe into their VM host environment, where they can copy and send the data to their retrospective analysis device, analyzer console, or a third-party purpose-built device. Current maintenance customers gain these capabilities at no charge.

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About Network Instruments
Network Instruments, a leading provider of innovative analysis solutions, helps organizations and enterprises ensure the delivery of business-critical applications on their networks. The company's monitoring and reporting products provide comprehensive visibility into networks and applications to optimize network performance, speed troubleshooting, and assist long-term capacity planning. Network Instruments solutions provide integrated enterprise-wide reporting and back-in-time investigation capabilities for troubleshooting networks. The company is headquartered in Minneapolis with sales offices worldwide and distributors in over 50 countries. For more information about the company, products, and technology, please visit www.networkinstruments.com.

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