The Basics of RNA
Check out our video covering the basics of Retrospective Network Analysis (RNA). In two minutes, learn how RNA featured in GigaStor™ changes the way you troubleshoot network problems. It provides visibility into network issues days after they occur, eliminating the difficult steps of replicating the problem and identifying the source.

Watch the video
     
   
 

Getting More From GigaStor
Having the ability to store and review packet-level network data, transactions, and activities can be valuable for more than troubleshooting. This section explores other areas of networking where the RNA ability of GigaStor can be applied.


Application Roll-Outs
In large-scale deployments of new applications such as VoIP or Unified Communication initiatives, IT staff may neglect performing any type of predeployment assessments or baseline analysis. Use GigaStor's trending reports to define normal network and application behavior and establish baselines. Configure alarms on the analyzer to alert IT staff when performance deviates from the norm.

Investigating Hacker Attacks
With GigaStor Security Forensics, identify and view security violations in the context of all other activities that were occurring on the network. When the IDS alerts an IT manager to an attack, GigaStor plays a valuable role in the investigation. In-depth Security Forensics information goes beyond IDS alerts to assist with the identification of compromised network infrastructure and workstations. Read more.

Documenting Compliance Violations
GigaStor is a great tool for documenting and investigating compliance infractions. It provides a separate, unaltered, and recorded view of all network traffic and activity that can be played back to investigate and verify connections and transactions exactly as they happened. It shows not only communications that occurred, but it can reconstruct mined data – providing hard evidence such as VoIP conversations, web pages, documents, instant messages, and e-mails. Read more.

Long-Term Capacity Planning
Combine GigaStor's access to large intervals of packet-level data and network traffic with Observer's trending and reporting features to obtain long-term analysis of application and network performance and growth over time. This is an invaluable capability for long-term capacity planning.

Multicast Analysis
The financial services industry uses multicast signals to send live, redundant streams from multiple locations to many recipients. Use GigaStor to capture long intervals of multicast traffic. Organizations can then drill down for a granular view into performance levels, sub-second bursts, protocols, and the source and destination of the connections. Read more about the financial sector's use of GigaStor.

 
     
   
  Track and Filter by Physical Port
By default, GigaStor aggregates statistics from all physical ports. When troubleshooting multiple network links or delay, it can be helpful to view statistics of individual ports or combined statistics from multiple selected ports.

 

With MultiHop Analysis, you can separate links physically on the different ports, activate the tracking by port, and simultaneously create multiple captures for immediate delay analysis.

  1. From the GigaStor control panel within an active instance, click the Settings button. This will display the GigaStor Settings window.

  2. Near the bottom of the window, check Track statistics information per physical port and Use physical port selections to filter statistics. Click OK.



  3. From this point forward, statistics can be tracked and viewed per port. Click the Physical Ports tab within the GigaStor control panel and select the port of interest. Click the Update Statistics button. All tabs showing statistics will display information pertaining to the selected port.

Naming Ports
By default, GigaStor shows physical ports by their numbers. You may find it easier to track activity by renaming the port after the application of interest using the port. In this example, we rename Port 1 to Internet SPAN to reflect the primary activity of the port.

  1. From the main Observer console screen select the appropriate probe instance.

  2. From the Options drop-down menu, choose Selected Probe or SNMP Device Properties. This should display the selected probe's properties window.

  3. Click the Virtual Adapters tab. Highlight the port to rename, and click Edit Port.

  4. In the Description field, you can rename the port after an application or its primary purpose. In this case it has been renamed Internet SPAN. Click OK.



  5. When you go back to the GigaStor control panel, the port will be listed with the port number and description name.

 
     
 
april 2008 


Last Month's Answer
When Observer® calculates bandwidth utilization using its “port utilization [telco]” expression, it takes the total number of packets reported by the switch and multiplies by 20 as a part of that equation. This is because in every packet there is an 8 byte interframe gap, an 8 byte preamble, and a 4 byte CRC, which are not given to Observer when it requests the total number of bytes seen by the switch. Congrats to last month's winner, Casey Smith of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This month's question: In which layer of the OSI Model does data-stream segmentation occur?

Submit your answer and be entered to win a Network Instruments® polo shirt.

Serve Your Users by Going Retro
Learn how Retrospective Network Analysis saved a major Chicago hospital significant troubleshooting time

Network Pros Spend Months Troubleshooting
Read about the time-saving measures IT pros are taking

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